Happy birthday, William Couch

Here’s wishing the happiest of VizEds birthdays to William Couch, a designer for USAToday.com. William turns 23 today (Sunday).

William Couch Sept. 2007

Couch live-blogs — I presume that’s what he’s
doing — last September at BarCamp Orlando,
a convention/workshop for multimedia folks.
Photo by Meagan Fisher.

It’s been a busy year for the furnituremeister. He graduated from the University of Michigan last May; then served a fellowship at The Poynter Institute.

Immediately afterward, William was scheduled to began an internship at The Arizona Republic. However, Tracy Collins granted William a release when Bonita Burton came calling in July with a full-time multimedia gig at The Orlando Sentinel.

And then, a little more than a month ago, Couch leaped to USA Today headquarters in McLean, Va.

Outsitting in his field

The main image from William’s promotional
campaign for the 2006 “The Intern” contest.
As you can see, he was not merely outstanding
in his field — he’s out sitting in it, too.

Couch became a household name in the news design field with his imaginative campaign and easygoing manner as he competed in the first-annual “The Intern” contest at SND/Orlando in 2006. He didn’t win first place. But he sure made an impression.

William is just getting cranked up at USAToday.com. One notable piece he worked on that you might have noticed is this nifty interactive guide to the NFL draft.

Couch wrote about it last month in the USA Today interactive design blog:

Sports first approached our Design group about creating a way for draft picks to be plotted to a U.S. map, based on where the players went to high school and college.

USA Today draft graphic

As we started to work through the data, we thought it would also be valuable to see how many players each conference took over this time range as well. What has resulted is a four-tiered approach to breaking down the data. In the first two sections, you can examine, on a state level, which high schools and which colleges the players have come from, filtering for a number of factors.

Couch’s NFL draft piece

In the third section, you get a chart plotting how many players each conference has selected by year, from 1988 to 2007, with the ability to filter down the numbers and toggle each conference line. In the fourth section, you can work through the entire database, again with a robust filter.

Perhaps what I enjoy most about this interactive is that while it’s based heavily on numbers and statistics, people who work with it will likely find trends and stories within the data, some that may be uniquely relevant to them.

Personally, I’m a recent Michigan alumnus and a native to the state; thus I’m curious to look at all of the players who’ve been drafted from Michigan, both as a college and a state, since 1988, a range that extends far beyond my time at the college. Moreover, I can compare those with rival schools in the Big Ten, and those we often compete against from other conferences.

William isn’t just a wonderful designer and multimedia producer — he’s also a gifted photographer. For example, take this shot, below, of a night space shuttle launch from two months ago.Go ahead. Take it. Loads of folks have enjoyed it via Digg and Reddit and Explore.

William describes the story behind it:

Decided, on a bit of a whim, to see the shuttle launch from the coast tonight (really, this morning), and, boy, I’m glad I did.

Due to the low cloud cover, the launch was apparently not visible from the city, which is surprising, considering that normal night launches light up the entire Central Florida sky. However, up close, the launch was visible for a few, stunning, seconds.

Couch’s shuttle shot

I considered cropping this, but was actually intrigued by the vast amount of empty night sky on the upper half. Kind of telling of the actual launch scene.

Check out William’s galleries at Flickr.

In fact, you might want to start with one of his most popular sets — one Couch calls Food Porn. I don’t know if he enjoys eating it, but he sure takes lots of pictures of it:

Food Porn

Just be warned. You’ll waste a lot of time looking and wondering why you can’t take pictures like his.

Couch doesn’t do print work any more. But when he did, it looked like this:

Couch Sample 1 Couch Sample 3 Couch sample 1

Find a few more of William’s print pieces in his NewsPageDesigner gallery. Check out his personal Web site here.

Couch butchers a pumpkin

Couch butchers a pumpkin, October, 2007.
Photo by Jason Hawkins. Creepy-ass facial
expression by William Couch.

William shares a birthday with singer Holly Valance, songwriter Irving Berlin, painter Salvador Dali, comedian Mort Sahl, U.S. Islamic leader Louis Farrakhan and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman.

In addition to being Mother’s Day, today is also Twilight Zone Day and Eat What You Want Day.

Best wishes for a great birthday, Mr. Furniture!

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K-State’s Ron Johnson moving to Indiana University

Ron Johnson — a fixture at Kansas State University for more than a decade-and-a-half, is moving to the Indiana University.

Ron Johnson

Kaitlin Shawgo of the Indiana Daily Student newspaper reported Friday that Ron will begin his new duties July 1, overseeing the newspaper, the yearbook, Arbutus, and INside magazine.

Ron writes:

It is bittersweet, though, replacing the late Dave Adams, my college professor back at Fort Hays State. Ironically, this will be the third time I’ve taken a job he once had, following him four years after he left Fort Hays and as he left K-State.

Adams died nearly a year ago.

Ron writes:

I’m very excited about it. IU has a great student-media program, with great people and a vibrant, growing journalism school.

And Kaitlin writes, in her story:

Johnson said he looks forward to meeting with students to share his goals and to hear theirs.

“I’m a firm believer that we help the students with their vision… (and) to help that along through planning, coaching and critiquing,” he said.

