Charles Apple

I didn’t think it would be this warm here.

After all, it’s 36 degrees at this very moment back in sunny Virginia Beach. I brought my sport coat and long-sleeve shirts. Luckily, I hedged my bet at the last moment and stuffed in a couple short-sleeved shirts, too. I would have roasted otherwise.

My room was a little stuffy last night, so I opened my window. I slept all night with my window open. Sitting here in the food court of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, I realize I forgot to shut that window when I left.

When I walked across the street this morning for breakfast at Whataburger, I did it in short sleeves. I’m a little amused now to see it was actually 46 at the time. But it sure felt a lot warmer.

The hospitality here in Austin was every bit as warm as the weather felt. The folks at The American-Statesman — every bit as overworked as the rest of the industry, I’m sure — seemed genuinely friendly and chatty. By day two, the security guy at the front desk was treating me like a good buddy.

It all reminded me that I simply don’t get to Texas often enough. I’ll have to come back soon.

Over my two days in the American-Statesman newsroom, I taught five separate sessions: Three on Alternative Story Forms, one on Enterprise and Proactivity for visual journalists and one on creative solutions — the latter a shortened version of a presentation I made in October at the American-Statesman’s sister paper in Atlanta.

The super-organized design and graphics director of the paper, G.W. Babb, puts a lot of emphasis in Alternative Story Forms. However, rather than the usual ASF, G.W. calls them STDs: Story-Telling Devices. He’s only the second person I’ve seen do this — the first was consultant Peter Ong, with whom I taught earlier this year in Manila.

Regardless of the acronym you use, these devices really are a good way of telling stories in new and interesting ways that readers find appealing. I’m hoping some of the approaches and examples we looked at will inspire folks there to dream up and build more STDs and ASFs.

Design Director G.W. Babb and artist Don Tate
patiently wait for my laptop to burn a copy of
my presentations late Wednesday evening.
—

G.W., AME Sharon Roberts and their crew made me feel right at home. It was fun to finally meet graphic artist Linda Scott, who first contacted me about the possibility of visiting Austin way back in February.

The highlight for me, however, was reconnecting with Don Tate. Don was an artist at The Des Moines Register when I became graphics editor there in 1999. He worked for me for two or three months before departing for Austin.

Don Tate meets some fat old bald guy.
—

Don does really interesting work both at the paper and on his own time. He agreed to let me grill him for an upcoming Q&A for this very blog. You’ll read it here shortly.

For anyone who didn’t read the comments attached to my last post, I need to clear something up. No, when my Mom drove downtown Tuesday to meet me for dinner, I did not take her to Whataburger. Nor did I take her to the Hooters that was a block or so from my hotel. Instead, we went to Outback.

I wouldn’t want you folks to think of me as crass.

…Except for those of you who already know I am, in fact, crass.

It looks like the rest of the month will be a busy one for us here at blog central. We’re on the road yet again next week on personal business. We’ll set up graphic coverage of bowl games featuring both of Virginia’s big football schools. We’ll celebrate the 38-year career of a Virginian-Pilot artist who’s “graduating” — as he calls it — to the next phase of his life. We’ll try to get an intern signed up for next summer. And we’ll prepare the graphics operation for the upcoming changes in direction.

Lots of stuff to do and very little time to get it all done.

Piece of cake.

I hope you’re all well. Extra-special best wishes to our friends at The Arizona Star, The Arlington Heights Daily Herald and The Wall Street Journal, where painful changes are happening this week.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 9:54 am and is filed under Charles Apple, Graphics, Networking, News design, Newspapers, Workshops. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.