As Art Director and Lead Designer, I led a rotating team of 3-5 Junior Designers (former students from my time teaching at Parsons) through the complete design and production of each ~80-page issue. I handled overall magazine architecture—covers, table of contents, feature layouts—while mentoring designers on typography and composition as they developed individual stories. 

The work required constant cycling: reviewing layouts, pushing solutions, refining until each article felt right. We had to learn from challenges: when artists sent limited visuals, we used creative typography and space; when flooded with content, we curated ruthlessly. The role demanded we be fluent across cultures and crafts—translating a Moroccan ceramicist's story, a Japanese textile artist's process, and a Mexican weaver's history, working directly with artists and writers to develop narratives, conduct interviews, and sometimes photograph work ourselves.