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Name: Betsey Kershaw
Age: 32
Company Name: iguide
Years With Company: 1 month
Previous Jobs: Art Director/Producer, Anderson&Lembke; Advertising
Research Scientist, NYU Center for Digital Multimedia
Adjunct Faculty, NYU Department of Photography
Graphic Designer, Children's Television Workshop
Graphic Designer, Nickelodeon
Set Designer, VH-1
Education: BA, Film, University of South Florida; MA, Painting, New York University; MPS, Interactive Telecommunications Program, New York University
1. What is your official job title?
Art Director
2. What is the job title you'd give yourself?
the most talented "Art Director"
3. What makes your job unique?
4. How did your college major / graduate school degree help prepare you for your career path?
College allowed me the time to just figure things out. In the work world, you don't often have time to take risks and explore new possibilities -- but in school you have a large chunk of time that is devoted to experimentation both in class and out!
5. What necessary career information was missing from your studies? How did you pick up those skills and knowledge?
I wish I had taken more business classes, although if someone had suggested it to me back then I would have laughed -- but now that I've been a designer for many years, I find important to know more about the business side of things.
6. What difficulties did you encounter entering your chosen field?
Where do I start...... it took me awhile to get a commercial portfolio together because in school I was really experimental. so I had to go to work as a secretary and take night classes to build up my work.
Now that I'm a designer, I guess the constant challenge is to educate my co-workers that not only do I make pretty pictures but i'm pretty technical too. I've been know to write a mean perl script every now and then.
7. Why would you recommend your company or job?
Well, things change a lot around here and we've been forced to downsize which gives all us little people a lot of freedom to really good work. Because we are currently a little understaffed, each designer gets their own magazine to work on. Currently, i'm doing www.motionpicture.com which is a lot of fun although in need of an overhaul.
8. How does the size of your company impact your sense of job satisfaction?
We seem to be getting smaller and smaller, which I think is a great thing because I'm finally getting to know the people I work with. So I'd say I like a medium size company that has a combination of intimacy and a desirable amount of "leave me alone" time.
9. What three things are most rewarding about the work you do?
- coming up with new ideas
- making the ideas into beautiful designs
- starting the process all over again
10. What three things are most frustrating?
- not being able to come up with a new idea
- having to work on boring content
- because I couldn't come up with an idea, can't move on to the next thing
11. What three things are most fun?
- design!
- the energy of working on new stuff everyday
- great places to have eat and shop during lunch hours
12. How do you handle work stress?
I jump on my mountain bike and leave my stress on some local single-track.
13. How big a role does technology play in your career?
Technology allows a designer like me to be a heck of a lot more marketable -- wouldn't leave home without it!
14. How do you distinguish yourself from your co-workers?
I have red hair and they don't. No seriously, i'm a little more technical than my fellow art directors.
15. Which popular song best describes your working life?
Don't touch the stuff . . . sorry.
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