Talking with Taylor Miles, Designer at:
Taylor Miles Hopkins on print, design thinking, and important things the world keeps forgetting.
What’s your favorite and least favorite part of designing a page?
A least favorite thing is particular to certain desks that get a lot of ads. When ads come in, they might come in two days before we close on an issue. I may have a page I’ve already designed, and then I have to redo it so it accounts for those ads. Then sometimes more come in and I have to redo it again. Back and forth, which is just what happens when you’re working in a really fast paced environment and accounting for external factors. I had this layout for a reason, and now I have to think of it in a new way with new parameters.
My favorite part is probably how much collaboration there is. I am constantly talking to photo editors, other designers, art directors, creative directors, the writers, editors. There’s a lot of people that I talk to to see how they approach a story. Sometimes I do miss certain things, and then they bring them to light, which jogs even more really effective design ideas. Collaboration is a really cool component, and especially the fact it’s with so many different minds. It’s not just designers, and that’s really special about publication.
Continued inside.
Conducted by Lee Hardisty September 17, 2024
You’re in this bubble in the design program, but that’s not necessarily how the world works.
Taylor Miles Hopkins (she/her) is a designer and educator living in New York. Her main interests are in publishing practices, the intersection of design with climate change and environmental connection, and the ways design can establish and nurture communities within these two areas. She is the library’s #1 fan.
What distinguishes publication design from other areas of design?
The thing that has come to mind to me as I’ve been considering myself more and more as a print designer — I still consider myself as a visual designer too, but that has also become a bit more of my identity — is that there is a skills based part of print design that I think is really important. Understanding the printing process, how ink and paper interact, and how you can achieve or avoid certain things. But printing has become more niche. Now an agency might make a book once, but that is not a skill that they are practicing and honing. Publication design and print design is really a trade in itself, understanding the printing process and how to achieve certain things.
Do you find material constraints to be empowering or frustrating?
Both, and I do think a lot of people on my team would agree with that. Broadsheet is very different from glossy, which is going to absorb a lot more of the ink and things are going to get darker. Some of those things are very frustrating. For example, I was working with an art director on the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, and we were using these really thin lines. We have to consider how thin the lines are, because they might mis-register through different plates. It looked really great digitally, but when it came to print… Things were misaligned, lines were coming out thinner than lines right above them, because the ink was flowing through it differently. You definitely learn a lot.
Do you have any predictions on the future of print publication?
Yeah, that’s really interesting. When we’re talking about print in this context, it’s hard to argue with big publication companies because print is expensive. One of the hardest things to deal with at the Times is that we are printing all around the world. It is not just the Queen’s printer that’s printing. We have to rely on other people and other printers all over the world being available to print the newspaper. It is difficult because
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it takes materials, manpower, as well as other people being willing to print that all out. There are a lot of logistics that make it really hard from a business standpoint. But people really do crave print. A lot of people in my generation and yours, we’ve grown up around screens so constantly. We’re both designers, so we sit on screens all day. We’re on a screen right now, we’re having a conversation on a screen. When I’m done working, I do not want to stare at a screen anymore. I want something that’s tactile. I want to feel like I’m experiencing the world. I would rather sit with a printed newspaper than “Oh, I’m going to go read on my phone now that I’ve just been on for the last eight hours.”
Did instructing or being an editor in college help your design?
Definitely. I am really thankful, especially when I was working with Karen and as a TA for DESIGN 166 so much of the start of it is just thinking about composition and photography. I did not realize how much that practice at a college newspaper, and how I kind of just leaned into whatever I was really exploring with writing actually does help in design, because you’re always thinking about compositions overall. It is really nice now, having that practice and understanding of how photography works, how to compose an image. In that sense, I am looking out for certain photographic things when I’m choosing images with a photo editor. But then also looking at those as little pieces of a whole page composition, as a designer.
Why do you think design is important to communication?
In design programs you are so immersed in design specifically, everything is just revolving around it. But in the outside world there’s so much else going on. Even when you’re working as a designer, you’re going to be dealing with people who are designers. I work at a newspaper and collaborate with all these different people, and a lot of the time I am dealing with subjects that I don’t fully understand. You’re in this bubble in the design program, but that’s not necessarily how the world works. Design thinking is something that’s so powerful. It’s a really creative way of looking at the world, its about identifying problems and finding ways to approach the world that are unexpected. Design does that well.
Training both designers and non-designers to think that way is a good approach to considering how the environment is changing, or the social issues that come up with climate change. Design shouldn’t be in a bubble, and people shouldn’t be pushed out of design thinking if they aren’t designers. It’s very powerful, and I think that type of thinking can help us get through a lot of these things.
What skill from design school have you found most useful to this day?
I would say deciphering your opinion very quickly and being willing to work through your thought process with someone in collaboration, rather than feeling like you have to have everything settled right away. When you’re doing a critique and that you are the one leading and facilitating that conversation — you can’t sit there for ten minutes and think about something. You have to keep things moving. Having that
People shouldn’t be pushed out of design thinking if they’re not designers, because it’s very powerful.
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confidence in speaking my mind about things and saying “Actually, I changed my mind from what I said before, let’s talk through this.” That is a skill, and I got a lot of public speaking and facilitation experience from design school and doing critiques.
How do you balance a passion for design work and all the other aspects of your life?
Design school is very hard because you are in the thick of it, and it’s a temporary point of time that you want to get the most out of. For me it was only two years in grad school, and I did not have a design undergrad, so I really wanted to get the most I can out of it, and do whatever it takes for those two years. When I started that at the New York Times, it was a fellowship that was only a year long. I thought, “I’m going to talk to as many people as possible and do as much as I can, because this is temporary.”
It’s really important to have that separation. If you’re only thinking about design all the time, you are closing yourself out to these other parts of the world. They are really important. So many times I’ve read a story and it makes me think of something else, and I think about how I can incorporate a visual component that reminds me of that. I love gardening and
The library is one of the last places that you can go and spend time with no pressure for you to spend money.
ecology and those kinds of things, and those influence my designs too. I’m not saying everything is just for the sake of design, but that it’s really important to have these things that are separated from it, because they’re part of who you are as a person.
Of course, design is also a very big part of who you are as a person, and all those things mix together. If we were all just designers, then everything would just be homogeneous. That’s my argument for having balance as a designer, but also as a person. You are human, and you should take care of yourself. You cannot put out your best work if you’re burnt out and exhausted.
What makes libraries so valuable?
From a societal standpoint, especially in the United States, the library is really one of the last places that you can go and spend time with no pressure for you to spend money.
It’s a place for people who don’t have homes to go and spend the day. It’s a place for kids to be exposed to different art materials and other perspectives. It’s a place where everyone is welcome and can congregate. It’s about spreading information to and for people. It’s come as you are. Coming from my love of writing, and then also working as a designer, communicating and spreading information to the public effectively is really important to me. I see libraries as a really accessible and approachable important space for that.
What would you like everyone to know about libraries?
I know this is not in every library, but this is the first thing that came to mind. I just moved to Greenpoint, Brooklyn and started exploring their library immediately, and found that they have a tool library! Which is fantastic for New Yorkers who have barely any storage space. Now I can go and rent out power tools and saws and things that I do not have space for but want for a project. Libraries are for books and information, but also have classes and skill-shares and sometimes instruments that you can rent out too. It’s that access to information. Everyone has that ability to learn something if they want to, and they make it really doable.
Taylor’s thesis was called Tomorrow’s Book: Artifacts in the Anthropocene, a collection of three books that communicate climate change in an approachable and personal way.
