Amanda Hsu: Chief Visual Editor (CVE) is a top editor position for The Rubicon, in charge of designing the newspaper cover and keeping the style throughout the paper distinctive and consistent. I’m Amanda Hsu, and in this podcast episode, I talk to senior Georgia Ross who has contributed her creative design skills to the staff as CVE since her junior year.

Hsu: How did you first get into design or visual design?

Georgia Ross: I first got into doing graphic design when I was a ninth-grader, it was May, it was springtime, and we were first kind of onboarding on the staff and that’s when I learned Adobe InDesign for Rubicon. I had just become the Sports Editor, and so I was learning how to design my spread. That’s when I first got started, and then I just started to really enjoy the process. So I would look up videos on how to do [different things and] teach myself different skills. I started to have…my uncle is a journalist, and so he would put me in touch with some of his design friends who I would ask questions to over phone calls or through meetings. And recently, I’ve been having informational interviews with people that teach me just about how…what design softwares are used in the professional world, different design concepts and how to kind of take advantage of all the resources I have right now. So that’s how I got started. But yeah, so I was first Sports Editor, then I was Chief Visual Editor then I was Chief Visual Editor again, so yeah, I’ve been Chief Visual Editor for the past two years.

Hsu: What inspires you, creatively, design-wise?

Ross: I mean, just any kind of art. Like stories are the root of every design, each article we tell has to do with people, and what inspires me is, I guess, is just kind of doing their stories justice. But artistically, it’s also an opportunity to take someone’s story and combine it with my own skills and my own assets and kind of put them together. And when I’m putting, you know, when I’m kind of trying to tap into my own creativity, I’ll look on various magazine cover[s] or spread[s] online. I’ll look at their collections– their past issues, to gather inspiration of just how professionals are using a camera, angles that they’re taking, subjects, content that they’re showing on there. Yeah, I would say just stories and different professionals, that’s what their work [is]. You know, I once read this book when I was at I got to go to an art school last summer, and I read a book called “Steal Like an Artist,” and it kind of taught me about how nothing’s really original, we’re constantly kind of moving and growing based off other people’s energy and what they produce and put into the world. So I’ve really learned to really embrace that and look to other designs and other art for influence and inspiration.

Hsu: And how would you categorize your own personal style or aesthetic?

Ross: Well, I think that’s kind of a hard question, because most of what I do, design-wise, is for The Rubicon newspaper, and a lot of what I have done on The Rubicon has been influenced by the mission of The Rubicon and what The Rubicon stands for. So I think I’ve actually developed a kind of style where A, we’re super face-forward, B, we’re really simplistic, so we can really provide clarity for our readers of just communicating information, being super careful of when we decide to use different fonts, different shapes, different colors so that it brings attention to it, and so that it brings some sort of new information to the reader. Yeah, my style has been super influenced by the Rubicon this early in my kind of design career. I would say, me, personally, I advocate for as much color usage as possible. I love color, I think it’s a really powerful tool, because we associate color to so many experiences and feelings in our lives, and I think it can really strengthen the photos that are on the page. So I would say, yeah, if there’s one thing, it would be, I use a lot of color.

Hsu: Why did you decide that you wanted to pursue being a CVE in the first place?

Ross: I would say, design always just came super naturally for me. The first time I sat down and I did a design, I designed my first read, not to brag, but I won a national award for my first design. And I think that was just because it seemed really simple to me. My whole life, I think I’ve designed different aspects of my life. I never throw away letters, I never throw away receipts from movie theaters or candy wrappers where I had a shared experience with someone eating that. And I hang them up and I design them all over my wall. If you look in my room, it’s just a complete collage; every corner, every square inch of the wall is filled with different colors, patterns, designs, pictures. And so I’m just really fascinated with placements and the influence that a placement has, and how the placement of an image or a graphic, can draw your eyes to different areas of the page. Just really connecting, yeah, just visuals to messaging. I guess just by hearing me talk about it, you can see…I just really like it. And that’s what made me want to leap up into CVE even though it was kind of a daunting task, because The Rubicon has always been so great design-wise, and I didn’t know if I could be a leader, but I think I’ve grown into it.

Hsu: What issue or cover has stood out to you the most or do you remember the best?

