About America Media:

America offers a smart, Catholic take on faith and culture, and is the leading provider of editorial content for thinking Catholics and those who want to know what Catholics are thinking. America leads the conversation about faith and culture by producing excellent, unique, relevant and accessible content across multiple platforms. Our contributors are the principal figures in the American Catholic Church today, the decision-makers and opinion leaders who drive the ecclesial and civic debate about religion, society, politics and the arts. Our weekly magazine, America, has been published continuously since 1909, making it one of the oldest periodicals in the United States today.

The Job:

America Media is in the midst of a project to redesign and transform all our platforms, especially our website and print magazine, to “lead the conversation” about faith and culture with a digital-first, print-savvy approach. The newly created Creative Director position will develop and champion a consistent and excellent design vision across our organization, delivering a first-class experience to our audience, however they encounter our content.

Responsibilities:

The Creative Director at America Media leads all aspects of its visual design and execution across all platforms and provides leadership and support for the America Media design team. The Creative Director has primary authority for America Media’s visual identity and aesthetic and for design assets across platforms and products. The main responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

●      Establishing and maintaining design excellence organization-wide

●      Managing use of art and photography and outside commissions across all platforms, including daily digital publication and weekly print publication

●      Supervising the design of the organization's marketing and promotional materials across platforms, ensuring consistency of brand presentation.

●      Practicing brand stewardship to ensure creative deliverables are representative of the America Media brand across all platforms and products

●      Collaborating on high-design stories and features on all platforms

●      Soliciting and evaluating user data for integration into design planning

●      Advocating for design quality from the audience perspective

Platform Redesign Project

In our ongoing redesign project, currently in its opening phase, the Creative Director will:

●      Lead the design discovery process with the editorial team

○      including collaboration with the content architecture development process

●      Develop consensus on design approach and engage all channels behind design vision

○      connecting vision to editorial and business goals

○      contributing to planning for new platforms and feature pieces

●      Direct development of look and feel for web redesign, which will be mobile-first and responsive

○      including consultation on user experience and interaction design

○      using mobile web design discovery process to identify design assets (typography, colors, etc.) for use across all platforms in the redesign

●      Direct development of look and feel during print redesign process

●      Contribute to ongoing data-driven evolution of platform designs

Requirements:

●      Has been responsible for design within an organization with multiple platforms including print, web and mobile

●      Has managed web, print, mobile and collateral design projects and resources

●      Has experience collaborating with business/marketing teams and demonstrated understanding of business aspects of editorial design choices

●      Has made design contributions to a development project, with a preference for experience contributing to a sprint-based project schedule

●      Demonstrated technical competence with design tools and software

○      Wireframing and prototyping for front-end web design

○      Adobe tools (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator)

●      Able to coach and help develop design skills across the organization

●      Managed internal and external resources and an operating budget

Additional:

Individuals who have successfully led the redesign of a brand that included digital and print products will be considered with high priority.

Please forward cover letter telling us a little more about yourself than we will see in your resume, along with salary requirements, resume or cv and link to portfolio or website to: creativedirectorsearch@americamedia.org

Generally, you'll want some style on your pages of text. Using good web writing practices, the proper way to do this is to use the styled elements available to you.

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There are six levels of headings, and the first is reserved for the page title and is automatically applied for you.

Generally, when writing for the web:

1. Use bullet lists to control content
2. Be concise
3. Remember that most of your readers scan, and a big block of text will not be read carefully.

To really set off a text item, use a blockquote. This can be treated like a magazine-style quote, which may be indirectly related to page content or pulling one of the most important items from it.

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More than one level of sub-heading may be required in longer pages or when describing multiple concepts on a page.

• Use headings to categorize your text
• Use other text elements sparingly, but with effect

You may find it necessary to use a horizontal rule to separate truly distinct items on a page.

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Have a look, there are six levels of headings available. You may not use them all, but it's useful to know where they are and what they do.

This is Heading 5

There are several elements available to you in basic text to add impact: bold and italics are available, but use them only if you want those particular typographic effects. It usually makes more sense to usestrong (which will show up as bold or some other "strong" style depending on the circumstances) and emphasis (which will show up as italics or some other "emphatic" style depending on the circumstances). For the names of books, movies and other long works, it's often good to use cite which is meant for that purpose. Underlines and strikethroughs are included, but very rarely used.

It is good to be aware of the symbols available to you, listed under the button that looks like an omega. Symbols are important - including copyright symbols, foreign characters, and a few other common symbols.  The proper symbols to use on the web have a special character code.

►Warning! Using improper symbols will cause some browsers to display ugly marks on your site that can make text unreadable.

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In general, you will probably not have several headings cascading without text in between, but you may. Test it out if you have concerns.

You can use tables, but don't do it unless you have a good reason - such as a set of numbers that needs to be displayed in columns as, well, a table.

America Media accepts select unsolicited, unpublished content for dissemination in print, web and/or other digital formats. All submissions must be made through our Submittable site (see Submit button below). America Media does not accept submissions via U.S.P.S., nor do we consider content submitted simultaneously to other publications or media. America Media is solely responsible for the manner, platform (digital, print, etc.) and timing of publication/production.

What kind of content is America looking for?

• Pitches for feature-length reported pieces, essays and analysis. Feature-length pieces should be approved as a pitch and discussed with editors before a full manuscript is prepared and submitted.
• “Faith in Focus” essays starting from personal faith experience
• “Short Take” opinion essays
• Short poems of 40 or fewer lines

You will be prompted to create a free account with Submittable. Please enter your submission to the appropriate category.

If you have questions, please consult Submittable's help section.

Book reviews should be pitched to reviews@americamedia.org.

There is a nagging, complicated and somewhat technical problem that occasionally springs up when a new papal encyclical is promulgated. All the details of the case need not be rehearsed, but students of Pacem in Terris will recall the unnecessary and misleading questions that arose in 1963 over an alleged lack of fidelity between the so-called official Latin text of Pope John's famous document and its vernacular translations. At the time, there were even hints of some form of foul play with the official text, and the matter became hopelessly confused and controversial before it was dropped by the press.

Five years ago, U. S. Catholics undertook a peculiar alliance for the progress of the Latin American Church. By 1970, ten per cent of the more than 225,000 priests, brothers and sisters would volunteer to be shipped south of the border. In the meantime, the combined U. S. male and female "clergy" in South America has increased by only 1,622. Halfway is a good time to examine whether a program launched is still sailing on course and, more importantly, if its destination still seems worthwhile. Numerically, the program was certainly a flop. Should this be a source of disappointment or of relief?

A year ago in America I tried to tie together some impressions about modern youth under the label of the "New Breed." I must confess I was overwhelmed by the reaction. All sorts of people announced--some of them validly--that they were members of this New Breed and happily proclaimed that at long last there was someone who understood them. (Alas, it is not true; I do not understand them.) On the other hand, many of those who had identified in the New Breed a dangerous enemy blamed me for the New Breed phenomenon-on the same principle, I suppose, that ancient kings invoked in executing messengers who brought bad news: he who announces bad news is the one responsible for its coming to be.