Job Description
Designer
Location: United States
HarperCollins Publishers is seeking a Designer! In this role you will have the opportunity to work in an exciting, fast-paced environment on literary fiction, poetry, non-fiction, offsets, and paperback conversions for the Ecco, Dey Street Books, William Morrow Cookbooks, and Harper Voyager imprints. The Designer will be responsible for all stages of interior book design for assigned titles, from manuscript to bound books, and will work on projects of all levels of complexity with a focus on general books/adult trade. This position reports to the Senior Design Manager.
Hybrid Monmouth Junction, NJ or remote location status will be considered.
Responsibilities
- Designs mostly 1-color book interiors with the opportunity to work on 4-color interiors as per Design Manager’s discretion.
- Prepares and routes design samples for approval.
- Creates tight InDesign templates for composition group to page books downstream. Reviews page proofs at various stages and inputs text corrections using InDesign.
- Designs 1-color and 4-color photo inserts, binding die mechanicals and spec materials for cases and endpapers.
- Manages art program for assigned titles under supervision (as needed): evaluates digital images for good print quality; reviews and marks-up art proofs to ensure best print quality.
- Collaborates with design manager on design concepts. Works closely with editors, production editors, production, and composition teams. Opportunity to work directly with authors.
- Under supervision, commissions independent contractors (mapmakers and illustrators); negotiate fees, generates graphic artist contracts, and processes invoices, as needed.
- Meets deadlines, monitor components, keeps accurate status reports on Teams, and tracks budgets for assigned titles.
- Works on offsets from outside publishers as well as paperback conversions: updates frontmatter, inputs text corrections, adjusts pages and photo inserts to fit new US trim size.
- Traffics files via our RSuite workflow system and other file transfer systems.
- Accesses, downloads, and archives files utilizing our Digital Access Management System.
- Assists with work overflow from Senior Designers and the Design Manager, and other groups within the department, when needed.
Qualifications
- Minimum 2+ years of book interior design experience (preferable), or related graphic design experience
- Collaborative demeanor and a team-player
- Must demonstrate proficiency with Adobe InDesign on a Mac
- Working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop and/or Adobe Illustrator a plus
- Project management skills: detail-oriented, well-organized with an ability to handle multiple projects at various stages simultaneously
- Good written and oral communication skills required