Monthly Archive for May, 2007Page 2 of 5

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June is redesign month in Virginia

Published
by
Charles Apple
on May 27, 2007
in Virginian-Pilot, News design, Charles Apple, Newspapers and VizEds Blog
. 0 Comments

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports today:

Starting Tuesday, June 5, you’ll find new content in some places and improved design techniques throughout your Times-Dispatch.

Many of these improvements were made using information our readers gave us. From interviews and research, we learned from readers of all ages about how The Times-Dispatch fits into their lives. We learned how they used the paper every day and how we could make it easier and more rewarding. That’s what you’ll see in the newspaper June 5.

That, of course, is the day before the long-awaited redesign of The Virginian-Pilot hits the streets.

The Pilot’s redesign, in fact, has been phased in slowly over the past few months. Last year, the Pilot redesigned its local tab inserts and its weekly auto section, Drive, with the new fonts, colors, formats and design philosophy. So anyone actually subscribing to the Pilot — as opposed to simply looking at A1 in the Newseum — has a pretty good idea of the direction Deb Withey is taking us.

Read the Richmond story — and a long list of improvements — here:
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2007-05-27-0203.html

See the Pilot’s new weather page — the only part of the redesign unveiled so far online — in this thread at VizEds:
http://www.visualeditors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=40444

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Happy birthday, Doug Jessmer

Published
by
Charles Apple
on May 25, 2007
in Job changes, Happy birthday, Charles Apple and VizEds Blog
. 5 Comments

Posting this a few hours early…

Here’s wishing the happiest of VizEds birthdays to my good friend Doug Jessmer, formerly of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and The Detroit News. Doug turns 35 Saturday.

Many of you know Douglas from his huge presence here at VisualEditors.com, both in the forums and as a blogger. Check it out here:
http://www.visualeditors.com/jessmer/

Earlier this month, a big-time blog called MediaCircus quoted Doug extensively. Read that here:
http://www.jointhemediacircus.com/mediacircus/2007/05/newspapers_have.html

And, of course, Doug was one-half of the team that brought you “the swamp” at SND/Houston in 2005. Man, we missed you guys in Orlando.

Me and Dougie
Someone told us to make funny faces one night in the swamp. And so
we did. Dougie is the goofy one on the left. I’m the goofus on the right.

As he’s not-so-lightly hinted at several times lately, Doug is currently between jobs. Making him, essentially, one of the hottest talents on the market at the moment. I can’t believe one of you guys hasn’t snapped him up already.

If anyone needs a reference for him, you guys know where to find me.

Doug spent much of his career as a graphics geek, but then moved into page design a few years ago. A few examples of Dougie’s work:

Jessmer example two Jessmer example one Jessmer example three Jessmer example four Jessmer example five

See more here:
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/portfolios/portfolio1.php?UserID=388

Chin up, old chum: Surely something will come along soon.

Meanwhile, best wishes for a happy 35th!

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Today’s lesson: Copyright law and ‘fair use’

Published
by
Charles Apple
on May 23, 2007
in Amusing stuff, News design and VizEds Blog
. 1 Comment

Surely you took an editing course at some point in which you studied a bit of copyright law. How much of that do you remember?

Me, neither.

Luckily, the Fair Use Center at Stanford University has come to our rescue.

Prepare to learn. And to spit Diet Coke all over your keyboard.

Read a lot more about copyright law and fair use here:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/

—

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Shraddha Swaroop joins the Virginian-Pilot

Published
by
Charles Apple
on May 22, 2007
in Virginian-Pilot, Job changes, Newspapers and VizEds Blog
. 3 Comments

From the Boy, am I late in posting this department…

The Virginian-Pilot was lucky enough to hire away one of the Mercury News’ top designers, Shraddha Swaroop. Shraddha started here Monday.

She worked for seven years at the Merc. Before that, she was at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. And, before that, at a series of smaller papers in Southern California. A graduate of Cal State Fullerton — “Near Disneyland!,” she says —  Shraddha comes a long, long way from home to join us here on the East Coast.