Ross: That’s kind of like asking an artist what’s their favorite song of theirs. I think it’s hard because each design kind of was a different time in my life where there were different things that were impacting my hands and me. And the things that I saw in the articles, there were different aspects I wanted to highlight, given the places that I was in. So each cover kind of represents a different chapter of my life, meaning that they’re all kind of equal. The one that I had the most fun with was one…it was the only cover that I actually made a typo in the headline that made it to the stands. It was [the] Artifacts of Individuality [February 2024 issue], and I had so much fun with that because it was the first time I ever really took on my creative license with font, and I took pictures of knitting needles and crocheting needles, and I used that as the structure for the for the headline, like of the font for the headline. And I learned to probably never do that again because it was highly illegible, but I really took…pictures were just my paintbrush. The whole cover was just different pictures, different tiny little pixelated different knitting needles, different yarns, different colors, people, faces. And yeah, it was just a collage.

Hsu: How would you best explain your design process?

Ross: Yeah, so the first thing that I think is people’s biggest mistake when it comes to design is you need to know the articles so well that you’re trying to represent. So I first just read over any text that we have– any interviews that we have to get a good idea of what I’m trying to represent in my graphics and design. And then what I’ll do is also just sit there, kind of staring at the wall for a moment and think of, okay, this article is talking about a curriculum that doesn’t represent everybody in the school, and I try to think of different symbols of what could show that really effectively. And then I’ll take a piece of paper and I’ll draw out three or four designs using different symbols in different ways, putting them in different places. And then if I’m stuck I’ll look on– I’ll go back to what I was talking about before– I’ll look on different covers by different designers, or I’ll look at Pinterest designs of newspapers. And I’ll kind of, maybe I’ll add in one more symbol or one more object into it. Then, because the cover, […] it’s different than other designs in the paper. It has a certain prominence because it’s the first thing that readers see when they decide if they want to pick up the paper or not. And because that’s such a hefty kind of responsibility, I always have a conversation with either the Editor-in-chiefs, the Managing Editor, or our advisor, Ms. Campbell, or other editors for input, just a person[‘s] input, like, ‘if you see this, what would you associate this with’? I kind of find I single out one that we all like the best, and then I start working on it. And normally, the sketch that I have is not what’s on the page at the end of the day, and when I’m done and when I PDF it. It kind of grows as I go, and I figure out what works and what doesn’t and what looks better in pencil, and you know, how it changed now that it’s an actual graphic.

Hsu: What is your favorite or least favorite part about design?

Ross: [My] favorite part about design is that I get to be creative and have some productive messaging through my creativity. I know we already have an audience, I know we have a platform, and I know that the stories that we’re sharing are important, so getting to be creative and having it have an actual impact on my community [is my favorite part]. [My] least favorite thing is that frustration is inevitable in design and you will spend time on something like hours, and later you will find out that that wasn’t the best use of your time, and it happens every time. And you think, ‘Oh, are there ways that I can kind of get around this and make it so that it’s so that I don’t have to delete my work later… can I change my process’? And the answer is no. You have to have frustration, you have to hit roadblocks, and it makes your work better if you learn how to push the roadblock out of the way and move through it instead of just ignor[ing] the problems.

Hsu: What are some tips or advice you would want to share with anyone pursuing visual design?

Ross: Find yourself an organization, a business, a nonprofit, a newspaper…find yourself some sort of place that has a message that they want to share, because that’s what design is; design is promoting different messages, different stories. Design is often different– you can’t just design a painting…it’s a different kind of art. It relies on some other content that’s not in the design. Just be super patient; it’s like learning an instrument. You have to really learn how to work the platform that you’re working on, so don’t be lazy. Look up videos of how to do things when you’re really stumped, like a math problem and you can’t figure out how to do it; ask for help. But really try to problem-solve, because that’s kind of what designing is, it’s just problem-solving.

Hsu: And what is your biggest takeaway or lesson from your last two years as CVE?

Ross: I guess my biggest takeaway is that design is really rewarding work because you get to share someone else’s story; it’s a privilege. Just kind of anything, like design, newspaper, sports, it’s another community where you can support people in their kind of design process, and you can it’s really collaborative. Design is a great space to kind of be in a community and learn from each other also.

Hsu: You can take a look at Ross’ latest design work in the November issue of The Rubicon. Thank you for listening to this podcast episode. We will be back with more behind-the-scenes stories from the staff. See you then.