There was just one exception, towards the end of the Covid pandemic. She phoned the office on a Monday afternoon, feeling dreadful, barely able to stand. Worse still, she had Covid and was contagious. For maybe thirty seconds, we considered looking for a replacement – and then abandoned the idea. Even if we could find someone at such short notice, putting together the newspaper would be a monumental task. Simone knew Observant inside and out. She knew which fonts to use, and where each section and column belonged. She understood that a news story should look different from a feature article, and could quickly create a small illustration when needed. She understood how things worked at the office – and she worked fast. She simply couldn’t be replaced at the last moment. That week, there was no printed edition of Observant.
Melancholy
We’re sitting at her kitchen table in Maastricht on a Monday afternoon. There are only two more printed editions of Observant to go. The farewell drinks have been planned, and now there’s this interview. It makes her a little melancholy, she says. She’s going to “miss it terribly”. She will continue making illustrations for Observant, but the layout work had been “an anchor” for her. “It gave structure to my week. I’m self-employed, but Wednesday was always my day working away from home. I planned holidays around the production schedule. I feel completely at ease with the editorial team. I’m treated with respect and genuine interest. There’s a real sense of humanity here, which is quite special.”
She was 27 when she was invited to apply for the role. She was already creating illustrations for Observant and didn’t expect to be called in for a formal interview. “I was completely lost for words. It felt awkward. I was just starting out, doing illustrations for several publications and painting murals for cafés, but I’d never worked as a graphic designer before. I just threw myself into it.” She laughs: “Pure impulsiveness.”
A wandering mind
She never stopped to think that having dyslexia might be an issue when working with letters and words. “I hadn’t realised that I’d sometimes have to type captions or bits of text myself. For me, a newspaper is more about layout than text.” It occasionally caused difficulties, “especially when someone was looking over my shoulder – it makes you self-conscious. I always look at the keyboard when I type, and my mind tends to wander. Then I look back at the screen and see there’s a mistake somewhere, but I can’t immediately see what’s wrong. I usually just type the word again, and then I spot it.”
Golob went to the Academy of Arts Maastricht, spent six months on an exchange in Prague and completed a course in Brussels. She is an artist, creating what she describes as “little icons and paintings on small wooden panels”, and works for a loyal client base, designing advertisements, illustrations and brochures.
Did she ever feel that newspaper design was beneath her? “Not at all. I love the variety. Making an illustration is always stressful; you start with a blank screen and go searching, never quite knowing where you’ll end up. Designing a publication is different: you work within a clear framework, with fixed columns, typefaces, page layouts and recurring sections. That structure is reassuring. It’s wonderful, creative work. And I’ve always been given a lot of freedom at Observant – I’m encouraged to experiment, and I haven’t often been told to rein things in.”
The front page – the eye-catcher, the first thing readers see – tends to be a bit of a puzzle. “The quicker I have an idea, the better. Otherwise, I spend too much time fiddling with it and it starts to feel forced.” She says she had more freedom in her early years at Observant, especially when it came to illustrations. “It was such a valuable learning experience, very stimulating. Over the past ten years, things have become a bit more directive. I like learning the essence of a story and then developing an illustration from that. I don’t like to be handed a ready-made idea – it limits me. I like to let my imagination run free.”
A typical Simone Golob layout
Asked what defines a typical Simone Golob layout, she pauses. “That’s a difficult question.” Then: “If you covered a wall with my work, you’d see a clear pattern. Very clean, nothing unnecessary, no clutter, never boring, lots of imagery and colour. In short, simple and playful”, much like her illustrations. The conversation turns to Geert Setola, who used to do news design for Observant many years ago: “Geert was my mentor and picture editor when I was working for APG/ABP. I rarely get pushback on my illustrations, but Geert always challenged me. It was never right the first time. He pushed me to explore further and dig deeper. The same was true of Tim Hunt, director of Ikon Images in London. I learnt so much from them. I get feedback at Observant too, but it’s different when it comes from fellow designers.”
Every Wednesday she sits in the smallest room in the office, working on an Apple computer. “Technology has changed so much over these few decades. In the early years, the computer would crash regularly. We’d lose everything and have to start again from scratch.” She recalls sending the newspaper to the printer by telephone line. “Now, it takes five minutes on a computer. Back then, it took at least an hour and a half. But the paper itself has remained much the same – news, recurring sections, columns.” Asked what the hardest part of those 27 years was, she falls silent again. “Nothing. We always found a solution together.”
Olive oil
What’s next for her? “I’ll finally have more time for my own work – my little icons. And I want to take a more structured approach to learning Greek.” It only makes sense, given that she and her Dutch-Greek husband are spending more and more months a year in Greece. They have a house there and have started importing olive oil and honey, sourced directly from local farmers, to the Netherlands. “I do the social media and photography and design the labels, packaging and brochures. And I handle the marketing. I’ve stumbled into it in that same impulsive way. We’ll see where it leads.”