Houstonia Magazine

Houstonia magazine seeks an experienced editorial Art Director with digital and print design skills to help produce an award-winning quarterly city magazine and daily online publication. We need a versatile, creative, and fast-paced team player to present the stories that define Houston with lively imagery and design.

You will collaborate with editors, photographers, and illustrators to tell visual stories focused on food and drink, regional travel, style, news, and the arts scene in the Houston area. The art director manages all creative aspects of stories from conception to completion while working within a dedicated budget. Deadlines matter, and precise page production is a must. Ability to produce photographs, illustrations, charts, graphs, maps for digital and print production a plus. You know the devil is in the details, but also which design rules are meant to be broken.

Our ideal candidate possesses either a working knowledge of the dynamic city of Houston, or an eagerness to get up to speed. You will work closely with the Creative Director in addition to the editorial staff, especially your counterpoint, the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief. Our company’s broader team of award-winning designers has a history of offering strong mentorship. This is a full-time position.

Houstonia’s team is hybrid, reporting to an office one day a week, and candidates must be based in the Houston area, or willing to relocate for this job.

Responsibilities

• Establish and adhere to a consistent visual language for all aspects of the editorial product.
• Design engaging print covers, layouts, and digital feature images that attract and engage the reader.
• Collaborate and negotiate with freelance illustrators, photographers, and videographers.
• Create stunning multi-platform imagery and graphics for a variety of editorial projects that surprise and delight in print and engage on digital displays.
• Tell stories through graphics, maps, data visualization, and other creative formats.
• Evaluate editors’ stories and general ideas for visual presentation possibilities.
• Manage a dedicated budget and contracts for multiple freelance assignments monthly with precision.
• Contribute relevant, interesting ideas in team meetings and brainstorms.
• Manage your time while working on multiple projects, reprioritize work as needed based on deadlines.

Qualifications

• At least five years of experience in design for a magazine, newspaper, or online publication. A bachelor’s degree in design or a related field is preferred.
• Strong design experience with a good command of typography, illustration, print layout, and web design.
• Fluency in Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop are essential.
• Experience building webpages in various CMSes including WordPress full-site editing.
• Knowledge and expertise in one or several of these: illustration, photography, infographics, animation, video editing, journalism, html, CSS, programming.
• Concrete and conceptual ideation skills coupled with a keen instinct for visual communication and storytelling.
• Experience working with freelance illustrators and photographers.
• Comfort working autonomously as well as on a team.
• Ability to balance short-term and long-term projects and deadlines.
• A sense of humor—not just in your work but in your workplace.
• Curiosity, a “growth mindset,” and a willingness to adapt and be audience focused.
• Commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion
• An interest in and understanding of current trends in design, technology, and media.
• Excellent communication skills

The base compensation range for this role is $68,000-$75,000. The annual/hourly pay range displayed serves as a good faith estimate of the minimum and maximum base pay range for this role. Compensation for the role will be based on a number of different factors such as a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies, location, and experience.

Houstonia is an Equal Opportunity Employer and bases all hiring and employment decisions solely upon an individual’s qualifications relating to the requirements of the position for which they are being considered, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, gender, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, handicap or disability, genetic information, or any other status protected by law. All are encouraged to apply. Should you need a reasonable accommodation in order to apply for this position, please email [email protected] with the subject line “Accommodation Request – Houstonia – Art Editor”.

Houstonia Magazine

About the job

SagaCity Media seeks a transformative Director of Content and Strategy for Houstonia, an award-winning lifestyle brand in America’s fourth-largest and most diverse city that strives to be the city’s preeminent voice in food, shopping, the arts, home design, real estate, health and wellness, and regional travel.

The Director of Content is the owner of Houstonia’s ambitious goals which include: aggressive digital growth, a comprehensive content calendar, and the highest quality journalistic standards.

