The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Hilary Greenbaum
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The Soft Labor Questionnaire
The Soft Labor Questionnaire, is simply that: A brief series of questions we’ve asked comrades in the field to answer about their own working experiences. Would you like to respond to the Soft Labor Questionnaire? Go right ahead and do so.
Today's respondent is Hilary Greenbaum. Hilary is a New York‐based creative director, designer, and writer, currently serving as Director of Graphic Design and Brand Creative at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Since 2012, she’s overseen the museum’s visual identity across digital, print, and environmental platforms. Before joining the Whitney, she worked as a staff designer and design columnist at The New York Times Magazine, where she launched the column “Who Made That?”. She holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, and has taught design at NYU, Parsons, and Johns Hopkins. Her work has been recognized by D&AD, AIGA, TDC, among others.
Tell us about the first job you ever did for money.
During my senior year of high school I worked at the front desk of a local florist, Angelone's in Raritan, New Jersey. I kept the shop clean, processed FTD orders, made bouquets, dethorned rose stems, and generally worked the cash register for all purchases.
Is your current work related to what you studied in school? If so, how? Or, how not?
I have two degrees in graphic design and I still practice graphic design.
What cultural touchpoint—music, art, literature, etc.—has informed your practice the most? How?
Honestly, post-modernism. Not necessarily the aesthetic, but the acceptance that there is a multitude of ways that design can be and that the personal or local does not have to be sacrificed to be universally understood.
What is the most rewarding aspect of working in your industry? The most challenging?
Rewarding: Seeing something you've made out there in the world. That never gets old for me. Challenging: Compromise without the result feeling compromised.
Has AI impacted your work? How?
So far, the infatuation with the concept of it has devalued individual creativity which is playing out in the job market, but time will tell what is gained and what is lost with a wider adoption of AI.
What advice would you give to someone starting a career in your industry?
Don't specialize. Learn all the things and do all the things. It will help you understand how design contains a multitude of outputs and also how you can create concepts that break beyond those outputs alone.
What are you obsessed with that has little-to-nothing to do with "work"?
Food waste. Our household is trying to minimize it as much as possible. Not work, but definitely "creative."
