I'm Maren. I design identities for small studios, shops and presses, and editorial systems for magazines and book series. Most of what I make ends up in print: a masthead, a shelf label, a 96-page issue.
I learned the job in two places. At Marrow & Bone [Sample], a Brooklyn interiors studio, I spent four years drawing logos and setting price lists for clients with small budgets. At Heron Press [Sample] I was the only designer for four years, setting four issues a year with an editor who cut anything that didn't help the reader. Both taught me to make fewer things and make them hold up.
I went independent in 2018. These days I take on about six projects a year. An identity runs four to eight weeks and ends with a guide the next designer can work from. An editorial system covers the grid, the InDesign styles, a typesetting spec and, when it's needed, a new masthead. I also keep three advisory clients on retainer, founders who ship design work every week and want a second pair of eyes.
How I work
I ask for a written brief before any call, because a few paragraphs tell me more about a project than a mood board does. Then I keep one project in the foreground at a time and send a written status note every Friday: what shipped, what's open, what comes next.
I talk clients out of ideas that look good in a deck and print badly. A cover with a full-bleed photo on uncoated stock, a wordmark that falls apart at 12 pixels, a typeface whose license doesn't cover the web. Better to have that conversation in week two than at the printer.
Every identity and editorial project closes with a handoff: the files, the spec or guide, and an hour with whoever will use them. Heron Press set issues 14 and 15 on their own from that document.