Job Responsibilities:

• Sets the content strategies for Houstonia’s site traffic and engagement growth goals, using data-driven content planning, SEO, competitor research, and resource balancing
• Leads ambitious multimedia initiatives, especially around development of video and strategies for emerging social media platforms
• Owns the final quality, integrity, timeliness and success of all of Houstonia’s editorial content across the website, print magazine, newsletters, social media channels, and other emerging platforms (e.g., video and e-commerce initiatives)
• Leads Houstonia’s editorial team of writers, editors, and art directors to be able to meet the company’s goals, communicating editorial strategies clearly, enforcing deadlines, prioritizing assignments and projects, setting individual goals and growth paths, assessing performance, balancing budgetary and staff resources, and proactively managing internal staff conflicts
• Sets and maintains high editorial standards
• Actively engages in setting story lineups, line editing, top editing, and proofreading as time allows
• Owns Houstonia’s annual editorial budget
• Other duties as needed to ensure the success of the Houstonia brand

Qualifications:

• 3-5 years of experience in editorial / content / media leadership
• 3-5 years of video storytelling experience
• A love for telling the diverse and compelling stories of Houston
• Strong demonstrated grasp of social media, particularly TikTok
• Strong editing skills and a love of language
• Highest journalistic and personal ethics
• Commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion

Houstonia is an Equal Opportunity Employer and bases all hiring and employment decisions solely upon an individual’s qualifications relating to the requirements of the position for which they are being considered, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, gender, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, handicap or disability, genetic information, or any other status protected by law. All are encouraged to apply. Should you need a reasonable accommodation in order to apply for this position, please email [email protected] with the subject line “Accommodation Request – Houstonia Director of Content”.

Houstonia Magazine

Houstonia is unique: a news, entertainment and information source as smart, exciting and vital as the people who call Houston home. Each month we canvass the nation’s fourth largest city in search of the newsmakers and tastemakers, people who are changing the way we eat, play, dress and think. Chock-full of timely, engaging stories, as well as spectacular photography and cutting-edge design, our goal is a signature mix of in-depth news stories, provocative essays, and guides to the best of the city that no Houstonian can live without. Houstonia is published by SagaCity Media.

The Associate Art Director position is responsible for designing editorial layouts and digital art for online and social media for narrative and service features, regularly appearing departments and involves assigning photography and illustrations,

Job outline:

• Design and produce department and feature layouts for the quarterly magazine
• Meet with editors and art director to collaborate, communicate, and present ideas
• Flow copy from word document to InDesign and typeset using paragraph style sheets
• Pivot from project to project; for example, designing an editorial layout, creating a social media graphic, commissioning illustrations or photography, etc.
• Coordinate photo shoots for feature stories
• Recruit freelance photographers, illustrators, and other artists
• Assist editors with graphics for digital content
• Create illustrations for digital or print
• Animation of illustrated content for digital
• Coordinate with contacts for pickup art
• Photograph subjects, locations, food, etc. for print and digital
• Create maps and infographics
• Assist Production Manager in production of finalized pages to export, send and approve proofs from printer
• Compile, organize and prepare all finalized PDF files for archive
• Compile and prepare content from the finalized quarterly magazine and upload via the CMS platform for digital

Qualifications:

• 3 – 5 years of successful design experience at a consumer magazine
• Bachelor’s degree preferred
• Ability to create information graphics or typography
• Strong design sensibility
• Proven track record as a team player
• High proficiency with Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator)
• Experience with Digital Publishing Suite
• Web skills including design, video and interactive media are preferred
• Creative vision
• Ability to generate original concepts
• High level of design sophistication
• Keen eye for photography
• Exceptional typography skills
• Must possess excellent verbal and written communications skills.
• Ability to multi-task and work in a fast-paced team environment
• Must be detail-oriented and set high standards for accuracy
• Strong interpersonal, organizational, analytical, decision-making, and problem-solving skills required
• Ability to maintain strict confidentiality of all employee and company information

Location: This opportunity is open to candidates willing to perform work from the state of Texas.

SagaCity Media is an Equal Opportunity Employer and bases all hiring and employment decisions solely upon an individual’s qualifications relating to the requirements of the position for which they are being considered, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, gender, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, handicap or disability, genetic information, or any other status protected by law. All are encouraged to apply. Should you need a reasonable accommodation in order to apply for this position, please email [email protected] with subject line “Accommodation Request – Associate Art Director Position”

Houstonia Magazine