Q & A WITH GAIL ANDERSON

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

SH: That is rare and enviable. So within this Utopian bubble, what were the high points of your tenure?

GA: I loved assigning illustration and I got to do it several times an issue. Assigning art for the theater is much different; it's rarely a conversation, a round of sketches, and a finish. It's seldom portraiture. There are often several illustrators doing sketches, and something's inevitably going to be killed-those are tough phone calls. But on the plus side, the work lives longer-if the show lives - and artists get to see their work on posters, billboards, and marquees. It's incredibly exciting when the stars are in alignment, when all concerned end up with something we love, and it effectively sells the show.

SH: Can you describe your collaboration with Fred Woodward? He is no shrinking violet. How hands-on was he, and how much of the signature work was your own invention?

GA: Working with Fred was easy. We knew each other about as well as two people could, and there were lots of similarities in the way we thought and worked. Music always set the tone and he was into low lighting, so the design room felt sort of cozy. And he'd just howl with glee when we "got it" and it was a winner. He could really get you jazzed about the process, even when it was difficult. Fred wasn't hands-on computerwise, but he always questioned why making changes sometimes required so many steps, etc. He knew the Mac without actually touching a mouse.

The collaboration was fun, like, "Okay, what if you did that?" and, "Why don't you try this?" Other times, Fred would have a little sketch that he drew on a blow-in card-and it was almost always in perfect proportion to a real page. He could scribble two lines and a dot and I'd be able to decipher it; his sketches were precise. Of course, every now and then, he'd just say, "Close that document and let's start a new one this way," if I went off the deep end. He knew how to keep me from chasing my tail too much. We all designed a good deal of features independently-not everything was as collaborative-but my fondest memories are of working side by side with Fred, and the Cokes with crushed ice.

SH: I've heard that all good things come to an end. What happened when Woodward left the magazine to go to GQ and you were not named, as you probably expected and wanted, the chief art director. Was this your low point at Rolling Stone?

GA: The last few months there were easily the lowest. In no way did I expect to be named art director; it was clear that the mandate was not for elaborate type treatments and art-driven packages, and that's how I was identified. My expiration date had passed and I knew it was time for a major change, possibly even trying a different aspect of design. I loved type and couldn't imagine working on a magazine with a single family of faces-that was part of the quandary-but mostly, I just feared repeating myself, designwise. Trying something totally new felt challenging and scary in a good way, and I needed that level of fear to motivate me to change while I was still naïve enough to believe I could. Whatever came next had to be pop culture and celebrity-related; I love that stuff. And working with words, stories, scripts -making them come to life-had to be part of the package.