Charles Apple

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Dan Zedek of The Boston Globe — our host for the Society for News Design’s Boston Workshop next month — writes with news of extracurriculars available the week of the workshop:

The brand new Institute of Contemporary Art is hosting the National Design Triennial which includes work by Workshop keynote speaker Chip Kidd.

Chip Kidd. Photo by USA Today.
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Speaking of Kidd, he sounds like a really interesting character. He collects Batman stuff, so he has to be pretty cool. Here’s a 2003 USA Today profile of him.

And here is a 2004 Q&A with him.

Here’s his personal web site.

Dan continues:

Also, MassArt, the oldest and largest state-run art school in the country is sponsoring a show of Mexican street art.

Of course, Boston is a great museum town in general and there are also great shows at the Museum of Fine Arts, The Gardner Museum, and Harvard’s Fogg Collection.

Read our earlier post about travel tips for Boston, hotels and what to see and do while you’re in town.

Read our earlier post about alternate hotels and how to find a roommate for Boston.

Thanks, Dan. We’re looking forward to it!

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It’s a strikingly different look this morning for The National Post of Toronto, Canada.

Click on this thumbnail to see a before-and-after of this prototype page:

Editor Douglas Kelly writes:

Under the direction of Gayle Grin, Managing Editor of Design and Graphics, we have developed a look that respects the underpinnings of the Post’s design — a unique combination of traditional and modern typography and layout — while pushing new boundaries and giving the Post a unique, instantly recognizable look.

The design changes do not stop with the front-page banners. We have also increased the size of the typeface and bumped up the space between the lines to improve readability. We have standardized the number of typefaces and moved to a cleaner font for charts, graphics and sidebars. And we have introduced recurring design elements that will break out the background to a story, provide the investment angle and detail what’s coming next. Great design goes hand in hand with great content, and we have made many improvements on the latter front as well.

Here are samples of other prototype pages. From left to right: Sports, biz and features. Click on each thumbnail for a larger view.

And here are a couple more prototype before-and-after comparisons:

Gale’s new design sure emphasizes the drama of vertical art. Very interesting.

Here’s today’s debut front:

Notice the ad across the bottom. Notice the corresponding strip across the top.

Read Kelly’s column — and see plenty more samples — in today’s National Post.

Read an extensive press release about the new design.

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Juan Antonio Giner, newspaper consultant and author of the What’s Next: Innovations in Newspapers blog takes issue with the art used with a new ad campaign by the The Newspaper Association of America:

The idea is excellent. The choice of this illustration is wrong, though:

Multimedia journalism is not funny; it’s something more serious than this.

This kind of misrepresentation is the last thing that we need to enlist our newsrooms in this new media landscape.

A press release from the NAA describes the ads:

The headline of the first ad reads, “Is Newspaper New Media Or Old Media? Yes.”

Accompanying copy: “Today’s newspaper is a category-defying, media-blending creation that takes readers beyond the printed word and image into the sights and sounds of interactivity. Its biggest innovation is as plain as the 17” LCD monitor on your desk: newspaper Web sites. Like paper-and-ink editions, newspaper sites have earned a reputation as the most dependable source for local news and information.”

The second ad is headlined by the phrase, “Study Shows 18-To-24-Year-Olds Like Ink On Paper Too.”

Copy reads: “Newspapers popular with the earbud crowd, what’s up with that? Apparently they’ve discovered the multi-media appeals of today’s newspapers…Newspaper sites give younger readers the immediacy and speed they like on the Internet. Plus better in-depth coverage of local news than anywhere else on the web. So while new technologies have splintered audiences for TV and radio, they’ve actually expanded readership of newspapers.”

The Martin Agency of Richmond, Va. , worked with NAA to develop creative for the campaign.

The Martin Agency, huh? Those are the guys famous for the Geico caveman TV commercials. Perhaps we should consider ourselves lucky they didn’t use the cavemen for this campaign.

Newspapers: So easy a caveman could read them.
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Find — and set a bookmark for — Juan Antonio’s Innovations blog here.

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Editor & Publisher offered up surprising news Wednesday about the deals some newspapers have made to partner with the Yahoo empire.

Jennifer Saba reported:

Deutsche Bank analyst Paul Ginocchio and his team, David T. Clark and Matt Chesler, estimate the Yahoo consortium could push newspapers into positive revenue territory a year earlier than originally forecasted.

“We believe the benefits from the Yahoo deal could move the revenue and EBITDA inflection points forward, positively surprising the market,” wrote analysts.

The upswing could come as early as 2009, according to the research report.

