Seeing as how I have a high interest in working in print specifically for magazines, it was such a treat to get to see the inner workings of Hearst. Now before I get into all the awesome things I learned, I will say that I had a completely different take on how things were ran. The way professors make it seem is that you have to do everything in a company like Hearst when in reality, each aspect of the design process is worked on by different departments.

If I wanted to work on only retouching images to ensure they look the best on a page, there is a job just for that. If I cared about how the each issue looked on every page and had to work on doing its layout, there was a job for just for that as well. There is even a job just to make sure that the advertisement companies send their files correctly in the proper formats. The point is, it is great to be able to do it all, but you can pick what you are good at, what you love, and wake up every morning doing just that. Some people get a kick at retouching photos and others can find their calling making sure the printer works properly for the hundreds of millions of magazines your company is about to print.

That is my takeaway from the Hearst visit. Before, I was just looking at print as a whole thinking I would be physically making every page and every correction, but in reality I would be a part of a bigger team ensuring that my specific role in the process was completed. This has been really helpful in how I will be applying myself in my future job searches.