Happy birthday, Stephen Beard
Here’s wishing the happiest of VizEds birthdays to Stephen Beard, senior news artist for The Indianapolis Star. Stephen turns 33 today.
Seems like just a few years ago when my old Chicago Tribune pal Ken Marshall — who had been hired by The Plain Dealer to be its graphics editor — told me to keep an eye on this kid working with him in Cleveland.
Ken was really high on him. And if Ken is impressed with him, then I’m impressed with him.
Flash forward a couple of years later when I found myself judging infographics contest entries for an Ohio-based news organization. I liked the stuff I saw from Columbus and Akron, as I recall, but I saw entry after entry from Cleveland that just blew me away.
The name on those entries? You guessed it: William Neff.
Oh, and Stephen Beard. His name was on them too.
A Stephen Beard self-portrait.
Photo from Nina Mehta’s Flickr feed.
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Stephen spent seven years as a graphics reporter for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. He and his pal Neff gave one heck of an interesting — not to mention hilarious — presentation at SND/Orlando in 2006. From now on, I’ll think of Beard n’ Neff every time I rewatch Planet of the Apes.
A 1997 graduate of Ball State University, Stephen spent a couple of years as night editor of The Journal Review in Crawfordsville, Ind., before Ken brought him to Cleveland.
Stephen has been back in Indiana a little more than a year.
Left to right: Gene Simmons, Scott Goldman and
Ryan Hildebrandt. Photo stolen from someone’s
Flickr feed. If you shot this, please let me know
so I can fix this embarrassing credit line.
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Ken Marshall of The Plain Dealer writes this about Stephen:
He’s 33? He must have just been out of high school when we hired him.
We dearly miss him in Cleveland.
William Neff writes:
That’s one thing I could always rely on my old colleague Stephen Francis Xavier Beard to do, and it’s a skill I would like to think he taught me, or at least reinforced: to find a way to pull a smart, engaging and visually witty graphic out of even the most slack-jawed, brain-dead graphic assignments he’d find tossed onto his chair … usually using some new piece of software he was teaching himself to use. Give the guy a conceptual inch and he would take a mile — and you can check the SND books to see some of the mile-high graphics he managed to generate out of inch-tall story pitches.
It’s just too damned bad that he chose to finish his Plain Dealer career by walking out with my stapler. If the man had a conscience, he would return that immediately.
Scott Goldman, Stephen’s AME at the Star, writes:
We love Mr. Beard in Indy! He brings great creative energy to the paper every day, and a highly refined eye for his graphics, whether large or small. And today he’s spending his birthday finishing up a tremendous double-truck graphic on Indy’s brand-new library. (Links to come, when it launches on Tuesday.)
But happy birthday, Stephen! … Now, is that graphic done yet??
A few examples of Stephen’s work:
Find more examples in his NewsPageDesigner portfolio.
Stephen shares a birthday with singers Billy Idol and Clay Aiken, funnyman Ben Stiller, Hollywood babes Kaley Cuoco and Elisha Cuthbert and the damn near immortal Dick Clark.
Plus, today is Stay At Home Because You’re Well Day. Seriously.
Best wishes for a happy birthday, Stephen!
November 30th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
I sat next to Beard at the first Vizeds lunch. I think he was helping with raffle tickets, it’s hard to remember, lo, these many years hence. More recently, I caught up with him for beers at SND Boston. Helluva good guy, that Stephen.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
33? Just 33? I have… nothing but myself that’s older than that.
Happy birthday, man. And even though you apparently took Neff’s stapler, I’m with McNuggets — you’re a helluva good guy.
November 30th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Beard? I think I remember him — he’s that yellow-haired kid who worked here for awhile before the Big, Bad City chewed him up and he ran back to one of those “I” states in self-defense, right? Wanted to get closer to that Chicago ballpark, I think, only to find out that it’s sold out for life. Kid sure could play Skee-Ball, though, I’ll give him that. Oh, well, good to hear he’s still breathing. And pay no mind to Neff’s crocodile tears regarding that stapler — the very next day he just stole mine …
December 1st, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Was the first vizeds lunch in SND San Jose 04? If so, I was there too…and I got to walk there with Beard! That’s my only real claim to fame!
December 1st, 2007 at 9:14 pm
After the two of us sniped at each other online for about three years about design-related stuff, we finally ended up meeting in Boston in October.
We both realized that we had no clue what we were arguing about. He was cool as heck in person and we got a good chance to chat it out a bit.
Now, if only I could do that with everyone else I’ve met on the Interweb, I’d be set.
December 4th, 2007 at 4:58 am
Happy birthday, sir!