In this Q&A, we sat down with Samar Habib, a distinguished creative multimedia designer based in London who brings 25 years of high-profile publishing industry experience to the table. With an impressive career spanning both in-house multimedia design and running his own successful design agency for the past 15 years, Samar has become a powerhouse in the publishing world. His work has earned numerous accolades, including the inaugural Freelancer of the Year award at the FutureBook Awards and he’s been instrumental in creating award-winning campaigns such as the British Book Awards Marketing Strategy of the Year winner ‘Yellowface’.

A versatile creative force, Samar’s portfolio showcases his expertise across various media platforms, from traditional poster campaigns to cutting-edge digital and social media initiatives. He’s designed campaigns for literary giants like James Patterson and Lisa Jewell, as well as cultural icons including Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl and Al Pacino. Beyond his creative achievements, Samar is a dedicated advocate for diversity and inclusion in the publishing industry, frequently sharing his insights at prestigious events like the Bookseller Marketing and Publicity Conference and the Black Writers Guild Conference.

1. You have a long-established career as a multimedia designer. How did you get into your profession? And did you always know you wanted to go freelance?

I have worked as a multimedia designer for twenty five years. My first role as a designer was for a company called Collins & Brown (now owned by HarperCollins) – a publisher that had set up an internet division during the dotcom era.

After leaving university in 1997, I studied graphic design for a further couple of years. I always enjoyed painting and drawing and recognised that the move to digital art could, potentially, become a profitable skill.

This was around the time that Steve Jobs made his famous return to Apple and kick-started the iMac revolution, alongside the ‘exciting new world’ that the burgeoning expansion of the internet promised. Remember 56k modems? The excitement around the internet was palpable and was, clearly, the dawning of a new world for us kids of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

As with most students of design, friends and family provided ample opportunities for work experience – some paid and some unpaid. I remember designing gig flyers and invites for a local print bureau, The Print Consultancy, and with them I learned so much about print and the printing process. This was before the mass use of digital printing, when we used to design two-colour flyers to save costs! Ultimately, I think that education, coupled with real-life work experience, during a time when designers had to be brutally economical – with budgets, with printing, file-handling and with data (my first Mac had 6GBs of hard drive space and Photoshop didn’t yet have layers or a History palette!) – was a fantastic grounding for me.

The excitement around the internet was palpable and was, clearly, the dawning of a new world for us kids of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

I spent a few years working as a graphic designer for a music company, Sanctuary Records, before joining Headline Publishing in 2005.

I honestly believe that most designers become designers with the idea that ‘I can work for myself, from anywhere, for anyone’ and that is a huge pull for a lot of people. The idea of going freelance has always felt like an option.

I eventually went freelance after leaving Headline and set up Ascetic Studios in 2011. I felt, then, that I had the skills and ability to do so. The first thing I did was to contact all of my friends and colleagues in the publishing industry to let them know I was setting up on my own.

2. Over that period, how has the industry changed in regards to design tastes, professional practices and expectations from creative partners and clients?

I first started using a Mac in 1993, in the first year of my degree, back in the days of Aldus FreeHand and PageMaker – does anyone remember those? If you learned on those applications, life would go on to become progressively easier with each technological advancement.

I’m the type of person who, when I become interested in something, can easily become obsessed and absorbed by it. I used to subscribe to a number of magazines at the time – Computer Arts, ‘Design Week’ and Mac User – and would read them religiously and practice all of the computer arts tutorials.

Without even talking about the introduction of AI, there have been massive technological advances over the last twenty five years: from using Photoshop 2 and 2.5 without layers to now having the ability to create broadcast-quality video content on your own desktop machine, which once required an entire production suite to create.

The proliferation of international media has massively raised expectations and affected design tastes. When briefed on a particular campaign, marketers are as likely to reference ‘World Cinema’ film trailers as they are competitors’ book titles and campaigns. All of this serves as a great driver in trying to match the sort of quality you’d expect from big-budget studios, which in turn pushes you to work harder and continuously upskill your abilities.

A few years ago, I was asked by a marketer at HarperCollins to animate a camera around a 3D packshot I’d created in Cinema 4-D. I eventually managed to get the camera to ‘swoop in’ as needed but I remember thinking, ‘I really need to upskill my 3D capabilities.’ I then enrolled on a six-month 3D animation course that now allows me to create 3D worlds which have massively improved my final output.

I honestly believe that most designers become designers with the idea that ‘I can work for myself, from anywhere, for anyone’ and that is a huge pull for a lot of people. 

3. Do you think the industry could do more to recognise the value that freelancers bring to it?

Firstly, I need to stress that everyone in publishing is really stretched. I know that from personal experience and also from the experience of so many of my peers. Considering this, I don’t think the prior ‘lack of recognition’ has been wilful or deliberate.

However, I do think that Covid and the increase in remote work did help to open people up to the experience of freelancing. It can be quiet; it can be isolating; it can be lonely. And also, it can feel thankless. Freelancers don’t sit in on company meetings, and therefore they don’t have access to week in, week out positive feedback loops, hence any recognition is gratefully appreciated.

When ‘Yellowface’ won the Marketing Strategy of the Year Award at the 2024 British Book Awards, I was genuinely moved to tears when Abbie Salter, collecting the award, name-checked me in her acceptance speech. I do think there is a growing effort to acknowledge the work and the value that freelancers bring to publishers. The introduction of the Freelancer of the Year Award at last year’s FutureBook conference was a great moment for so many people – not just for myself, having won it, but for so many of my friends who were fellow nominees.

I do think that Covid and the increase in remote work did help to open people up to the experience of freelancing.

4. Most of us can recognise and appreciate an exceptional design. But many of us aren’t familiar with the amount of work it takes in the background to achieve that level of quality and originality. What would you like people to know about the unseen creative process? 