Even more amazing, the newspapers involved in the deal could see a lift in year-over-year online revenue growth by 20 points by the second half of 2008, from 20% to 40%.

The big example cited is that of Lee Enterprises.

Since Lee fully launched its co-branded HotJobs recruitment sites in February 2007, online revenue soared 62% on average through July compared with an average of 49% from June 2006 through February 2007.

Is this the future? Essentially, outsourcing our online advertising through one of the existing internet brands?

Possibly. Stay tuned.

Read Saba’s story in E&P.

Read a 2006 press release about the Lee + Yahoo partnership.

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Let’s take a moment to offer up happy VizEds birthday wishes to Sam Hundley, illustrator and special projects designer for The Virginian-Pilot. Sam turns 49 today.

Sam is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. Which is great, because he’s also one of the most talented guys you’ll ever meet.

Sam designs most of all our special sections. He puts together special projects. He designs centerpieces of A1 and giant, inside spreads to go with those centerpieces. And although we have deadlines and schedules in place to protect Sam and give him time to work his magic, some of our editors have proven to be quite ingenious in working around those deadlines.

Yet, Sam rolls with it. He pulls off superb work, time and time again — when the rest of us would be throwing stuff across the room.

I’d love to have Sam’s design and illustration talent. But perhaps the most valuable asset Sam has is his patience. He’s just phenomenal to work with.

From left to right (Click on the thumbnails for a larger view)…

1. Sam’s Blackwater USA package that won an SND award this year.

2. A page about reported sightings of Bigfoot in Virginia prompted Sam to come up with this clever solution. It was quite alarming on the page.

3. These were Sam’s three football preview covers, three years ago.

And, of course, who can forget this page — one of the more controversial Pilot fronts ever. And one of the most brilliant. It won gold from SND this year.

One of these days, I’ll have to sit down with a batch of SND annuals and count up all the awards Sam has won. But I’m not sure when I’ll have that kind of spare time on my hands. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it turned out that Sam had won more than any other single person in SND history.

And yet, Sam is one of the more humble guys you’ll ever meet.

Sam is a master of several styles of illustration. But his favorite, the past few years, seems to be the faux block print. He’s done a number of these for the Pilot:

And he’s also free-lanced these prints to clients like National Geographic.

On his personal web page, Sam shows you how he pulls them off on deadline. Basically, it’s a traditional block print technique, except instead of wood or whatever the old guys used, Sam uses large hunks of styrofoam and a Dremel rotary cutting tool.

While you’re poking around his site, drooling over all the samples he’s posted there, take a look at his Halloween projects. Sam goes all-out for Halloween, giving neighborhood kids a reason think twice before they approach his house for candy.

Very cool. But what’s the big deal, you ask?

Because Sam — quite typically for him — goes that extra mile to toss in details that the rest of us mere mortals wouldn’t dare:

Only Sam…

Sam has also worked on two books with local author Lisa Suhay — the wife of Pilot designer Robert Suhay. Find both There Goes a Mermaid! A Norfolktale and Our Fantasy Island: An Interactive Book at Amazon.

Sam has worked at the Pilot for a total of about 17 years. He previously worked for papers in California, Washington state and Colorado. Sam was born and raised in Phoenix and started his newspaper career at The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson.

Again, you can find Sam’s personal web site here.

Sam shares a birthday with young photojournalist Ashley Mills, tennis star Serena Williams, actor Linda Hamilton, singer Olivia Newton-John and writer T.S. Eliot. Plus, today is National Pancake Day. Seriously.

I hope you’re having a great week off, my friend. Have a fabulous birthday!

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sept. 26

We’re offering up wishes for the happiest of VizEds birthdays today to Ashley Mills, a young photojournalist who graduated earlier this year from Penn State University. Ashley turns 22 today.

Ashley Mills at Poynter this summer. Photo by Billy Kulpa.
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A few samples of Ashley’s work:

Currently, Ashley is working in a grocery story and free-lancing for The Williamsport (Pa.) Sun Gazette. She writes in her blog that she’s hoping to be hired by my former paper, The Des Moines Register.

Good luck with that, Ashley. The Register is a fine paper. I think they’d be lucky to have you.

Find more samples of Ashley’s photography her personal web site.Read a touching ‘personal narrative’ Ashley posted during her Poynter fellowship this summer.

Ashley shares a birthday with Sam Hundley of The Virginian-Pilot, tennis star Serena Williams, actor Linda Hamilton, singer Olivia Newton-John and writer T.S. Eliot.

Plus, today is National Pancake Day. Seriously.

Happy birthday, Ashley! Best wishes!

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