Charles Apple

Let’s pause a moment to offer up the happiest of VizEds birthday wishes today to Patrick Garvin, an artist at The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville.

A graduate of the University of Missouri, Patrick spent about a year-and-a-half at the Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Sun News. He left in April 2006 to join Denise Reagan’s staff at the Times-Union.

The loss to the Knight-Ridder company was so great that they threw up their hands and sold the company to McClatchy.

Budum-Bump.

Patrick chats with some annoying fat dude before Steph Lim’s extravaganza last summer in Orlando.
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A little-known fact about Patrick is that he wants to be a stand-up comedian. He has been known to frequent “open-mike” nights at local comedy clubs.

Unfortunately, another little-known fact about Patrick is that he’s funny. It’s especially little-known among the audiences in local comedy clubs on “open-mike” nights.

Budum-Bump. Thankyewverramuch.

Actually, Patrick occasionally visits us here at The Virginian-Pilot. He can crack us up every time. All he has to do is show us his portfolio.

Budum-Bump. Stop it! You’re killing me!

Seriously, though, Patrick is a fabulously talented journalist and a wonderfully fun guy to hang around with. I recall peppering five or six of his pieces into the presentation I gave last summer at SND/Orlando.

I later found that Patrick ducked out of my show early. He never saw the slides of his own work. D’oh!

Speaking of Patrick’s work, here are a few recent examples of his illustrations and graphics:

See more of Patrick’s stuff here.

Patrick shares a birthday with actors Donnie Wahlberg, Sean Penn and Robert De Niro and with the late Mae West.

In addition, today is National Thriftshop Day. Seriously.

Happy birthday, Patrick, my friend! Make it a great one!

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The ten finalists for “The Intern” contest at the SND/Boston workshop have been announced.

Making the cut is Allisence Chang, the Pilot’s graphics intern this summer.

Allisence with her pal — and former Michigan State classmate — Nick Mrozowski, a designer at The Pilot.
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Find Allisence’s portfolio here.

Read the entire list of ten finalists .

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Tom Tozer, deputy managing editor for visuals of The Charlotte Observer, announced this week:

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Here’s wishing a happy VizEds birthday to Brandon Stuck of Chicago’s RedEye, who turns 25 today.

Geez, dude. Speaking of ‘redeye’…
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Brandon worked downstairs at Link for about six months. That was just long enough to do two things: a) Wow readers with our new youth-oriented tab, and b) Win an SND award for a portfolio of his work.

Naturally, he was then snapped up by those hungry weasels at RedEye. Oh, hi, Chris Courtney. I didn’t see you walk in.

Brandon is not only one of the more talented cover design guys you’ll ever meet, he’s also a pretty funny dude — despite his suffering from occasional terminal shyness. I asked his girlfriend — Miranda Mulligan, a superb graphics reporter for The Virginian-Pilot — why he never came up to chat with me. “He’s afraid of you,” she told me.

Afraid of me? How can anybody possibly be afraid of me? Does he think I’m going to sit on him or something?

Brandon apparently has a similar issue at RedEye. His official RedEye bio calls him “overexcited mumbles.” What the hell does that mean?

Read that bio — as short as it is — here.

Brandon, on Christmas Day 2006, gives my
daughter, Elizabeth, tips on how to use her
new digital camera. Charming, huh? But
then when she tries to take a picture of him,
he goes all Gene Simmons. That’s the photo
at the top of this post.
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One of the world’s worst-kept secrets? Brandon gave Miranda a ring a while back. They plan to get married in March.

Here are a few samples of Brandon’s energy-driven cover design.

Find the rest of Brandon’s portfolio here.

He does nearly all of his own illustration work — that Harry Potter cover, for example: That’s Brandon, mimicing the book illustration style. Here’s a piece of line art from Brandon’s college days at Ball State:

Brandon shares a birthday with Raleigh News & Observer editor Michelle Valenzuela, singers Madonna and Vanessa Carlton, actor Robert Culp and — believe it or not — both Frank Gifford and Kathie Lee Gifford.

Best wishes, Brandon! Congratulations on your engagement!

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We’re wishing the happiest of VizEds birthdays today to Michelle Valenzuela, an editor at The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C. Michelle turns 41 today.

