Charles Apple

Let’s pause today to offer the happiest of VizEds birthday wishes to Kenny Monteith, news design team leader of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Kenny turns 39 today (Sunday).

Is it a pirate? Or is it Mr. Peanut?
Kenny at Poker Night in Orlando,
2006. Photo by Matt Erickson.
—

Kenny is a proud graduate of Duke University N.C. State University Catawba College some school in North Carolina; I don’t recall precisely which one.

Previously, he was Presentation Editor of The Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader and lead metro designer at The Washington Post. He’s also worked at The Savannah Morning News and the late, great Nashville Banner.

Rumors that Kenny actually caused the death of the Banner by his presence there are totally untrue. I know, because I started those rumors.

I worked with Kenny in the mid-1990s when he interned in the graphics and design departments of the The News & Observer in Raleigh. As I like to tell the story, Kenny was just a young, smart-ass punk at the time.

Now, he’s all grown up. Now, he’s an old smart-ass punk.

Kenny is very, very good at what he does. Which is to aggravate the hell out of me.

But seriously…

Kenny is a fun guy and he’s very good at organizing things — whether it be stories on a page or something bigger.

I first came into contact with Kenny when I attended a SND quickcourse in Chapel Hill in 1992. The workshop attracted a very nice crowd and was incredibly well-organized.

Naturally, I kind of assumed all quickcourses were that smooth. It was years before I found that wasn’t necessarily the case.

It was Jay Anthony, I think — the site chair for that quickcourse and, at the time, a professor at UNC — who later told me that Kenny had done much of the legwork for that event.

Kenny brownnoses his boss, Dee Dee
D’Asaro at the Atlanta quickcourse
last June.
—

One of these days, Kenny will have to post some pages at NewsPageDesigner. He’s made it very difficult to find samples of his work.

Here are a few pages he worked on with various other folks over the years:

   

Kenny shares a birthday with religious figures Joan of Arc and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Fox TV spots anchor Howie Long and English actor Rowan Atkinson. Also, today is Bean Day — not surprising, since Atkinson is best known for playing the character of Mr. Bean.

Best wishes, Kenny, for a happy birthday! Just think, dude: Next year, you’ll be 40!

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 11:48 am and is filed under Happy birthday, News design, VizEds Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.