Meet Charles Hively | Founder & Design Director, 3×3, The Magazine of Contemporary Illustration

We had the good fortune of connecting with Charles Hively and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Charles, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I moved to New York in 1999, coming from a very successful career in advertising in Houston, Texas. It took a bit of time to find work and eventually went to work for a branch of the Mullen Agency in North Carolina as Vice President, Creative Director, commuting back and forth on two out of the four weekends. When Mullen lost the major account I was working on I returned to NYC and after a month or so found work in a B2B Ad agency. Then 9/11 happened and everything in the industry dried up, fortunately I had an acquaintance at Graphis magazine who offered me a job as co-publisher. I had started out as an illustrator before moving into design and advertising and wanted to feature more illustrators in Graphis, meeting some resistance, I decided to strike out on my own and start a magazine specifically targeted to the area of contemporary illustration. While the newsstands are filled with magazines about photography and fine art, there was only one other publication talking about illustration and it was featuring the work of illustrators in the 1930s, 40s, 50s—no one was talking about what was currently going on the market so I founded 3×3, The Magazine of Contemporary Illustration in August 2003, we’re celebrating our 20th year in business. And to be honest, the new firm allowed me to not worrry about ageism, advertising tends to be a young person’s game. Though I have owned two advertising agencies and if I had continued that path, I wouldn’t have had to worry either.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
As any toddler, I was fascinated with mark-making and my feeling is that we are all artists in the beginning, only a few of us continue on that path. I was fortunate to attend a correspondence school that my parents could barely afford which gave me the basics of drawing, painting, and its application in illustration. I won recognition from their monthly magazine featuring leading students in the program, I got a couple of freelance opportunities early on while still in high school. In college, I first majored in business but quickly moved to the fine art program, found a job working in the art department at a CBS affiliate doing all the grunt work, but before I moved to Austin I was given the front cover of the TV section promoting the new season. Arriving in Austin, I found there were no openings at any television stations, but across the street from one was an ad agency that had an opening. Again, doing the pre-press work, very little design, no illustration until I was given an assignment to draw the state capitol building which fortunately I could see out my studio window in downtown Austin. I was terribly ill at the time, thought for sure the drawing I did wouldn’t fly, yet it was accepted and then I began to do more illustration at the agency and freelance work in town. After graduation I opened an advertising agency with two partners and illustration again played a big part since most of our clients were just starting out and illustration—especially since I could do it—was more affordable. After a few years I moved to Houston to work in a big agency and then onto the best creative agency in town—I didn’t succeed there at all. Being burned-out I took off the year catching up on my reading of design publications, landed a part-time job with Rice University on their alumni publication and was able to make as much as the ad agency and yet work only six weeks every three months. I did find out that there was an opening at a rough-and-tumble ad agency, applied for the job and stayed for thirteen years. I was always being pushed to do different things, i.e. package design which I didn’t have any experience in, my first package design was featured in the top package designs of that year. The same thing happened in a small-space Help Wanted ad and a trade show design. I did mostly print work there but got a chance to do television commercials after the agency was bought out by a large New York agency, not ready to go to New York at that time I started my second ad agency with a partner. My partner had worked for the same firm but had gotten a job with a regional ad agency whose owner was ready to retire so we basically bought the agency though lost all the clients except one that first year due to my insistence on doing top-quality creative. We pressed on, finding products or services that we felt could use help and gradually grew our agency to a $10-million firm. We were the creative darlings of Houston, winnning major awards, getting lots of press including stories in the New York Times ad column. One of the highlights was taking a small-town salad dressing, Brianna’s, into national prominence by simply doing a new package design. We promoted new offerings for the Metropolitan Transit Authority which were wildly successful and landed the Subway Sandwiches account producing an ad campaign that culminated in the highest response of any campaign they’d seen in their 30-year experience. So unbelievable that they sent a team from headquarters to see what was going on. We were known as a creative hot shop, but we were diligent in researching a new account and giving them what they needed not necessarily what they wanted. We were honest and passionate about our approaches to any marketing problem, presenting a united front in our presentations while I would be having sleepless nights before the campaign broke always relieved and delighted at the results. I never did an ad that I didn’t believe in and I have carried that forward into everything I’ve worked on. I can be stubborn to the point of conflict, yet in my heart I know that is the right path. Clients would tell us that all the other agencies just gave them what they asked for, while we gave them what they needed. And even today with portfolio reviews or webinars I always give the audience an honest evaluation on where they are at and how to succeed in their field. It has never been easy and has come at great personal loss. I’ve had two major bleeding ulcers, been divorced three times and had both business and personal bankruptcies. But have always taken heart that when one door closes another opens.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I have to admit that both Sarah and I are not the most outgoing people. We spend most of our time together and have managed to not take the office home with us. We do enjoy living in New York and try to get into the city from Brooklyn to see new shows at MoMA, the Met, Whitney, Morgan Library, Guggenheim, Cooper-Hewitt, the Drawing Center and other shows we want to see as well as galleries in Chelsea. We would most likely take the person to at least three major shows depending on their interests. That’s what’s wonderful about New York, there’s so much variety, if they were interested in something specific there will be a museum or gallery that they would enjoy. Same goes for eating out, we of course, have our favorite places and places for special occasions, so again depending on their tastes we would find some place to take them to. And we would entertain in our apartment, we like to have people over for brunch or dinner as Sarah and I both like to cook, so instead of always going out, we create a meal or two during the person’s stay. Usually we find they want to see something on Broadway and maybe shopping. And of course, Central Park on a lazy afternoon.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I couldn’t have achieved what I’ve achieved to date without the help and support of my partner in work and life, Sarah Munt. As Sarah has put it, I’m the big idea guy and she’s the facilitator. She’s amazing! Any hair-brained idea I come up with, she first rolls her eyes, provides counsel and if we agree, then gets to work. She’s the first person I bounce an idea off of, the first to read any marketing materials or text for promotions. She is up for any challenge, she’s a fast learner working on many projects in the office related to developing judging systems for our annual and quarterly shows, database infrastructure, IT as well as being an accomplished graphic designer in her own right. We’re a minimal staff of four producing well over 1200 pages of content yearly yet we work normal hours and no weekends. That couldn’t happen without Sarah and Sarah (we have two Sarah’s in the office), and Chrystina. And going back in time: Forrest Preece (Austin), Steve Barnhart (Rice University), Lyle Metzdorf (Houston), David Kuhlmann (Hively Agency), Rob Ethridge (NYC). And even further back, my mother and father who always supported my dreams.

Website: https://3x3mag.com

Instagram: @3x3mag, @chively47

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/3×3-illustration

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/3x3Magazine

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@3x3mag

Other: https://charles-hively.pixels.com/

Image Credits
Javier Jaén, Stuart Bradford, Miriam Martincic, Ori Toor, Gérard Dubois, Marie Lafrance