My career in graphics started in May of 2008 working for newspaper publisher The Standard Times. It was my first full-time job as a graphic designer, and I was very excited! I actually didn’t get the job after my first interview, they hired a ‘friend of a friend’, but 3-months later the position was available again so I confidently re-applied and got the job! It was a great lesson early in my career that you need to have tenacity. Over the next 1-2 years, I mostly worked on print ads but after The Standard Times was purchased by the Dow Jones Local Media Group, many parts of the atmosphere changed.
The Great Expansion
As different publications merged, the department grew from 4-5 people to about 25 designers. Many of them commuting from Cape Cod and surrounding newspaper publishers. It was a welcomed change! With so many designers to learn from, and share ideas with, it was an ideal workplace for an early graphic designer! We started having internal competitions, where we all redesigned the same print ad. Believe I came in 2nd for the most competition wins.
As the department grew, so did the opportunities within my role. I was selected by management to be part of the Digital Sales team, designing both static and animated online ads for our clients. As my responsibilities increased for digital sales, I was chosen to become the coordinator for South Coast Media Online Advertisements. This sounded impressive, but it involved rich text ads with a touch of analytics, so overall it was not exciting.