Michelle joined VizEds in its formative days as ShellyVal, back when she was the features editor of the Fayetteville Observer. For a long time, she was a moderator and a frequent participant.

After 13 years in Fayetteville, Michelle moved moved to Raleigh in 2005 to become the designer of the newly-minted Durham News, published by The News & Observer twice a week in Durham county. Not long after, she was promoted to the bureau chief position in Durham.

Then she found herself riding atop one of the biggest stories in the nation: the Duke lacrosse case. Many of the articles you’ve seen over the past few couple of years were broken by Michelle’s team.

Michelle, her daughter, Anna Louise and her
husband, Nacho, who passed away last summer.
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Earlier this year, Michelle was moved to downtown Raleigh to become Assistant Capitol Editor. She helps oversee The N&O’s statehouse coverage.

As a result, Michelle doesn’t design pages any more. Take a trip down Shelly’s design memory lane here.

Visit Nacho’s memorial page here.

Michelle shares a birthday with RedEye designer Brandon Stuck, singers Madonna and Vanessa Carlton, actor Robert Culp and — believe it or not — both Frank Gifford and Kathie Lee Gifford.

Best wishes, Michelle!

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Please join with me in wishing a happy VizEds birthday to Matt Mansfield, deputy managing editor of The San Jose Mercury News. Matt turns 40 today.

Yeah, yeah, we know. We thought he was much older than that, too.

Matt attempts to look like a local in Syracuse in February. This photo and the others are stolen from various Flickr feeds.
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Matt is treasurer and secretary for the Society for News Design. He’ll be the president of SND in 2009.As DME, Matt oversees design, graphics, photo and business reporting for the Merc. As he says in his bio at LinkedIn:

Our coverage of the global technology story here has been recognized among the best in the world.

The Society of American Business Editors and Writers awarded the Mercury News‘ business coverage as the best among large newspapers. We also were awarded “Best Use of the Web” by the National Press Photographers Association this year.

The Mercury News has been awarded several Pulitzer Prizes, and we were most recently a finalist in 2004 for our photography on the special California recall election.

Oh, yeah: Under Matt’s direction, the Merc has won five gold and more than 20 silver medals in the annual SND contest. This year alone, the Merc won 55 SND awards. In 2002, The Mercury News was named one of the “World’s Best-Designed Newspaper” by SND.

Matt’s been in San Jose for seven years. Previously, he was a features editor and then DME for the Munster, Ind., Times of Northwest Indiana.

Matt is a 1990 graduate of Eastern Illinois University. Among other alumni from that school: Cassie Armstrong of The Orlando Sentinel, Chris Soprych of The Rockford Register Star, Mike Rice of The Arizona Star, Matt Erickson of The Times of Northwest Indiana and Robb Montgomery, creator of VizEds.

Matt enjoys embarrassing himself with Karoke. Here, he sings while Denise Reagan attempts to keep a straight face.
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At this very moment, Matt is smack in the middle of a huge effort to completely rethink his newspaper from the ground up. You may recall, we blogged about it last week. Find the blog that will give Matt and his team quite a bit of transparency as they work on their “reTHINK” project here.

Matt doesn’t have an online portfolio posted — that we know of — but he oversees a lot of talented folks who do. Jonathan Berlin. Martin Gee. Pai. Kevin Wendt. Michael Tribble. Tiffany Pease. Ashley Dinges. Carrie Hoover. Until recently, Tim Ball.

Find a staff portfolio of work by Matt’s crew here.

If you asked me to design a page around it, I’d chase you out of my office. But I don’t hesitate to slap a grip-and-grin photo of me and Matt in my blog. Go figure.
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There was a huge party in San Francisco last weekend to celebrate Matt’s milestone. He blogged about it Tuesday at SND Update.

Matt shares a birthday with actor Ben Affleck, TV journalist Linda Ellerbee, the late Julia Child and the even more late Napoleon Bonaparte.

In addition, today is National Relaxation Day. Seriously.

Matt is one of the kindest, most supportive, energetic folks I know. He’s a wonderful leader in our field. I’m proud to know him. And I admire his work greatly.

Matt… dude, if you even know how to relax — take advantage of National Relaxation Day and kick back. For at least 24 hours.

Best wishes for a happy 40th!

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