With SND 45 in the books, board member Martina Ibáñez-Baldor set out to ask this year’s winners about their portfolios and tips for the rest of us. Katty Huertas, Senior Designer at The Washington Post, was a finalist for World’s Best Designer in the SND 45 digital competition.
What is your current job title, and how long have you been in that role?
I’ve been designing at The Washington Post since 2021. In 2023, I got promoted to Senior Designer and have been in that role since then. I mostly design and illustrate for our travel section and also occasionally help with features and audio projects.
What do you love about designing for digital?
I love how versatile it is, how you can create iterations for different screen sizes, and how it allows the reader to interact with it. Don’t get me wrong; I also love print, but with digital design, you can gain more insight into how readers are responding to your work. This makes the design feel alive since it can be personalized to the reader. I also love animation because it adds another layer of magic to illustrations, and that’s something you can only experience digitally.
Which of these project was the most challenging?
Field Trip was a challenging but very rewarding project from 2023. It had many moving parts, but I really enjoy working across platforms and taking a project through to the finish line. For the podcast, I designed, illustrated, and animated the main key art, and also created individual art for each episode.
As part of this package, I also designed 5 digital photo essays to showcase photography-driven love letters to the five featured National Parks, showcasing images taken by our in-house photographers. For these, I worked very closely with our photo editors and with fellow designer Garland Potts, who helped with the development of the pages. The project also included a special print section for which I adjusted the key art illustration and translated the digital presentations to print. Additionally, we published guides to three of the parks, Yosemite, Glacier, and Everglades, and I got to commission and art direct lettered pieces from local artists for each place. Working with native bead artist Karis Jackson on the Glacier piece was definitely a highlight of the project. Lastly, I also got to design the social media assets to promote the podcast.
What do you feel is the most important part of your design process?
For me, the most important part is the pre-design time, when you’re just playing, gathering inspiration, and have not committed to anything. I like to start with big and sometimes silly ideas and pare down if necessary. I’m very grateful that my team and editors are not only open but actually encourage thinking big when it comes to visually creative ideas. Once you’ve played and sketched enough, I think at that point it’s important to commit and push through since time is not always on our side and we’re often dealing with short deadlines.
What is your favorite piece in your portfolio from this year?
This year, I got to design the landing page and new episode art for another podcast, “Try This.” While the podcast’s first two seasons came out last year, we published a landing page to hold all of the courses earlier this year. More seasons are still coming out for which I’m currently illustrating the key art. I enjoy working on branding projects as I feel they make me use different parts of my brain since they need to encapsulate the whole product rather than just a story.
Another one from this year that I had a lot of fun working on and that was a bit of a different way of storytelling was this game I pitched and designed about finding contraband in bags and while playing to be a TSA agent.
As for illustrations, this animated squirrel I got to draw is one of my favorites of 2024 so far.
What advice would you give to designers who are looking to improve their portfolios?
I think portfolios should not only reflect what you’re good at but also what you want to do more of and what your interests are. People will hire you to do similar stuff to what you showcase in it. I think having a curated portfolio is important too. You don’t need to add everything you’ve ever made, which I know can be quite tempting when you’re starting out.