Kluge discussed how she was able to use her journalism skills in the real world, incorporating creative design and direction with her writing background to put together magazine spreads, manage teams of creatives, and more.
She also discussed life after college, as well as the steps to take to make the transition into the workforce a little bit easier.
Spartan Newsroom Reporter Madison Kort spoke with Haley Kluge about life, creative communication, and more for Career Conversations.
TRANSCRIPT:
Kort: Welcome to Career Conversations, a podcast series about jobs in journalism and related fields from the Spartan Newsroom. My name is Madison Kort, and I am a sophomore at MSU studying journalism and public relations with a concentration in media relations. I am interested in pursuing fashion and entertainment media, so I reached out to MSU alum Haley Kluge who is the senior designer for Netflix Tudum and former art director of Variety Magazine; we talked via Zoom.
Kluge: So that was a fast turnaround, but once I got the copy, once I got the photos, really kind of presenting that and making it presentable for book and then ushering it through the process. Sending it through to editors so they can take a look at it, copying teams so they can take a look at it, or fact-checkers or editors in chief, and then our photo team as well and then back to me. I would do that, you know, like 20 times a week, so I would be on you know 20, I’d say probably 20 to 30 pages in the weekly magazine of 100 pages; so I would do that 20 or 30 times. Some pages were really quick and one-off, sometimes they were cover stories. So that’s kind of what Variety in very basic terms was, coming at things from a very editorial lens and a storytelling perspective.
I really think it’s that background in journalism that’s given me that kind of perspective, because I, you know, think back to all of the reporting and the writing I did in college and all the assignments I did and the projects I did outside of the classroom and how it made me a better journalist, how it made me a really great storyteller. So that fundamental comes from journalism, right? Like you learn how to ask good questions, you learn how to get people to talk, and you learn how to tell a story. What I’m doing is more or less the same, it’s just a different medium. So for me the fundamentals of journalism have really set me up for success from a creative perspective.
Then also from like a relationship perspective in the sense that when I’m working with journalists in my field and with reporters and writers in my field we can speak the same language, so it’s really worked in like a multi-faceted way. I think it’s made me a much better magazine designer and a much more well rounded editorial designer; so for me, having that journalism background was really essential.
Kort: Thank you, Haley. I’m Madison Kort, reporting for the Spartan Newsroom.