Sandra Strucken grew up in Chinatown. Even though she moved to Brooklyn later on, she continued going to school in Manhattan. She graduated from Hamilton College ’08 with a dual major in Comparative Literature and Studio Arts. She currently works at Penguin Publishing as junior designer and art assistant. In her spare time, she manages a store on etsy where she sells her various bits of art n’ crafts.
How was it like in LaGuardia?
Cool, LaGuardia was interesting. We had three hours of studio art classes every day and each year we focused on a different type of art in our core classes. So it was a very good introduction into art and the art scene in New York City. I wanted to go to a good school but I didn’t get into the top three. So I figured, LaGuardia is a good school and you have to take a test to get in so I’m gonna try for it. And since it’s also like an art-based school, it’s a win-win.
What made you get into art?
Growing up, we weren’t rich but we weren’t really poor. Everything we had, we had to make and that kind of built that hands on habit. It just grew on me and I liked making things. I also liked watching Barney and he always had that Barney bag. That was fun, and we always had stuff around that we could use. I think it sprung from having to be resourceful; we weren’t able to buy new clothing all the time so we mix and matched stuff, made our own clothes, things like that. I mean I never made my own, my mom did. But it became what I did.
So why did you major in comparative literature?
When I was applying for college, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I thought that art wasn’t going to be a good field to go into. I didn’t know about any of the career options with art, so I chose a liberal arts college. But I also majored in studio arts.
I’m sort of using it now because the publishing industry mixes my two interests: books and art. I graduated from college in the middle of the recession so work was hard to find. I found a job at a bank and I worked there for a year, always thinking that I was going to find something else and quit. At the time, I was looking for a lot of art assistant jobs at like galleries and museums. But those never worked out so I decided that I wanted to go back to school. I applied and I got into a school. But then I decided I wanted to make money instead of going to school so I looked into publishing.
Just randomly publishing?
I think I saw a job posting for an editorial assistant. I have a background in comparative literature, so I thought I could do something with books and stuff. I looked into the publishing industry and interned at two publishing companies to get my foot in the doors so that I could learn about the industry, meet some people and hopefully build some connections so that I could get a job. Eventually I found a posting on the Penguin website for an art assistant job. I applied and got it.
How was an art assistant job like?
It’s the same job I have now only I got promoted. I work with the cover art department so we have a bunch of designers and art directors and we have meetings with editors every week to talk about new books that are coming out. They tell us about the books and about what they want to feature on the cover. After that meeting we start designing book covers. It’s a really good experience because everyone I work with went to art school and most of them are really well known graphic designers in the art world. It’s a little bit intimidating because they’re so good but it’s cool.
What is your perspective on your work?
It’s challenging because we have to come up with designs solutions for stories. When you look at a book cover you want to be enticed and you want to grab that book and find out more about it. So our job is pretty important to help the author sell their stories. I work for the department that publishes dragons and vampires fantasy books and romance novels. And it’s fun; we get other books sometimes but the majority of the time we’re looking at pictures of half naked men holding women, with tattoos and vampire teeth and wings. They’re called mass-market books.
How are you creative on a daily basis?
I have to figure out how to convey concepts in art. I go online a lot. I look at a lot of blogs and I look at other designers’ works. You get inspired that way. Lot of people think that if you look at other people’s work you might start to copy it and you’ll lose your originality but I think it’s important to look at that stuff cause then it kind of motivates you to be good and it gives you ideas to build upon. It’s not really copying, I don’t think. There are some design conventions that other artists or other designers are using that you might want to use in your work.
How is it like being a graphic designer?
Well I studied painting. I focused on painting in college so I did not know what graphic design really was when I graduated even though I should have known. But it’s really different cause it’s everywhere; it’s not just book covers. Like packaging for red bull, that’s graphic design. Or the commercials for the mac and iPods; everything is design.
How do you think your focus on painting transitioned into graphic design?
I don’t think it transitioned into it. I think having a painting background means that I have an eye for things that look good. It helps to have an art background cause you need to be able to make art to be a designer or to see proportions and balance. Like balancing stuff on a page, I don’t know. It’s different, painting is different because with painting, I just painted scenes and things but with the things I do now, I have to focus on typography and I really like that because you see it everywhere, everyday. Like graffiti, that’s typography.
How did you get into graphic design from painting?
I got lucky cause I am constantly learning from the job. We get to interact with artists cause a lot of times we freelance stuff out so my basic function is to put type onto art. Sometimes if we have enough time to work on a project I can also make the art. But often, we don’t have enough time to paint a scene with a dragon flying into a spaceship or something that like. So we call artists and ask them to do these drawings.
How do you feel about art?
It’s a way for me to express myself. I also have an etsy shop that I don’t really do anything with anymore. But I plan on making posters and putting that on etsy. I can add graphic designs, but I don’t even really know what that means. You should google it.
What does it mean to you?
I don’t know, designing type? I think design is a career, is a field. There are so many options; it’s so many things. You can be like an artist: a graphic designer who displays stuff at galleries or a graphic designer in the commercial world building brands and things like that. Designing logos, designing websites, that’s considered graphic design.
Where do you get your creativity or inspiration from for etsy products?
Things that interest me, things that I don’t get to do at work cause at work, it’s fulfilling someone else’s desires. I like to make things that look nice. I sell earrings and I paint scenes on them. There really isn’t a good explanation. Sometimes you can’t explain it, it’s just how you feel. I don’t know why I want to draw a house or a cute little kitty cat. It’s just fun and I don’t feel like my things are heavily concept driven. Like, I don’t creative art to say something or have a social thing behind it.
So you just do it for fun?
Yeah, do it for fun. Do it as an expression of myself. It’s like a hobby.
