Joe started Joe Zeff Design as a design and illustration studio in 2000, blending storytelling techniques with realistic 3D rendering to create covers for Time, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone and other magazines, as well as advertising artwork and corporate communications. 

Before opening JZD, Joe was an editor, reporter and designer at newspapers and magazines. He worked at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Detroit Free Press and The New York Times, where he was the newspaper’s first Presentation Editor in the Metro and Business sections. He then went to Time magazine, where as Graphics Director he led a team that changed the way publications presented infographics, using animation software to create beautifully rendered charts and diagrams.