Magazine Art Director | 2008–2014
The Client The Brewers Association is the Boulder-based nonprofit trade organization behind the American craft beer movement, representing thousands of independent brewers nationwide and driving the culture, standards, and advocacy that helped turn craft beer into one of the most dynamic food and beverage categories in the country. Their two flagship publications, Zymurgy and The New Brewer, serve the passionate communities of homebrewers and craft brewing professionals respectively.
The Challenge Two bimonthly national magazines, each with their own distinct audience, voice, and visual identity, produced by a small tight-knit staff on real deadlines with real advertisers and real readers who knew their subject deeply. Getting it wrong wasn't an option. Getting it right, issue after issue, required someone who could own the entire creative process from first sketch to finished page.
The Approach What started as freelance editorial design work in the early 2000s grew into something much bigger. When a staff opening arose, I stepped in on contract, and when the role became permanent, I stayed. For nearly six years I was the art director for both publications, managing every aspect of the creative process: concept, layout, typography, photo direction, advertiser quality control, and the full print production cycle. I worked closely with editors, directors, authors, and staff, reading every word of every story, learning the craft beer and homebrewing world from the inside out, and making sure every page reflected the seriousness and passion of the community it served.
Over my tenure I watched both the Brewers Association and the broader craft beer industry grow significantly, nationally and internationally, and the magazines grew with them. More advertising, more pages, more complexity, and higher stakes.
The Result Nearly six years of consistent, elevated editorial design for two national trade publications, through a period of explosive industry growth, producing dozens of issues that served hundreds of thousands of readers and helped define the visual identity of the American craft beer movement.