 A few examples of her work:

Shraddha three  Shraddha two  Shraddha One   

See more, of course, at NewsPageDesigner:
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/portfolios/portfolio1.php?UserID=1053

Or, peruse her personal web site here:
www.ShraddhaSwaroop.com

Congratulations, Pilot! And congratulations, Shraddha!

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Happy birthday, Billy Kulpa

Published
by
Charles Apple
on May 22, 2007
in Happy birthday, Charles Apple and VizEds Blog
. 1 Comment

Does it seem like we’ve been wishing happy birthday to a lot of Orlando “Intern” candidates lately?

Well, we have. Billy is the third of the “Interns” to celebrate a birthday in 12 days. William Couch turned 22 on May 11 and Stephanie Guigou turned 21 on May 17. And one week from today, we’ll do it again when Joey Kirk turns 23.

Five “intern” candidates in one month. That’s weird.

Anyway, back to our birthday boy, Billy Kulpa, who turns 24 today…

Bad Bad Billy

Billy does a killer David Brinkley imitation.
Photo stolen from Bill Gaspard’s Flickr feed.

Last summer, Billy interned at The Rockford (Ill.) Register-Star. The visuals guru there, my old pal Chris Soprych, can’t say enough good things about young Mr. Kulpa.

Billy earned a degree this spring from Northern Illinois University. He’ll soon begin a summer fellowship at the Poynter Institute in St. Pete. Once he’s done there, he’ll move on to an internship at The Orlando Sentinel. This fall, he’ll start grad school at Northwestern University.

A couple examples of Billy’s work:

Kulpa One Kulpa Two

See more here:
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/portfolios/portfolio1.php?UserID=9164

Or, visit Billy’s web site here:
http://billykulpa.carbonmade.com/

Happy birthday, Billy! Best wishes!

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One who flew the coop

Published
by
Charles Apple
on May 21, 2007
in Job changes, Charles Apple, Newspapers and VizEds Blog
. 0 Comments

Who pops up today with a prominent refer in Romanesko? My old pal Patti McCracken, international journalism teacher extraordinare, who’s written a first-person of her experiences for the OpEd page in today’s Christian Science Monitor.

I worked with Patti for a couple of years at the Chicago Tribune. She was a graphics coordinator — assistant graphics editor, the title was; I was an artist. I enjoyed working with her.

Those were troubled times, though. Her stay in the department was even shorter then mine. Patti writes:

Getting that Chicago job was the opportunity I had, for so long, envisioned for myself. The sudden offer to go there, and the money that came with it, seemed to be the “law of attraction” that had come into my life and set itself up as a constitution.

But the same quickened energy that propelled me to Chicago stirred up later to propel me out. My editor showed personal behaviors that were bullying and deceitful. My boyfriend appeared full of angst and pain that I simply could not will away. My resplendent downtown loft was quietly poisoning me with a gas leak that took the life of my joyful dog. And for a final bruising, my landlord’s divorce-minded wife was forging my signature on documents, trying her own deceitful means to take my home away from me.

In this typhoon of grief and confusion, I allowed violent forces to slam my life shut and propel me onward. It was time to go.

…So I quit my job; quit my cool, downtown loft apartment; quit my cool boyfriend; sold my car; put my furniture in storage; hugged my friends; packed a duffel bag as tight and as full as I could; and moved to Europe with little money and fewer job prospects.

Since then I have wandered through and worked in 20 countries across Europe, Asia, and North Africa, acquiring, along the way, a London Black Cab in England; a Jack Russell terrier in Tbilisi, Georgia; and a home within myself that I cannot explain.

Patti’s an excellent writer. Definitely check this one out, if you can. The CSM even provided a little cartoon illustration of Patti, flying away from the coop on newfound wings:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0521/p09s01-coop.html

And she’s a prolific blogger. Bookmark this page:
http://www.pattimcc.blogspot.com/

…And here’s her archive posts:
http://www.pattimccracken.blogspot.com/

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