This was a fun, challenging, and tedious project. Virtually every aspect of this year’s recipe book had been gone through with a fine-tooth comb and updated.
Newell, the parent company of Ball, wanted to freshen up the look and feel of the book this year. I was tasked with updating the fonts, creating a cover, updating the layout of photos inside, and directing the photo studio on how to shoot the product. With the approval of the CD, we presented everything that we wanted to do differently this year to Newell, and they gave the green light.
Over 200 pages of copy had to be edited, updated, replaced, and tweaked. I managed a freelancer to do that grunt work, while I could focus on actual design work for other clients in the meantime. Once he made his edits, I took over making final edits to the copy and changes from the client. I laid in new photography, cleaned up the design, and started making final print-production-ready changes.
While the design was being buttoned up, I had to find someone to create a new index for the book. I juggled managing her, working with the printer, and passing along info to the client, while still making changes to the book as the client found new things to change.
Normally, when I’m at an agency, I work through an account executive on our team. It keeps communication funneled and clean. However, with this project, I had to step up and communicate with everyone as we had multiple teams in various stages working on this project. They all relied on me, and I relied on them, so it made sense that I became the funnel.
After a long summer, the project was complete and this has been by far the biggest thing I’ve worked on. From managing freelancers, photographers, clients with their changes, external vendors, and the printer, and taking all that and making the design. It all went smoothly and even though some deadlines were missed outside of our control, I never missed our own original deadlines.
July 8, 2026
