Charles Apple

So I spent all day Saturday down at the newspaper office, offering my assistance in the production of the second edition of the new-and-improved Sunday national paper, Rapport.

The engineer of the redesign, Australia-based consultant Peter Ong, went back home this week. I’m still here working with the graphic artists, teaching presentations and generally helping out however I can.

Because the graphics were pretty much under control by Saturday — thanks to superbly talented Rapport artist Anton Vermeulen –  I didn’t have much to do. So I walked around, gave out pats on the back and took a few pictures.

The Rapport newsroom is mostly deserted on Saturdays. All the reporters are gone. Left are the editors, copy editors and designers who make soup from the ingredients.

I set up shop at an empty desk and tried to stay out of everybody’s way.

Rapport’s design chief, Jan Morgenrood, oversaw assembly of the final pages. They’d have been done much earlier, I think, were it not for the huge  championship Rugby match being held up the road in Pretoria and on national TV.

As each page went to bed, it was taped to the wall. At a glance, one could see the visual flow of the section as it came together.

My favorite page was this one, on which Anton’s graphic showing prominent court cases served as lead art.

It was a relatively simple packaging, but with dramatic vertical crops on the mug shots.

I spent a while chatting with this friendly fellow — Gavin Prins — who, as gossip editor, is one of the more prominent members of the Rapport staff. He even does radio and TV shows here in Johannesburg.

I didn’t recognize him despite this huge mug shot of him on the back page of the main section.. And understandably so. I mean, if you can’t read Afrikaans, what are you going to notice on this page?

Right. Me, too. Gavin probably has the least-looked at column photo in the entire paper.

Here was Sunday’s front page (click any of the actual page images for a larger view):

Note the rugby celebration shot lower on the page. That refers to the sports section. More about that in a moment.

Here’s a clean copy of Anton’s graphic I mentioned above:

Anton also supplied this illustration on the cover of this section, the title of which means “Weekly.” It contains in-depth narrative pieces.

I didn’t show you many of the features inserts last week. This week’s book section cover was illustrated by the incredibly gifted Hanlie Malan., who works out of the company’s Port Elizabeth office.

The wonderful business section — Sake24, which is now a tabloid on Sundays — closes out on Friday night. The business artist, Elsolet Joubert Bergh, was able to handle most of their requests this week. I helped out with only a couple assignments, including this Q&A on the annual economic projections made each year by the South African government:

The text was compiled, edited and then translated into Afrikaans by wonderfully talented copy editor Jaco Visser.

The only other Rapport team working on Saturday was sports, of course. And it was a huge day for sports, with the Currie Cup game going on Saturday night. The Currie Cup is South African rugby’s answer to the Super Bowl.

Sports, therefore, had a few extra folks on hand in order to push out the best section possible Saturday night.

Among the folks lending a hand: Trainer and editor Sybrandus Adema (far right in the photo above), business copy editor Lauren Thys (upper left in the photo below) and Arlene Prinsloo, design director of the entire newspaper group and the in-house point person for the redesign project.

So you have extra help and you have big news that will run you right up to deadline. What else do you need to create the perfect night in sports?

You need a big-screen TV and pizza. Here, Sybrandus enjoys his pizza.

And here I am, chowing down while wearing the purple Clemson shirt my mom sent me right before I left the U.S.

I ordered a ham-and-mushroom. Which was delicious. One of the best pizzas I’ve ever had.

We ate while we enjoyed the final moments of the game.

Oh, no! It appears a gigantic fight has broken out on the field, with only a minute or so left on the clock!

Actually, they’re just playing rugby. The whole game looked like a brawl to me.

In some ways, though, the game seemed very much like a U.S. football game.

With pages built and holes left for stories and photos, the team sprang into action once the match was over. Here, Arlene sets up her breakout boxes — which they call STDs here, for story-telling devices — with a few key factoids about the game.

And here, she tweaks the headline and lead art for the front of the first editon.

Meanwhile, Lauren monitors the pages themselves as they’re completed. The green elements are “finished,” and all-green pages with a huge “X” has been sent to plate.

On the left is that first edition. On the right is a later edition front that went to readers here in Johannesburg (click either for a larger view):

In addition, the folks in sports put together a nice picture page for inside. I like the early version on the left better, in fact. Note how the big picture paired with the first edition lede photo across the top of the later edition:

And that was Rapport’s excellent Sunday edition, its second in its new format.

The plan for Monday: Spend a little time with the artists and then have dinner with Andries Gouws, the eager and inventive designer for Beeld, the daily here in Johannesburg. I’ve bragged on him a couple of times now (here and here). I’ll enjoy spending a little down time tonight with him.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 10:06 am and is filed under Travelogue, Trip to South Africa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.