What a brilliant question! I gave a talk at last year’s Bookseller Marketing and Publicity Conference where I showed the design process of one of Lucy Foley’s marketing campaigns and the amount of drafts it took to get to the final creative product. 

Designing a campaign like this – one that takes in print, video and digital design – takes a wealth of skill, knowledge and ability. It requires many soft skills too, such as the ability to work within a team (whilst, technically, sitting outside the team), managing deadlines and maintaining great working relationships throughout.

I would really love for people to know what is involved in designing a comprehensive campaign like, for example, the James Patterson campaigns, which span TV, print, digital and social media. 

For the print elements of a campaign – such as for the four-sheet and twelve-sheet National Rail or London Underground posters – designers typically use at least five individual applications: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Acrobat, and perhaps a 3D modelling app. Once designed, a designer needs a good understanding of the file types, specifications, the printing process and colour matching. For example, how to preserve font scaleability in Photoshop when designing to scale, and which file format to use when saving files.

The same applies to video production. A designer will need in-depth knowledge of Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere, Adobe Audition, Adobe Media Encoder, any 3D modelling or animation apps that they’re using, along with skills such as how to synchronise video to audio, how to colour-grade footage, how to create and texture 3D models and how to animate them in real-world settings. Once complete, a designer will also need a comprehensive understanding of rendering processes and video file formats, which can vary from region to region and from platform to platform.

For digital advertising, a designer will need to know how best to design HTML5 animations and how best to create animated GIFs. And again, a designer will need to have a thorough understanding of file types and file formats – why, for instance, it might be better to save files as GIFs over JPGs and vice versa.

I’m not sure that everyone is aware of the depth of knowledge that is required to create a 360-degree campaign like the ones I’ve mentioned. And yet, there’s always room to grow, to develop and to keep learning. That’s also a key takeaway I would want everyone to have: always be open to learning.

5. What makes a marketing campaign an excellent one, in your opinion?

A great marketing campaign, in my opinion, is one that squeezes and squashes the overall narration and tone of a book down to the smallest amount of moving parts – whether that’s a brilliant tagline, iconography, imagery or even a distinguishable colour. We’re all trying to hit our audience with the clearest message in the simplest, most digestible way. We’re all aiming for that McDonald’s ‘I’m Loving It’ whistle – a campaign where McDonald’s was able to communicate their brand without even using words. If you’re in your car and you hear that whistle on the radio, you immediately know what the advert is for. That is the pinnacle of marketing to me.

I was blessed to work on the campaign for R. F. Kuang’s ‘Yellowface’. Great cover art makes a marketing designer’s job that much easier. This front cover was definitively iconic – the highly suspicious yet coquettish eyes set on the bright yellow background with the provocative title. The campaign didn’t need to overcomplicate; it just needed to draw people further into it. One of my favourite elements of the campaign is the short ‘Odd One Out’ animation which, I think, perfectly encapsulates the tone of the book, with some of its comedic air.

6. In a field of work that is so subjective, in your view, how does the collaboration between designer and publisher/author work best?

I’m genuinely lucky to work with some of the best marketers in UK publishing. Long-term relationships and the fostering of those relationships help to build better dialogue, with honesty and trust.

The marketers I work with usually brief in pretty similar ways – providing me with key points about the book and often sending copies of proofs or finished covers for reference, along with comparative titles and campaigns, sales expectations and target markets. As part of the briefing process, I do prefer to meet – in person or on Zoom – at the beginning of any given campaign as I find it always helps clarify the brief and the client’s expectations. I also think that looking at a variety of alternative design ideas helps identify what may or may not work and enables us to chip away at various approaches until all parties and stakeholders are satisfied.

7. Design might be thought of as simply one part of the publishing process, but it’s also defining the branding for the book, fundamental to attracting readers and can significantly enhance its promotional campaign. To what extent can designers impact the commercial strategy? How can designers work effectively with collaborators so this works effectively?

I honestly believe that book marketing is the most important element of the book’s journey. I know… I would say that! But the marketing campaign typically is the first time an audience is introduced to the book, way before they’ve even seen the book in a shop.

I honestly believe that book marketing is the most important element of the book’s journey.

In terms of how a campaign can impact commercial strategy, on at least two recent campaigns, I have designed outdoor posters – both for the same big brand author, coincidentally – that were then used as the basis for the design of the paperback versions of the book, released a year later.

8. What have been some of your career highlights?

I feel incredibly lucky to have worked in publishing for as long as I have, so I’ve had quite a few career highlights. One of my early ones was designing the Headline’s marketing conference in my very first year working there. Because I was able to create video content, it completely transformed the way the company would present its conferences. Gone were the clunky PowerPoint presentations and in came forty-minute all-singing, all-dancing audiovisual broadcast-quality presentations screened in cinemas across multiple locations. One year, the company hired the Hippodrome nightclub to host its conference with directors coming up on a dry-ice, smoke-filled stage to present one of my video presentations to a room full of staff, international buyers, authors and agents. That was pretty spectacular!

I’ve also worked on a number of British Book Award-nominated campaigns, including for books such as Bruce Springsteen’s memoir, ‘The Anatomy of A Scandal’, ‘Girl A’ by Abigail Dean and Dave Grohl’s autobiography, ‘The Storyteller’. Of course, designing the campaign for last year’s winner, ‘Yellowface’, was particularly special.

9. How is the creative process for design evolving in the publishing space?

I think, and hope, that publishers understand that they are not necessarily competing with each other. What they are competing for is the buyer’s attention in a world of Netflix, podcasts and music streaming. 

Netflix, in particular, has been a great driver in terms of design inspiration and ambition. From trailers to poster artwork and social media advertising, they have pushed publishers to become more creative and to create more sophisticated artwork and campaigns.