Charles Apple

Here’s wishing the happiest of VizEds birthdays to Tim Frank, creative director and deputy managing editor for visuals of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. Tim turns the big five-oh today.

Here’s what folks are saying about him:

Tim Ball, who started last month as the Sun-Sentinel’s sports design director, writes:

Even though I’ve only worked with him a short time, Tim’s one of those people who just oozes creativity… and certainly makes me wish I could make my mind work like his. Newsrooms would be livelier, healthier and a hell of a lot more fun if more of them could boast having someone like Tim as a leader.

(Plus, he seems to welcome my randomly popping into his office, just to talk people or design or whatever. And as any number of fancy managers [Scott Goldman, Kevin Wendt, Matt Mansfield, et al] can tell you, that’s something I find hard to resist.)

Sun-Sentinel designer Chris Mihal writes:

Tim is probably one of the smartest, most influential
people in my career. When people interview, I describe
Tim as the high school art teacher; he doesn’t care
when you turn your work in, as long as it’s really
good.

He’s a great person to work with, and a great friend.

You probably didn’t know, Tim was a semi-famous circus
banner painter long before he started doing all the
fun stuff with newspapers.

EDIT: Tim sent us a copy of one of these banners. Pretty funny:

The Sun-Sentinel’s design director, Paul Wallen, writes:

I first met Tim Frank almost exactly five years ago.

At the time, I knew only two things about him:

1. He was some kind of creative genius who put a tiny paper in Lewiston, Maine on the design map.

2. He created Newspagedesigner.com, which I spent entirely too much time surfing.

Then, suddenly, I found myself interviewing for the position in Maine that Tim was leaving.

Many people warned me that it was a bad idea to try to follow someone like Tim for my first management job. And it was pretty damn scary, because he’d set the bar so high. I didn’t want to be the guy who wrecked what Tim Frank had created!

But here’s what I quickly learned: Tim is not only brilliant, but incredibly generous.

During those first few months in Maine, when I wondered almost every day what I’d gotten myself into, Tim went out of his way to offer encouragement. I got e-mails from him saying that I was doing a great job. He patiently answered questions and candidly shared his experiences with me. All while he was adjusting to his own new job.
And those who have been around Tim know that he does the same for everyone.

Now that I’ve spent almost a year working with him at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, I realize that not much has changed. I still think Tim is some kind of creative genius. And he’s still one of the most supportive people I know.

Happy 50th Tim!

Glowing references for a superb teacher, leader, designer, innovator and friend.

Two things I spend a lot of time doing are recruiting and networking. And nothing — nothing! — has revolutionized those two functions like NewsPageDesigner.

Where would we be without NewsPageDesigner? Why didn’t anyone else think of it before Tim did? That’s why Tim Frank is Tim Frank and you and I are not.

Tim has been in Fort Lauderdale three years. He spent two years as senior editor for design and graphics of The Arizona Republic and six years as managing editor for visuals at the Lewiston, Maine, Sun Journal. Tim graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1981 with a BFA in photography and lithography.

There’s one more thing you might not know about Tim: In his spare time, he’s the lead singer for the music group U2:

Here’s a quick peek at some of the work Tim’s design staff is doing these days:

See more in the Sun-Sentinel’s staff gallery at — you guessed it — NewsPageDesigner.

Find work by Tim’s fabulous graphics and multimedia operations in the News Illustrated blog and in The Edge gallery.

Tim shares a birthday with musicians Bobby Darin, David Byrne of the Talking Heads and C.C. DeVille of Poison, actors Cate Blanchett, Miranda Cosgrove and Tim Roth and moviemakers Robert Zemeckis and George Lucas.

In addition, today is National Dance Like a Chicken Day. Seriously.

So all you Sun-Sentinel readers out there: When you see Tim today, make sure you insist he dance like a chicken.

Best wishes for a clucking great birthday, Tim!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 7:22 am and is filed under Web news design, Innovative ideas, News design, Happy birthday, Visual Editors, VizEds Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.