contributions:
Visual Design
Websites
Newsprint
Apps
Books
Online Store
Advertising
Branding
Management
Production
Onion, INC.
Role: Art Director
Dates: April 2005 - August 2012
Location: New York, NY
The Library of Congress: The Onion is “an American satirical digital media company and newspaper organization that publishes articles on international, national, and local news.”
The gig i found on craigslist
In 2005, I answered an ad on Craigslist (which was the style of the time). The Onion was seeking a guest designer to help create a special issue set in the year 2056. When the project wrapped, I was offered a full-time role as The Onion’s first in-house Art Director. The job had me wearing many hats: recruiting and managing talented designers and interns while balancing the needs of both the editorial and business teams.
EDITORIAL: Working with the writers and editor-in-chief, I provided visual design to help contextualize and infuse the editorial content with the look and feel of a conventional, legitimate news organization. The key word in designing for The Onion is verisimilitude.
BUSINESS: I worked with Sales, Marketing and Business Development departments in a role that created new advertising opportunities, developed prospects for television and online video and ensured that everyone had business cards.
As Art Director, I led a comprehensive redesign of the newspaper and website while overseeing the ongoing development and maintenance of its print, online, and e-commerce platforms. I also recruited, managed and mentored an amazing team of designers and interns.
The Onion newspaper
featuring:
Onilne
Newsprint
Advertising
Production
Management
Redesigning the entire print publication was my first project as Art Director. In 2005, Onion, Inc. was going through a period of growth in terms of their audience and editorial content. As their satirical news coverage was expanding from a ‘local news’ format to a more ‘national news' scope, this called for the editorial design of the newspaper to reflect that as well.
This was an enormously fun project that involved researching (and stitching together) editorial design cues from national newspapers all over the world. Beyond the visual update, the redesign also gave the editorial team new content types to write for and provided production designers flexible layouts to accommodate local ad sales for the weekly city editions.
PRINT RELATED PROJECTS I WORKED ON
Books
Including full book production and cover designs.
Onion Newsbox
Or, as they're called in NYC, public restrooms.
Jones Soda Labels
Design and production for a Jones Soda collaboration.
Event Posters
The Onion hosted many events for fun and publicity.
onion.com
featuring:
Visual Design
Websites
Advertising
Branding
Management
The Onion has been one of the internet's most beloved destinations for nearly three decades. During my tenure the in-house development team was small and nimble. This allowed us to be able to experiment, innovate and improve the experience while being able to react (and publish) in real time to world events - just like a real news organization!
I also designed and supported other Onion web properties like Onion Sports, ONN and Comedy Central's Sportsdome. I also produced several animated homepage buyouts for clients like Starbucks, HBO, Fox, NBC, TBS, Comedy Central, Budweiser and Mountain Dew.
The Onion Store
featuring:
Visual Design
E-Commerce
Websites
Production
Management
The Onion Store was an early pioneer in online shopping at a time when most e-stores were homegrown. People have an affection for Onion headlines, so putting them on t-shirts, mugs and posters was an obvious choice for revenue generation. Additionally, the store sold books, posters, subscriptions to the paper and an assorted roster of limited run goods.
I helped improve the user experience by doing away with frustrating roadblocks like forced account registration and revamping the store with new shirt designs (the store's most popular product).
STORE PRODUCTS I WORKED ON
Clothing
Hands down, t-shirts were the top selling store product.
Accessories
Newsy, topical fashion styles and also keychains.
Books
Onion books are consistent NYT bestsellers.
Drinkware
Branded glasses and Onion humor.
onion ipad app
featuring:
Visual Design
Newsprint
Books
Production
App
First off, let's get this out of the way: check out that thick iPad bezel! The Onion app was a part of the very first wave of iPad apps available. No precedents, no best practices, just a big slab to poke at. We had a really quick turnaround time to deliver it, but the development team did a great job at figuring out what to do and turned desperate Photoshop mock-ups into a functioning app.
Onion MAGAZINE
featuring:
Visual Design
Newsprint
Online
Production
Management
Onion Magazine was a weekly print and online feature that invoked the feel of a Sunday newspaper magazine (think Parade Magazine or New York Times Magazine, depending on the joke). Usually assembled at the end of the issue's production by editor-in-chief Scott Dikkers and I, this was a great medium for short-form jokes.
Wait, There's more!
One of the best things about working at Onion, Inc. was the sheer volume and variety of things to work on.
T-SHIRT DESIGNS
JONES SODA LABELS
advertising
ED. FEATURE DESIGN
podcast support
PRINTED PRESS & MEDIA KITS
the takeaway
The Onion maintains its reputation as 'America's Finest News Source' and in 2016 was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for garnering 39 Webby Awards in the Humor category. In 2024, it was purchased by the Chicago-based Global Tetrahedron Group.
but Wait, There's more!
One of the best things about working at Onion, Inc. was the sheer volume and variety of things to work on.