- “It’s such a fashion school.” (Introduction)
- “It’s kind of like a puzzle.” (Manga Design)
- “Focus on honing your craft.” (Advice)
“It’s such a fashion school.”
Justin: All right, let’s start with introductions.
Andy Swist: My name is Andy Swist, I’m a designer here at Yen Press. I’ve been here officially…about…two…and a half years? Going on three, and I was working with YP a little longer while they were a part of Hachette before. So if you count that then it’s been about five years in total.
You was still working on manga with YP?
Andy: Yes. Previously I was part of the Hachette division which was Sci-fi, Fantasy, and Manga.
Orbit?
Andy: Yes, and they were sort of lumped together. But I’ve been working with and for YP about the past five years.
Ann Dwyer: I’m Ann Dwyer, a Junior Designer for Yen Press. I’ve been here since September 2016 so about a year and a half. I started as an intern and I got promoted to Junior Designer this fall.
Congratulations!
Ann: Thank you!
How’s it been?
Ann: It’s been really good! I’ve been really enjoying working here.
How did you each get into manga in the first place?
Ann: I’ve been into manga for a long time, since around 10 or 11 years old, and got into it by reading manga that was available at my library mostly. I read a lot of old shoujo titles like Marmalade Boy, Tokyo Mew Mew and stuff like that. I found CLAMP stuff like Cardcaptor Sakura and Chobits so that’s kind of what got me into it. Then I discovered anime through that, and the rest–
The rest is history!
Ann: *laughs* yeah!
Andy: My first exposure was to anime because as a kid I saw the old Battle of The Planets. It was sort of a rehash of Gatchaman. And then there was Speed Racer and all the old stuff from the 60’s, older cartoons, and Astro Boy.
But then I got into manga specifically more in high school, junior high school, and I started reading — I think my first manga was Mai The Psychic Girl which, the art was amazing and the story was super cool. I was really enthralled.
But most of my experience was through anime because that was easier and more accessible for me because I grew up in a small town in Texas. I kind of didn’t really have a lot of manga — there was no way to get it *laughs* I don’t even think libraries carried manga. So I was looking for it through friends or either friends of friends. I was lucky enough that in high school a friend of mine was from Hawaii. He was able to bring over a lot of stuff and share it with me. So I have some Macross manga, some that were also taken from the anime. I was like “Oh my god this is great!” It was all just a big new world and it was really exciting.
I think most people get into manga after watching the anime because you see that first, right?
Andy: I think that’s even true today more than ever. You see it on Crunchyroll, the internet, it’s everywhere.
Ann: And everyone’s exposed to things like Sailor Moon and Pokemon as a kid.
Andy: Plus there’s a lot of video games too.
Ann: Yeah, especially now.
Andy: It’s like crossplatform too, so in some way you’re exposed to it.
What did each of you do that told you that graphic design was something you wanted to do as a career?
Ann: It’s interesting. It kinda dates back to middle school and into high school where I had an art teacher who used to be a graphic designer and brought a lot of graphic design type projects to the stuff we were doing in class. Like we had things like photoshopping yourself into a picture, fun stuff like that–
You still have that? *laughs*
Ann: I hope not!! *laughs*
But just stuff like that, just messing around with Adobe Illustrator and I found I really enjoyed that. So I thought maybe it would be something I want to do as a career. As a kid I liked writing, but I also liked images, and I find that graphic design is something that really combines both. So it’s sort of the best of both worlds.
Andy: I was always interested in art, but I thought I was going to be drawing comics when I was little. Then growing up and going to school I went to Parsons for illustration and graduated–
Ann: Wait! You went to Parsons?
Andy: Yeah.
Ann: Me too!
Andy: Whaaaaattttttt????
Ann: I didn’t know you went! That’s so funny!
What class, what class?
Andy: ’93! I went there for Illustration, and I only went there because, again, I come from a small town in Texas and I thought, “I gotta go to New York! I gotta go to New York! It’s so exciting!!! This is where I need to be!!!” And more than anything if I had known I would’ve gone to SVA or somewhere more comic specific because Parsons was, I kid you not is still a–
Andy and Ann: Fashion school.
Ann: It’s such a fashion school.
