The Interview Assignment That DID The Job

Above: the poster and web ad design concepts 
submitted during the application process.

One of the very first things I ever designed for the Alachua County Library District was an events poster and web ad before I was even hired. Part of the interview vetting process included asking potential candidates to design these two items. Images and text were provided to us to design with and certain instructions were included, for example: the poster headline (which we were to write ourselves) must include two colours of blue, and each designed piece must include at least two of the provided images. The images above were my entry for consideration.

Now, I must say that I really hate, hate, hate, doing assignments as part of an interview process. Doing a job interview assignment is akin to doing a creative concept presentation to a company to compete with others doing the very same thing in an effort to win a project contract. This practice is frowned upon by the design community because creative studios can spend a considerable amount of time and resources to generate a concept solution to the prospective client's brief non gratis when there are other paying client projects that need to be attended to as well. Then, after all that work has been completed for the presentation, all the prospective client has to do after seeing the complete selection of brilliant concepts is to not hire any of the firms presented and do it themselves or use a cheaper creative service. You may not believe it, but unscrupulous companies do this every day to designers all around the world. To combat this abuse partially, design firms often ask for a fee to pitch for a job in this manner. Unfortunately, individual job candidates don't usually have this as an option. After working hard to develop a professional portfolio, I believe the strength of my past work should speak for itself. But the way the library had their interview process set up, in order to get your portfolio shown you first had to leap through the flaming hoop of doing the assignment.

The ACLD design position was one I was really keen on having, however, so I swallowed my pride and did it. I had already been a volunteer in another capacity for the library for a year and four months by then, and I knew I could do much more for the library in a designer's capacity than with the services I provided as a volunteer. I liked the library and the people I worked with, so didn't want to jeopardize that relationship by throwing a hissy about their interview process.

In the end, it worked out. I did the “fantasy” interview assignment and was fortunate enough to be offered the job afterwards. But wait, there's more:  when the first month after I was hired came, I used my fantasy assignment solution for the real event calendar project and applied variations of it to all 11 branches of the library district. The bottom images were the result of my concept applied to the real project. In the end, I got paid for what I did, and they got what they paid for. I received a lot of compliments from branch librarians and managers for the look of the event calendars and everyone was happy. Interview/Job well done. =)

Below: the design concept later applied to the real project—a series of  tabloid, legal and letter-sized event calendar bulletins, each modified slightly for its respective library branch, based on content volume. Some branches had only a single page, while others had multiple pages, in which case the design allowed for a unique design for each page.