Robert Newman is the creative director of This Old House. He has been the creative director of Real Simple and Reader’s Digest, and the design director of Entertainment Weekly, New York, Details, Vibe, Inside, The Village Voice, and Guitar World. He was also the editor of The Rocket, a music and culture magazine based in Seattle.
Newman has been the consulting creative director for AARP magazine, Cottage Living, and O, the Oprah magazine. He led the creative team that redesigned TV Guide, and has been responsible for shaping the visual direction of numerous other publications. At Reader’s Digest he led the launch of app editions for both the iPad and Kindle Fire, and worked as creative consultant on the launch of the Adweek app. In 2014-15 Newman led the team that created and launched iPad and mobile apps for Fast Company.
Newman has worked with a wide array of magazines and newspapers, consulting on issues ranging from staffing to cover design to overall art direction. He has ongoing clients in publication design, app creation, book design, and more. He most recently partnered with Don Morris Design on a complete redesign for 14 regional editions of Your AAA for Northeast AAA.
Newman and his teams have won over 500 design awards and medals. In 2004, he and his staff at Real Simple were named by Advertising Age magazine as the Creative Team of the Year. In 2012 he was listed on the Folio: 40, as one of “the industry’s most innovative and distinguished professionals.” Newman was awarded the Richard Gangel Art Director Award in 2014 from the Society of Illustrators “for outstanding contributions in promoting and advancing the art of illustration.” In 2015 he was named to the min Editorial and Design Hall of Fame.
He is past president of the Society of Publication Designers, has been a guest lecturer at the Poynter Institute, and speaks regularly to groups and conferences about publication design, art direction, app creation, branding, and more. He writes and blogs frequently for a variety of online sites, and has an active social media presence with the popular Newmanology Facebook and Tumblr pages, and his @newmanology Twitter feed. Newman lives on the Upper West Side in New York City with his daughters Ivy and Lillian Curry.
[Photograph by Steven Freeman]