Ron served as adviser to the Kansas State Collegian daily paper for 15 years until the university removed him from that position in 2004 in a move that was highly politicized and controversial (read a nice summary at the First Amendment Center).

The action met with scorn and censure from journalists nationwide. It was a raw deal, and no one was happy about it. Especially the student journalists who had learned so much from Ron. Let’s face it, Ron’s a super guy, a talented teacher and mentor and he’s about as well-connected as one can be. What more could any school want from a journalism professor?

So Ron was yanked away from the Collegian. But he remained as a professor. He also directed the company that published the university’s yearbook and phone book. He’s a past president of the Kansas Associated Collegiate Press and the national College Media Advisers association.Ron Johnson at work

Ron hard at work at his desk in 2003.
Photo by Poynter’s Sara Quinn.

Ron has edited SND’s Best of Newspaper of Design books six times., earning a presidential citation for last year’s humongous 28th edition. Earlier this year, the Kansas Press Association honored him as a long-time mentor to Kansas journalists.

Read the Indiana Daily Student story here.

Congratulations to Ron.

But more importantly, congratulations to the fine students at Indiana University. I hope you guys realize how damn lucky you are.

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D’oh! Who edits this stuff, anyway?

Found this last night via a link from Fark. It’s a screen snapshot of a story posted Thursday at the International Herald Tribune web site.

Doh!

Test election results from the IHT


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Examiner to launch Sunday editions in three cities

The Examiner chain of free daily tabs announced today they…

…will launch new Sunday editions in Washington, San Francisco, and Baltimore and will expand their Thursday editions.

Clarity Media Group CEO, Ryan McKibben today announced changes in the Examiner’s operations, which also include:

Hmm. Excuse me while I edit this down to the main bullet points:

* Doubling the number of single-copy papers available from racks and street “venders.”

* Cutting back home delivery to Thursdays and Sundays only.

* Upgrading the Examiner’s website into a more powerful news aggregator.

The Sunday papers will launch July 13. In those three markets, the Examiner will publish Sunday through Friday.

Here are today’s editions from The Newseum. Left to right: Baltimore, San Francisco and Washington. As usual, tap on a thumbnail for a larger peek:

Baltimore Examiner San Francisco Examiner Washington Examiner

They’re doing pretty well with the aggregator thing already. I found this story via a Google alert. When I clicked on the link to the Examiner web site, however, I was surprised to find this:

Examiner web site

Apparently, at some point, I’ve registered — or at least picked up a cookie — at an Examiner site.

Very impressive… if you like the WAVY News 10 news feed. Without a doubt, PilotOnline.com is much better, though. But it’s not even a component of the aggregate at Examiner.com.

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Dallas Morning News promotes Jeff Schnick to night Biz editor

Dennis Fulton, business editor of The Dallas Morning News, announced today: 

Staff,

I’m pleased to announce that Jeff Schnick has accepted a new challenge as our night Business editor.

Jeff Skywalker Schnick
Schnick in the pilot’s seat. Yes, he’s taking flying
lessons. Photo by Annie Schnick.

Most of you are familiar with Jeff’s great page designs. For the past year as assistant news editor, Jeff has taken ownership of Business section production, contributing valuable design and content ideas.

Before joining the news desk a year ago, Jeff was assistant managing editor at the Abilene Reporter-News. Before that, he was a designer at the Orlando Sentinel and the News Sentinel in Knoxville, Tenn.

After a transition period, Jeff will take the reins of our night operations, allowing Pete Johnson to move into his new daytime role.

Please join me in welcoming Jeff to the staff.

DMN Presentation Director Rob Schneider offered this praise of Jeff:

While we will miss him a great deal on the News Desk, he can make Business even better in his new role as night Business editor.

A few samples of Jeff’s work in biz:

New Schnick sample 1 New Schnick sample 2 New Schnick sample 3 New Schnick sample 4 New Schnick sample 5

Find outdated stuff in his NewsPageDesigner portfolio.

Congratulations, Jeff!

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Happy birthday, Jeff Glick

Here’s wishing a very happy VizEds birthday to Jeff Glick, assistant managing editor of The Tennessean in Nashville. Jeff turns 44 today.

Jeff Glick

Jeff has been a The Tennessean for a little more than three years. Previously, he spent ten-and-a-half years as deputy managing editor of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. And before that, Jeff spent three years as creative director of The Virginian-Pilot.

Jeff also operates a design, training and multimedia consulting firm, Jeff Glick Design. He’s redesigned more than 20 newspapers, designed web sites, created multimedia graphics departments and redesigned entire newsrooms for convergence. Check out his web site here.

Jeff shares a birthday with a big mess of 1970s icons:

* Page designer Nicole Bogdas, for example, was born on this day in 1979.

* Singer Toni Tennille hit the big time in the 70s as half of The Captain and Tennille. Remember Muskrat Love?

* Ricky Nelson — who was more of a late-50s/early 60s icon — had a big comeback in 1972 with the hit song Garden Party.

* Actor Melissa Gilbert starred as Laura Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie, a popular TV show in the late 70s.

* Comedian Don Rickles appeared in lots of crappy TV shows in the 1970s.

In addition, today is V-E Day. And, more importantly, it’s No Socks Day.

Best wishes for a very happy, sock-less birthday, Jeff!

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