METROKIDS' MAGAZINE
Role: Senior Art Director & Production Manager (sole art director and production lead)
Scope: Editorial Design • Advertising & Sales Collateral • Event Branding • Print Production
THE CHALLENGE
MetroKids wasn't one magazine — it was a full regional publishing operation: 36 issues a year across three markets, plus five annual guides, including SpecialKids, a publication for families navigating autism, learning differences, and disability resources. As sole art director, every cover, layout, ad, and event brand ran through me, on a production calendar that never slowed down.
THE IDEA
Rather than treat each issue as a standalone deadline, I built repeatable systems — layout templates, cover treatments, directory formats — that could flex month to month without sacrificing quality under a monthly cadence. For CoverKids, one of MetroKids' largest annual programs, I owned the full visual experience: promotion, advertising, winner photoshoots, and the cover story itself, from concept through publication.
WHAT IT BECAME
What started as monthly editorial design grew into a broader creative and business function:
Complete design, image selection, and layout for the monthly magazine and four annual guides, produced in InDesign and Photoshop
Rebuilt MetroKids' sales collateral and pitch systems, giving the sales team stronger creative tools to market advertising opportunities across the magazine and its special publications
Created audience demand following the success of Guide to Schools, which led to the proposal and launch of a new Spring edition — providing an additional annual publication and new advertising inventory for the business
THE OUTCOME
A publishing system built to run continuously, not just look good issue to issue — proof that a repeatable design system can scale from one monthly magazine into a growing publishing calendar, without the recurring cost of rebuilding it from scratch each time.