Interview with Andrea Reider

Andrea Reider is a freelance book design and layout artist. She turned her energy to photography and have a large body of work focusing in two areas: landmark buildings and sites in Los Angeles. We have conducted an interview with her.

What kind of book design and layout services do you provide on a freelance basis?

As a book designer and layout artist I work mostly with publishers and self publishing authors. I've been a freelancer for over 20 years, and unlike today, there were very few authors publishing their own books in the early days.

I was an English major at the University of Michigan when I got my first job managing a typesetting shop in Ann Arbor. I loved everything about working with type and layout and still do. I moved to San Francisco two years later and the Macintosh was exploding with popularity. I worked for many firms and then got a freelance job with Addison-Wesley Publishing. And that was it. Twenty years later and I'm still working for book publishers.

There have been many highlights in my work but I place working for the Smithsonian Press at the top of the list.

Which book genre(s) do you focus on?

I've worked on every type of book imaginable, from textbooks to bibles. Lots of biographies and business titles.

How many key landmark buildings and sites are there in Los Angeles? How many percent have you cover so far?

There are dozens of landmark buildings in Los Angeles. I've made a lot of progress!

Which kind of photography is your strength?

I have a good sense of color, space, and composition.

How did you first discover about the hummingbirds?

The hummingbirds come to my second-story balcony feeder. I was working with auto-focus at first. Major improvements came with manual focus.