Andy: Even when I graduated with an Illustration they’re like, “Oh Parsons, oh yes you’re a fashion person.” And then professionally I started assisting designers because I couldn’t figure out how to make a living illustration wise. I just got to network and know designers that way and sort of learn most of my design skills on the job. Because even when I was in college there was a small computer lab. There wasn’t a lot of graphic design stuff for me to gain access to. And my classes were not in design per se, but essentially, illustration is a form of design. You’re constructing images on the page and communicating visually, so much of it is the same language. It wasn’t a complete waste! *laughs*
But the more you do, the more you learn. I ended up through my design career initially in fashion and ended up in publication. And eventually got into Hachette and now Yen Press.
And…I was gonna get into that–
Andy: I’m sorry!
Nah it’s fine *laughs* How did you each – actually, different question — did you think you’d be working in the manga industry?
Ann: No. *laughs*
Andy: No.
How did you then find out that you could?
Andy: Realistically it was only through my work with Hachette and as a part of Orbit that I was introduced to that possibility. I always wanted to work in comics since I was a little kid. So I was like, “I’ll end up at Marvel or DC!” Then I was like that’s a small part of comics, I got to know manga better by doing some work with them and seeing them more at YP. It…it was kind of more exciting to me in a way because the possibilities are huge. There’s always something new even though there are similar stories and tropes, but there’s always a new spin on something. It looks different. Marvel and DC tend to, although I still really love them, tend to follow paths. “You can’t step outside this box!” in my imagination that’s what I think.
They also seem to be doing a lot of reboots, right?
Ann: Yeahhhhhh.
Andy: Yeahhhh, I kind of got really mad with those companies. Like back in Zero Hour in the 90’s, that was my first experience and all the characters I really loved and started to follow, “poof, they’re gone!” *laughs* and I got really angry. “I can’t follow this anymore, I can’t deal!” So I kind of stopped my focus on reading those and looked elsewhere.
Ann: For me, in college kind of my nerd life and design career life were very separate. I didn’t consider them as anything that could come together. So when I graduated I’ve mostly done editorial magazine design and paged layouts and sort of serial publication designs. That’s kind of what I was looking to get a job in and so I looked at a lot of different publishers and ended up at some sort of job site that had all different types of publishers in New York.
Bookjobs?
Ann: Yeah! So what I would do is I would take the name of the publisher and go to their site and look at all the available jobs. I found Yen Press had an opening. I was like, “whaaatttt?” Because at that point I was, and still, a really big Black Butler fan so I was like, no way, they publish Black Butler—
Wait, wait, wait, wait. How big of a Black Butler fan are you?
Ann: A BIG fan. Like I’ve cosplayed the series–
Who’d you cosplay?
Ann: Ciel. *laughs* I’ve been reading it, not continuously I did take a break, but I started reading it in 2009, in 9th grade. I guess I sort of put it down but picked it up again in college. It all came rushing back to me vividly! I got heavily back into Black Butler, from the fandom to the discourse…cosplayed it, I– it’s funny, at New York Comic Con 2014 I met Tania (Tania Biswas, Editor at Yen Press) and we fangirled all together about Black Butler. I was in cosplay and she gave me her business card, and I always kept it. But I didn’t think anything would ever come of it until I began applying for the job and I was like, “Wait a minute…I have that person’s business card!”
So I emailed Tania and was like, “You probably don’t remember me” *laughs* “But yeah if you could pass this along to somebody that’d be great,” and I got called for an interview so I guess it worked out! It’s just so nuts!
I’m reminded of a story I think — I could be wrong — but I think for Crunchyroll, Miles Thomas (Senior Manager, Social and Editorial Programing) mentioned someone they hired was really passionate about the Sonic fandom–
Ann: *laughs*
So I guess the thing is —
Andy: WOW.
If you show you’re really passionate about something–
Ann: Yeah!
You’ll eventually break through…or show the companies you’re really dedicated. I guess in this case you professing your love of Black Butler and cosplaying, AND also meeting Tania and fangirling, that probably helped!
Ann: Yeah, it’s funny. And even growing up I’ve always liked YP manga a lot compared to other publishers. I like other publishers too and there are things that they do that I respect a lot. Seven Seas does a lot of yuri which I really like. But with YP I always felt like they did a faithful translation that’s faithfully produced and accurate. I even like when they took over Yotsuba!. I prefer the YP one to the old one…not to start controversy–
*sigh* oh boyyyyy. JUST what I needed.
