A question about figuring out Art Director's contact information.

idid

I am submitting editorial illustrations to ADs. But it seems many ADs are hiding their contact information.

One example is the The Atlantic
On their website, there is no AD contact information. There is no information regarding art submission either.
So I googled and their AD is Peter Mendelsund, but there is no contact info on his personal website or his LinkedIn.

Apparently The Atlantic is using editorial illustrations, did I miss something here? (I'll go to the library to check out their physical copy, but I doubt there would be any illustration submission info.)

Thanks much for your help!

TheArtBard

Heyhey~ Yeah, finding emails takes forever - I highly recommend setting the table up with your laptop, puttin on some bumpin jams, and putting out a pot of coffee/tea, cause getting this kinda info takes time to find.

My methods:

Go to website of choice
Check out:

Contact Us page -> See their options
Our Team page -> Cntl + F "art director"
Submissions page -> Cntl+F "art submissions"
FAQ page -> Cntl+F "art submissions" or "art director"

3.a) If I still haven't found an email I'll look at their social media handles, specifically LinkedIn:

LINKEDIN: Company LinkedIn Page -> Employees -> Search "Art Director" -> Find names with the title of "Art Director at The Atlantic" -> Go to their LI page -> See their Contacts options -> Explore those options until you find an email.

3.b) If you don't feel like doing the social media search, you can purchase subscriptions to email retrieval engines, like Hunter.io.
.
4) If none of the above gets you info, purchase a recent edition of The Atlantic, go to the credits/staff page, find the name, google the name, specifically for articles they may have contributed to and possibly included their emails in.

There are lots of other ways about it, but they get more obscure and nuanced from here As an aside, I recall there being a $60 somethin book out there that LISTS the contact info of folks in the publishing industry. It's updated yearly as employees in these workplaces tend play musical chairs between companies. If I remember this book, I'll hit ya back up.

Good luck! You got this!
Best,
Shani

TheArtBard

@theartbard
Here's a link to the info LinkedIn gave me when I searched The Atlantic's LinkedIn Page for "Art Directors"
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-atlantic/people/?keywords=Art Director

xin li

Maybe your agent can help out with this? It might be worth just asking if she/he has some connections in the editorial world, even if she/he is a literary agent.

I remember the pain of hunting down the email address for editors and art directors for children's book publishing before I have an agent. I remembered that it was very time-consuming doing it via google and social media.

davidhohn

@idid If the AD is "hiding" their e-mails it's because they don't want e-mail submissions.

So don't work too hard to find an AD's e-mail because all that hard work may just end up being viewed as "spam".

You've gotten some great advice above, for finding an e-mail that might be placed somewhere on a company website (don't even bother with personal websites) that you accidentally missed. But if it seems abnormally hard to find an e-mail there's an old standby that hasn't yet been mentioned:
Call the receptionist at the magazine and publisher, tell them: "I'm an illustrator interested in submitting to [Name of Publication]. Who would be the appropriate person to send a postcard or send jpeg samples to?"

That will typically result in some kind of a contact for your mailing list OR they'll tell you "not accepting submissions". Either of which will allow you to move forward in a professional manner.

idid

@theartbard Thank you! That's super helpful. I tried hunter.io, and found Peter Mendelsund's email there. I was also able to verify this email address by simply googling it, and on a certain book review website, there listed his professional email address.

I'll also try other approaches you suggested.

BTW, is "Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market 20XX" the book you mentioned?

Thanks much!

idid

@xin-li Thanks for your suggestion, Xin! I can ask my agent, she's very nice, but I doubt she would have any information on magazines and newspaper editors though. I'll give it a quick try when I speak with her the next time. Asking questions in phone is a lot easier then email sometimes.

idid

@davidhohn You made a good point!

I also talked to a friend this afternoon, she said some ADs' got the passion to search for talents by themselves, through contests such American Illustrators, SOI, and channels like Behance or "It's nice that!" Some just don't want to be bothered at all ...

Calling the company is a great idea. I'll definitely try it. At least I can have a better idea if they want any illustrator submission or not.