Of course, I did lots of what would be called graphic design now, what used to be called commercial art.
There are people who appear in the magazines and I don't know who they are. I've never seen anything they've done and their careers are over already. They're famous for maybe 10 minutes. Real careers, I think, take a long time to unfold.
A good short-story writer has an instinct for sketching in just enough background to ground the specific story.