Ann: *laughs* But yeah I was always sort of a YP fan. They had titles that attracted me, like historical stuff like Emma, Pandora Hearts, and Black Butler. But then fun stuff like Yotsuba&! & Haruhi.
“It’s kind of like a puzzle”
Justin: Ok, you guys are in the industry…but what exactly are you doing?
Andy: We kind of divide our attention between the light novels and the manga, and break the titles into groups. We sort of disperse them ourselves and take the original Japanese book and interpret it graphically. We have to redesign the logo, and sometimes redesign and repackage the book cover.
There’s three things we’re responsible for: logo designs, covers, and color inserts, which are sometimes the color artwork pages in the front or back, or sometimes in the middle of a book. We sort of have our hands on all of those. And in addition, we also design the promotional materials that go along with a title. Could be a web banner or a print ad–
Something you might see at like Comic-Con?
Andy: Yeah, like giveaways at our booth — buttons and posters, that’s the whole other side of the non-published book part of it that we are also doing.
So I can make sure about this — that your name. sign…it was either Anime NYC or NYCC, but there was a big your name. ad hanging up–
Andy: Oh yeah.
Ann: That was Wendy (Wendy Chan, Art Director at Yen Press).
Andy: Yeah she does all these things as well on top of managing us and doing other crazy…things!
Ann: Wendy’s amazing.
Andy: She’s like a superpowered magical woman. I cannot even imagine…
But yes, it could have been one of us as well. I’ve designed one of those banners. I’ve done a Sword Oratoria ones at NYCC and AX. We do big banners as well.
Ann: Did like a Vanitas one….yeah it’s fun to do those big, giant banners. And then see them in person!
Andy: Yeah.
Ann: It’s like really cool.
Andy: It’s like, “Oh my god it’s really that big!”
Ann: *laughs* yeah, that’s crazy.
Can only imagine how much planning goes into that.
Andy: Well there’s the design, and then there’s the part where you have to get it approved. That’s a big part of our job, as well as getting approval from the licensors. It’s very important to make them happy! But it’s a fun and rewarding experience because you get to…it’s kind of like a puzzle. You get all the pieces from the licensor, all the pictures, logos, and pieces, then re-arrange them and take them apart, then figure out how to make it work in a different format. That’s largely what I have fun doing.
Ann: Yeah it’s totally like a puzzle. I think that’s a really good way to describe it ’cause like, you have all the pieces and sometimes the original logo is two Kanji and you have to fit a LONG sentence into that space. *laughs* The language differences are really interesting to me design wise.
Andy: I can think of Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody. It’s kind of this nice Japanese graphic here, but then you try to write it in English, it’s just like this huge, big, long logo. It’s a big challenge to try and make it look the same, but have it make sense and make it legible.
Ann: You can see it went from vertical to horizontal obviously.
Andy: That’s another big part of it.
Ann: Yeah, as Japanese text is vertical and English text is horizontal, so you could cram Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody into this vertical space, but it would look pretty bad and unreadable.
Andy: Yeah, sometimes it might work. There’s this one title called Spirits and Cat Ears. That’s probably the most vertical I’ve made. But then you can restack it so it’s more horizontal. It sits in the same area so you still have to design it in a very thin space. That’s part of the puzzle of that one. So each book has its own challenge in a way.
Ann: Here’s another example of–
What was challenging about that?
Ann: For this one it was really interesting. This was one of the first logos I did! The original you can see is sort of like this framing device with the text and, first of all, it’s a really long title. Those are always challenging just ’cause it’s hard to fit a lot of text into one logo and make it look like one unit. This one was particularly challenging ’cause it’s these two lines of vertical text that frame the art in a really nice way in the original. So I wanted to keep that sense of framing going on in this one. But obviously we had to make the text horizontal, so instead we used these ribbon elements on the side that kind of tie into the heart. To kind of replicate that framing element.
And I imagine this gets reviewed, you get suggestions, etc. Has there been one title where you thought things were going well but then something changed?
Andy: *thinking* Hmmmm…I can’t say–oh yes, yes there was one!
Ann: *laughs*
Andy: I designed a whole logo, got it approved by everybody —
Ann: It was great, everyone was really happy.
Andy: And then all of a sudden we were like, “Nope, we wanna rename it!” This doesn’t happen often, but it’s like, “Dohhhhh!”
