Q & A WITH GAIL ANDERSON

Step Inside Design, Nov/Dec 2004 by Heller, Steven

STEVEN HELLER INTERVIEWS GAIL ANDERSON, TYPE DOYEN OF THE GREAT WHITE WAY.

FOR MOST OF THE PAST 15 YEARS, BRONX-BORN GAIL ANDERSON, 42, WAS SEEN BUT NOT HEARD. AS SENIOR ART DIRECTOR OF ROLLING STONE UNDER ART DIRECTOR FRED WOODWARD, ANDERSON WAS CREATIVELY RESPONSIBLE FOR MUCH OF THE ECLECTIC AND CONCEPTUAL TYPOGRAPHY THAT PERSONIFIED THE MAGAZINE'S DISTINCTIVE DESIGN. FOR MUCH OF THAT TIME ANDERSON QUIETLY FINE-TUNED HER TYPOGRAPHIC EXPRESSION, CREATING A VOCABULARY OF SIGNS AND SYMBOLS THAT INSPIRED MANY DESIGNERS WHO HAVE FOLLOWED HER QUIRKY AND ECCENTRIC VISUAL FEATS. AFTER LEAVING ROLLING STONE IN 2002, SHE JOINED NEW YORK'S SPOTCO AS SENIOR ART DIRECTOR AND NOW HER POSTER DESIGNS FOR BROADWAY AND OFF-BROADWAY PLAYS, INCLUDING AVENUE Q, GRACE BUS SHELTERS, SUBWAY STATIONS, AND BILLBOARDS. IN THIS, HER FIRST INTERVIEW, ANDERSON TALKS ABOUT THE JOY OF TYPE, HER LOVE OF MAGAZINES, AND HER SUCCESS IN THE BRAND NEW REALM OF THEATER POSTERS AND ADVERTISING DESIGN.

SH: You are virtuoso at making typography from old and new fonts, which is not modernist, beyond post-modernist-indeed retro at times-but decidedly contemporary. You also teach type at the School of Visual Arts MFA Design program. Can you be a designer without being a well-versed typographer?

GA: You don't have to love type, but you certainly shouldn't be indifferent to it. I hear too many young designers claim to be "concept" people who don't think the type matters, always with the "I want to make it clean" refrain. They don't realize that you can make the type tell the story, sometimes with little else, if you want. Type can set a tone, evoke a period, or even be the design.

SH: When you were a young pup, type was paramount. As a teacher do you see a decline in typographic literacy and craft?

GA: Unfortunately, I do. You'd think that with a million fonts at their disposal, students would push themselves toward making bolder and more original typographic solutions. Instead, they use a fraction of their little bootleg collections and seldom attempt to make the type "talk." It's too easy to just work with the fonts you have loaded and not bother to try to alter them beyond the occasional soft shadow. On the other hand, last year my MFA class absolutely blew me away with what they were able to do once they were given the right tools to work with-a sampling of eclectic fonts that I asked them to use. They were a little tentative in the beginning, but week after week, I was completely delighted and impressed with the way they manipulated the faces. They just needed a push and someone to encourage them not to be afraid of playing with letterforms.

SH: I've known you professionally for over 10 years, but I don't really know you. It is as though you were always a fixture at Rolling Stone. How did you become a graphic designer?

GA: When I was a kid, I used to make little Jackson 5 and Partridge Family magazines. My big stories were "Donny vs. Michael: Who Do You Luv?" peppered with the occasional David Cassidy exposé. There were even kissable centerfolds. I wondered who designed Spec, 16, and Tiger Beat in real life, and as I got older, I began to research what was then called "commercial art."

ST: I hate to admit it, but I read those magazines too, yet at the time I never dreamed I would become a magazine art director. How were you encouraged to become one?

GA: I had a great art teacher in high school who told me about the School of Visual Arts, where she'd taken some silkscreen and calligraphy classes. I decided to go there based on the Paul Davis clown poster that was in our classroom. It states, "To be good is not enough when you dream of bcinggreat." I still have it. In my first year at SVA, Media Communications instructor Bud Clarice took me under his wing, introducing me to graphic design. And Paula Scher was my portfolio teacher and hero.

SH: I presume you had one hell of a portfolio. What were your earliest jobs?

GA: Paula helped me get my first job at Vintage Books [Random House], I was there for about a year, and then I moved up to Boston to work on the Sunday magazine at The Boston Globe. I learned about assigning illustration, and how to design quickly. Ronn Campisi used to say that the paper was fish-wrap the next day, so you shouldn't sweat the small stuff too much. That was great advice. I worked at the magazine for Lynn Staley and then Lucy Bartholomay, possibly the best experience both personally and professionally that a young designer could imagine having. I moved home to New York to work for Fred Woodward at Rolling Stone in 1987, figuring I'd be there for two or three years. Almost 15 years later, I looked up and I was 40 and forced to figure out what job could possibly top that one, especially as I sensed it was coming to an end.

SH: Did you remain at Rolling Stone all those years because your heart belonged to editorial design, or did you really love getting all those free CDs?

GA: I love magazines, and the economy was booming when I started at RS. Pages were plentiful and the support was there for experimentation. But over time, as the industry mandated shorter stories and more "entry points" into the pages-and the economy shifted, of course-we had to make more deliberate choices about which stories to blow out. Still, it was the ride of a lifetime while it lasted and I learned almost everything I know about design in those 14-plus years. I had the best job in town-next to Fred's, of course-and I was grateful. I figured I'd stay as long as he was there, and that's pretty much what I did. Fred's skills as an art director, designer, and journalist enabled us all to do some of the best work we'll ever get to do, period. And we got to do it in an extremely visible arena.