New York art director returns to where it began

Jeff Burch graduated from Wintec with a Bachelor of Arts and within two days he found himself in Sydney in pursuit of a job in publishing.

That attitude has seen him become a New York art director, and he returned this week to speak to a packed 150 strong audience at Wintec Spark festival on Monday.

Burch, originally from the United States, grew up in Mount Maunganui where his father was a professional photographer.

He talked about his parents putting him through various art classes growing up as well as working in dark rooms with his father, which helped him develop his passion for art.

Burch says that he always saw himself working more in photography and film, and using design to package that, which is how he got into publishing and editorials.

The newly graduated Burch was very interested in a fashion magazine called “doingbird” in Australia that he worked hard to become a part of.

“I probably called them every week for three months until they got sick of me hassling them, then they took a meeting with me.”

While at doingbird, Burch was doing small jobs to help out, but he was not earning enough so he would work jobs in kitchens and waiting tables to get by, until he ended up with full-time work at Vogue Australia.

After working as an art director in Sydney for almost five years, Burch made the move to New York to work for Visionaire Publishing in 2010.

Since then he has been working as an art director in New York for Visionaire publishing, AR New York, and now Condé Nast.

While at Spark festival, Burch is offering professional portfolio critiques to anyone who registers on the Spark website.

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