Ann: I felt really bad for you!
Andy: But then you’re just like, that’s kinda fun too. Even though most of the letters were hand done, it’s like ok, I’ll go back and do it.
But I think I like it better. It has more movement in it and I was able to fuss with it a little more and get it sorta perfect. So maybe it was a blessing in disguise.
I know you kind of got into it already, but what would you say is the role of a designer of manga and light novels?
Ann: There’s many things a designer for manga and light novels has to do. I think one thing that’s very important to me personally, and I think in general, is to be faithful to the original. A lot of the times, or almost all of the times, we’re not working from scratch. We’re working from an already existing book and I think fans in general don’t appreciate it very much when you change the source material drastically. Obviously you’re gonna make some localization changes and it’s true for anime too. If they change the source material too drastically, you could wind up with a not-so-great end product. So that’s one thing that’s important to me. Accurately portraying the story how it is originally but being accessible to US and English speaking readers.
One thing Wendy has brought up before that I think is really interesting too is trying to design not just for manga and anime fans, but also just trying to design for a wider market in general. So like maybe with books — maybe they typically wouldn’t pick up a comic book might pick it up and be interested in it. So that’s our goal, to get new readers, but to remain faithful to people who already love the genre.
Andy: Yeah I agree. I think that’s like tops, absolutely. You have existing fanbases and you still want to appeal to other fanbases too. A lot of these books have cross appeal, but it’s important to stick to the original material because it’s well done to begin with!
Ann: It is!
Andy: There’s a reason it’s done a certain way and it makes sense. Only very rarely do we make any changes.
Yeah I imagine for manga and LNs, English and JP are about the same, but there might have been a few where you have to come up with something new right?
Andy: Well I will say for Delicious in Dungeon I sort of added elements. Like utensils and a creature, dragony imagery into the logo part of it. Like in the original it didn’t really have any of that. It was just dungeony type lettering. But when I redesigned this one, I’m kind of a big Dungeons & Dragons freak to begin with. So it kind of spoke to me in that way, I sorta saw it in a certain way.
And speaking to cross appeal, this sort of explains to somebody more what perhaps this is about. I just think it helps explain things visually in a way that was different from the original. So that’s maybe one time there.
Just to point out, you say you’re crazy about that series right?
Andy: I LOVE THIS BOOK!
Ann: *laughs*
Andy: I mean before Yotsuba&!, and I was super crazy about Yotsuba&!, I thought nothing could be better. Until this book. I read Volume 4 and it just keeps getting better. I keep wanting to read more!
Look the only thing they do was defeat (spoiler) in that volume *laughs*
Andy: Oh no no! It gets far beyond that! It’s like the dungeon is alive, there’s an ecosystem, there’s a whole balance to everything. Like the way magic works makes sense. What it boils down to is a core group of friends that will do anything for each other and they go out of their way to save one of their comrades who had fallen (DiD note: the one who had fallen is named Falin) deep in the dungeon. That’s why they’re there in the first place. It’s just very endearing, truthful, and the whole cooking aspect is really quite funny but intelligently done. It’s almost like they making a breaded cutlet or something, but they’re using giant frog meat or–
They’re using living armor.
Andy: Or living armor, yeah. Or a slime. There’s all these crazy things, but then it’s like, “you know what? You can imagine that actually working!”
*shakes head vociferously*
Andy: Aw come on!
*laughs*
Ann: *laughs* no no no no no!
Andy: Well anyway, I’m just a fanatic about it.
I kinda figured that out because you did a post about the logo design right? Who came up with the idea? It’s usually rare to explain the process of that.
Andy: Well, we thought it would be something interesting that people would want to read. I think that’s what we try to do on our blog. Besides showing our new titles and what not, try and share what it is we’re doing. We’ve had other blog posts with editors sharing their experiences of a new title, and that’s part of the range of things that are included.
Ann, how was work on Val x Love?
Ann: Well it was interesting. For this one–
Andy: It’s kinda like an 80’s, like neon–
Ann: Yeah! So I had done a few logos by the time I came to work on this one. And this is a different genre than a lot of the others I had done. This is much more of a harem series. The premise is this one guy and nine Valkyries, who are sisters, and it’s kinda similar to our other series Hybrid x Heart where they get powered up by getting intimate with the main guy *laughs* So kinda a silly, ridiculous premise but the type of stuff that anime fans love.
