Charles Apple

My good friend Rob Schneider, presentation director of the Dallas Morning News, is not a happy man.

He announced last night the DMN was losing a double-header. A married couple — Sergio Pecanha and Danielle Levkovits, the paper’s graphics editor and a key designer, respectively — are moving to New York.

Rob wrote me:

Sergio and I started at about the exact same time. I did my best work with Sergio, whether it be News Projects, Olympics, Briefing or our latest design tweaks. He’s a great worker and an even better friend. It’s incalculable the loss. He’ll kick ass at the NYT. And his wife Dani is the most talented designer I’ve had the pleasure of working with. She did things with color, type and images that broke a lot of barriers for us. I’ll miss them both dearly.

Big props to Chris Morris for hiring Sergio in 2003 and huge props to Jeff Goertzen for recommending Sergio to Chris in the first place.

It’s a really sad day for us, but a wonderful day for our good friends.

Rob’s official notice is lengthy. But wow, it’s one of the more heartfelt things I’ve read recently. So here it is, in total:

It’s my horrible fortune to announce today that we are losing two great employees to the city of New York: Sergio Pecanha and Danielle Levkovits.

Sergio is leaving us for a wonderful job as a Graphics Editor at the New York Times, both for the print and web versions. We’re losing his wife Dani to the city as well, and soon some lucky company will get to use her versatile talent.

I think it’s an understatement to say that this is an extraordinary loss for our department, both personally and professionally, but it’s also a great opportunity for our good friends, and we’re really happy for them.

And since I need to tell you why we love them and why they will be missed, do yourself a favor and pack lunch before you read this.

SERGIO

Sergio came to us from (as he would say) “the jungle of Brazil” in 2003 and immediately started to make an impact for us.

One of the first graphics he did for us was an explanatory graphic on how to throw five types of baseball pitches. Considering the hurdle of actually trying to explain to him the game of baseball, he did a wonderful job. Later in the year, that graphic won a Gold Medal at the top graphics competition in the world (Malofiej).

During his five year tenure, international graphics awards were something this paper started becoming quite accustomed to.

The Olympics were another area of passion for Sergio and through two Olympic games, Sergio was able to bring a level of sophistication and explanatory journalism to our coverage that was unmatched in the world. He was part of the wonderful graphic “The Patterson” (which explained gymnast Carly Patterson’s double Arabian balance beam dismount) that basically won every design award out there.

The truth of the matter is Sergio achieved world-class results and any number of things he did whether it be a breaking graphic, a spot illustration or an explanatory projects graphic. Much to our benefit, he was able to get his hands on every section of this paper.

In September of 2006, Sergio was promoted to Graphics Director and was able to not only do great work, but also make our graphics better through the editing process as well.

See more of Sergio’s work at his personal web site.
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But maybe his lasting legacy for the DMN was his work with Will Pry in designing our newest product, Briefing, from scratch. His exceptional work on this product made its incarnation all the easier.

But all of this talk about his professional life can’t begin to explain how much we’ll miss Sergio personally. His energy, passion and wit made working here a lot more fun the past five years.

DANI

It would be tough to follow the glowing note I just wrote about Sergio, but luckily I have many more wonderful things to say about his wife, Dani (with some help from her boss Marilyn Bishkin).

Dani joined the staff in October 2006 after two years at Al Dia, where she won several SND awards for her work. She has been a fantastic addition to our staff, generating page after page of dynamic designs often with illustrations of her own for GuideLive, Guide and most recently Taste.

Her bold use of color, creative typography and conceptual solutions are the hallmarks of her vibrant designs. And her passion for design made all of the other designers on staff better as well.

With only three months of designs to submit, Dani won First Place in the 2006 Texas APME Feature Design contest.

In 2007, she quickly put together a massive redesign for our neighborsgo section to go with the website’s redesign. Her phenomenal work on this project led to her being one of the first at the paper to attain “Star” status.

Probably the best thing about Dani was her refusal to settle for mediocrity..

Whenever she was presented with the excuse, “well, that’s always the way we’ve done it here before” she set that thinking aside and figured out a way to make the page or the process better. Our department is much better off for that type of thinking.

Her strong work ethic, can-do spirit and great attitude have infused the department with energy. And her sense of humor infused the department with laughter. She is always quick to help out and eager to try new things.

Find more of Danielle’s work in her NewsPageDesigner gallery.
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Indeed, Dani plans to leave newspaper work behind and expand her design skills and experiences with agency work in New York.

We haven’t set their departure dates yet, but they will be sometime in mid to late July.

I think I know how Rob feels. Sergio and Dani joined us for dinner in a Brazilian steakhouse in Dallas last April when I was in town for a speaking engagement. The both of them were a lot of fun.

Best wishes to both Sergio and Dani, plus all their friends in Dallas!

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EDIT:

Plus, on top of everything else, Sergio turns 32 today! Happy birthday, Sergio!

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