Charles Apple

Yes, I turn 46 today (Saturday).

Me with my good friend Robb Montgomery last fall
in Boston. He’s the one giving the cool Vulcan salute.
I’m the one giving the only hand signal that seems
appropriate for me. Photo by Jackie Wu.
—

A 1984 graduate of Winthrop College in Rock Hill, S.C., I worked my way though school in the sports information department. This was long before Winthrop became world-famous for going to the NCAA Basketball Tournament eight times in ten years. In fact, my freshman year was only Winthrop’s third year of men’s intercollegiate hoops.

I also worked as a sports stringer for The Charlotte Observer’s York County edition. Later, I switched to The Evening Herald when that paper promised me the same amount of sportswriting work — plus, they’d buy two editorial cartoons a week from me.

Here I am, in the Athens newspapers advertising art
department, faking it with an editorial cartoon in 1987.
You can tell I’m not really drawing because I would
never use one of those cheap-ass Pilot pens on my
wonderful cartoons. It was Pentel all the way, baby.
Can you believe how much hair I had then? Also, note
my watch and wedding band. Not long after this, I gave
up on jewelry: I have some kind of skin condition that
reacts poorly with metal. Hell, I don’t even know where
my wedding band is at the moment. I presume Sharon
has it stashed somewhere. Photo by Wingate Downs/
Athens Banner-Herald.
—

It took me a few years to realize I’d probably never make it big as an editorial cartoonist. By that time, I had already taught myself how to draw on a newfangled Macintosh computer, so I figured I’d try infographics and news design a while, just to see where it would take me.

The answer was: Lots of places.

I worked at The Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald and Daily News for three years, learning the Mac early on and redesigning the paper.

In 1987, Morris Communications’ in-house magazine
published an article about the new Macintosh SE
computers the company had bought for its news-
rooms. Naturally, someone had the brainstorm
to illustrate the story with the clown in Athens named
Apple. No, I’m not juggling; I’m just tossing the apple
into the air. The strobe effect of the flash caused the
pinstripes of my shirt to overlap the apple. Weird,
huh? Photo by Wingate Downs/Athens Banner Herald.
—

Then, I spent about six weeks at The Savannah Morning News before returning to Rock Hill, and the no-longer-evening Herald. I redesigned that paper, too, in 1990.

In 1993, I moved to The (Raleigh) News & Observer, where — much to my surprise — I began winning awards for my graphics and graphics reporting work. It never occurred to me that I might actually be good at this.

In 1996, I moved to the Chicago Tribune. I made the leap into management in 1999 when I became graphics editor of The Des Moines Register. I moved to The Virginian-Pilot in 2003.

Ah, now that’s the familiar-looking me. Here, I am
at The Des Moines Register in June 2003, reviewing
plans for a big map with Katie VanDalsem Kunert.
—

I’ve taught a slew of classes, workshops and seminars in all sorts of fascinating places: Orlando; Minneapolis; St. Louis; Richmond; Little Rock; Chapel Hill; Oklahoma City; Iowa City; Harrisburg, Pa.; Rockford, Ill.; Columbia, Mo.; D.C.; Atlanta; Raleigh; Dallas; Sunderland, England; Manila, the Philippines.

My appearance at the small paper summit in Waterbury, Conn., next month will be my fifth SND quickcourse. I’m also on the student program at SND/Vegas this fall, my third time speaking at an SND annual workshop.

While I enjoy the teaching gigs and the design and graphics work itself — of course — I spend most of my extracurricular energy these days on this here blog. Since day one, you guys have been incredibly generous with the feedback and comments you’ve posted and e-mailed.

As always, feel free to let me know what you’d like me to write about. If you have new hires or departures or retirements or if you publish something cool that you think folks ought to know about it — please drop me a line.

Thanks for your kind words. And thanks for reading. As long as you say you’re getting something out of it, we’ll be glad to remain at your service.

Heh: As much as I whine about other folks not updating their NewsPageDesigner portfolios, I’ve not touched mine in more than a year. If you’re bored on this fine Saturday, you can find my gallery here. You can find work by my staff — or, rather, my former staff — here.

Neither Elizabeth nor Sharon will share their Christmas
morning sausage balls with Mr. Spock. I guess he’ll have
to resort to scrounging in the litter box again.
—

I live in Virginia Beach with my long-suffering wife, Sharon, my 15-year old daughter, Elizabeth, and our very own zoo: Spock, the cocker-spaniel. Two cats: Bones and Oreo. Two turtles: Timothy and Yertle. Two guinea pigs, Dorian and Mamacita. And that’s counting neither the assorted goldfish nor the fleas inhabiting Spock’s scrawny ass.

Yes, it’s true that I have hundreds upon hundreds of action figures — mostly Star Trek and super-heroes. Two summers ago, we thought we were moving, so I boxed them all up and stuffed them into the garage. And they sit there still.

I share a birthday with comedian Carol Burnett, martial arts icon Jet Li, architect I.M. Pei, actor Tom Welling — who plays “Clark Kent” on Smallville — and Jessica Rose, better known as “Bree” or “LonelyGirl15″ in the infamous YouTube videos.

The No. 1 song on the charts the day I was born was “Good Luck Charm” by Elvis Presley.

Plus, today is Richter Scale Day. Seriously.

So if you feel the ground moving or the earth shaking this morning, don’t be alarmed. It was probably me, falling out of bed.

Have a great weekend!

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 26th, 2008 at 6:42 am and is filed under Charles Apple, Graphics, Happy birthday, VizEds Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.