I will be out of town the next week so posting may be sporadic but I am leaving you with my next interview. My next willing subject is an Art Director with a varied background in editorial, advertising and design.

James Casey, Art Director, Founder and Publisher, Swallow Magazine.

1. You’ve had a varied and accomplished background as a designer and art director in New York. Can you give us a background on your experience, from school to now?

I moved to New York from London in early 2001, after having won a green card in the immigration lottery. I was enrolled at art college at the time but felt that a short-term move overseas might be more interesting that continuing with the academic and theoretical projects I was doing at school. Having arrived in NYC, I soon found freelance design work—ranging from magazine projects, film posters all the way to creating identities for several now defunct dot-com companies. As the
work started to build, the idea of going back to college started to fade and the only real problem at the time was the inconsistency of wealth—from feast to famine in weeks. Anyhow, I started shopping my book around and finally landed a position at MTV. Four months later, and somewhat fed up with the experience, I became the senior designer at Teen Vogue where I stuck around from it’s launch till the end of 2004. I then moved on to an art director position at men’s lifestyle
magazine which was a bit of a curates egg—some parts were really challenging and rewarding, but ultimately the internal structure was flawed and a lot of good ideas never came to light. This finally led to me leaving to work on personal and freelance projects, setting up a studio on Canal Street and working on a whole variety of interesting things.

2. Why did you come to New York to pursue your craft?

Like I said, I got really lucky with the green card, and it seemed a waste not to persue my options over here. Having grown up watching all manner of New York-centric films, I liked the idea of living in some ghost infested tenement where you constantly hear muffled arguments, punctuated by gunshots and police sirens.

(more after the jump…)

3. What do you think of the current climate of graphic design and photography in New York, especially related to publishing and advertising?

New York is certainly a more conservative city, creative-wise, than its European equivalents. It’s more of a commerce driven culture and with that comes the benefits of bigger budgets with more accountability. As the US has a far larger population, most things have to be more inclusive. You only have to look at magazines and advertising from here versus their foreign counterparts to see it. That said, unrestrained creativity isn’t always a good thing—there is a lot of rubbish masquerading as the avant garde out there.

4. Coming from a strong editorial background, what are some of the magazines that have grabbed your attention recently, for whatever reasons?

I like different magazines for different reasons. Generally I check out the New York titles (New York, New Yorker and the New York Times), the ‘G’s’ (Gourmet, Gastronomica, Granta) and flick through the requisite glossy fashion ones. Visually, I prefer to look at books rather than current periodicals. Eye magazine is a good one for design and art direction related concerns.

5. What do you look for as an art director in commissioning a photographer?
Depends on the project and what the outcome needs to be. Trust is really important—the most successful commissions are ones where the each party can challenge the each other to realise something new with his/her work. This usually comes about through a good working relationship and open dialogue. Sometimes it is good to work with younger talent and to help guide things, whereas other times when you commission certain people with more talent the project solves itself.
The art director is a mechanic really—if it aint broke, no need to fix it. A good commission should work smoothly on all levels.

6. Name some of your favourite photographers to have worked with and the projects you worked on.

Again, it depends on the situation. For example, I have worked on some artistic projects with people who are entirely different to ones on the more commercial projects and each has been rewarding in its own way. It’s always good to be working with established talents as well as with the up-and-comers, commercial and otherwise.

7. Tell me some of the advantages and disadvantages of working in the editorial world as compared to commercial.

Editorial has the distinct disadvantage of not being nearly as high paying as advertising. That said, the editorial world is a place where there is more creative space—things are looser and a lot of interesting things can come from mistakes and experimentation. As the magazine is a constantly evolving product, there is a freedom to try out new things constantly, even if sometimes they don’t work out exactly as you might’ve thought. Additionally, the opportunity to work with a huge
range of contributors is exciting. I guess that people certainly don’t make their fortune in editorial but they can certainly make their mark.

8. Tell us more about Swallow, the market that you’re looking to target, editorial content, design, photography, etc…

Swallow is a food/culture magazine that I have been working on for the past year and a half, in between other projects. The first issue is the Scandinavian/Nordic issue, and the best part of last year was spent traveling back and forth between here (NYC) and there (Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Greenland) for research, shoots and more. As an avid food magazine reader, I felt like there wasn’t a title that appealed to the creative side of me. As much as I enjoy Gourmet, it is definitely an antiseptic take on what food is. I figured I could work with people who I have collaborated with in a different way, making something a bit more visually challenging, funny and artful than a cooking/entertaining title. It comes out this fall as a limited hard bound book and each subsequent issue will be released twice a year, fingers crossed.

9. Dream photographer to work with?

Too many to name.

10. What’s the hardest part of the hustle as a freelancer? What’s the best way to sell yourself?

The best way to sell yourself is to do good work. That, and answering things like this questionnaire…

Swallow Magazine