But this was an interesting design challenge because the original logo is literally in this box. I did so many versions where the text was in the box in many different ways and many different fonts. I tried handwritten stuff, all kinds of different things, and it really just wasn’t working. It’s just that the original, these two Kanji fit so nicely, like so symmetrically in this x, the way that Val & Love can never do because yeah, it’s three letters and four letters.
So we just started trying different stuff. Wendy was like, “Just get rid of the box!” So I started doing something like this and wound up with this neon sign looking, 80’s rocker type of logo. Which I really like.
Andy: It’s fun.
Make sure you have the hearts in there too.
Ann: Yeah, gotta have the heart! *laughs*
How long did it take to do and get finalized?
Ann: From start to finish a couple of weeks? We often don’t have a huge time frame to work with for logos ’cause we’re on a tight publishing schedule. But with logos we show them at meetings to everyone, they give feedback, and in between that I’m always checking in with Wendy about them, she’ll give more feedback. So they go through multiple rounds, like Kurt (Kurt Hassler, Publisher, Managing Director of Yen Press) and JuYoun (JuYuon Lee, Deputy Publisher/Editor-in-Chief at Yen Press), they’ll have examples laid out and they’ll say “Oh I like that one but put this element in that one,” so we kind of have to mix and match.
Andy: From the first time you show a logo it’s usually about two to three weeks. If it’s a little sticker it can sometimes take a little longer, but definitely within those two to three weeks.
“Focus on honing your craft”
Justin: What’s the biggest challenge you face when designing a manga and LN series? Especially if you’re assigned to a long running series for example?
Ann: Bringing up the series aspect, that is something that can be challenging. You kind of have to think ahead and make sure your logos are versatile because something that works on volume 1 is not necessarily gonna work on 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. Even something like volume numbers, if you don’t know how long the series is gonna be. If it’s gonna get into the 20s or 30s and keep going forever and ever, sometimes you have to make sure your volume numbers will fit in the same spot to keep it consistent.
Andy: Sometimes you may have to break it apart or stack the logo a little differently. So it does help to sort of design your logo as a puzzle. When you’re doing your logo it looks great on a cover, but then wait, how does it look on the spine? You either gotta rotate it or maybe restack it. So that’s part of the craziness of it.
When it comes to light novels, we do what’s called sample pages, which is sort of giving an example of what the text layout of the interior would be. So we pick out fonts and sort of create the spacing in different types of styles that appear throughout the book. Like if there’s dingbats or illustrations or whatnot. Again, these are already dictated in the JP book. So we’re interpreting that in a way. That’s just another aspect of the job too.
I’m going to be doing the design for the Gun Gale LN, which started as a manga, but now we have the LN as well. So I might choose to play on the whole military aspect of it, choose fonts a little differently or…institutional kind of cool…I dunno quite yet because I haven’t done it *laughs* But it’s a project I’m about to start. But yeah, LNs have their own set of challenges.
What type of advice would you give to someone who might be interested in doing work as manga or light novel designer?
Ann: I would say be open about a lot of different options. Focus on honing your craft, really rather than specifically work in one industry. Like obviously it’s great if you love manga and stuff but it’s also really important to keep honing your craft in the meantime. As for getting into the industry, keep doing the things you love, like going to trade shows and cons. It’s a surprising way to network with people and meet them, which feels like you’re just being a nerd but you’re doing some useful stuff too!
Andy: Always keep looking around. If you have the ability to intern or volunteer, that’s a great way to kind of get your feet wet. Also, any sort of publishing would help. You still have to work on the schedule, deal with some of the same types of issues that come up, so just publishing in general is great. Manga and LNs is a much more specific part of the industry. And definitely follow your bliss, that’s gonna really motivate you. It’s a job so you gotta love it! There’s no easy way.
Ann: I guess you also want to stay on top of trends in the industry. Like when monster girls got really popular as a genre–
Now isekai’s getting popular as a genre.
Ann: Yeah, yeah. Food manga’s getting popular. Stuff like that, and that comes with reading lots of different types of manga.
Thanks to Yen Press for allowing the opportunity to go into their offices and chat with the design team. The interview has been edited slightly to condense and make clear some aspects.