Charles Apple

When I returned to Rock Hill, S.C., two months ago after a 15-year absence, I was delighted to find a Books-A-Million bookstore here in town.

I love Books-A-Million. We never had a Books-A-Million when I lived here before. We had only a Books-A-Dozen.

But I kind of feel sorry for those poor guys. They probably know damn well how much money I spend with Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders. I did sign up for a Books-A-Million membership card, so they politely spam me from time to time.

But this really takes the cake. They’re trying to lure me into their store this week by dangling, of all things, a sports magazine in front of me:

This is pathetically funny on so many levels.

First of all, I work for Sporting News Today. So these Sports Illustrated wankers are now The Enemy, right? No way am I buying a copy of their rag when I can download my own fine publication for free. And if I need a slick magazine, I’ll buy the newly-redesigned biweekly Sporting News itself.

The other reason this e-mail solicitation was pathetically laughable?

Check out that cover story:

Yeah, that’s Alabama. Embarrassing hell out of Clemson on national TV last Saturday.

And yeah: I’m a huge Clemson fan. A hugely embarrassed one, at the moment. So thanks for rubbing it in, Books-A-Million. In my own in-basket.

Try it again in February, guys. You might get my attention then.

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Heads up, folks in the mid-Atlantic region: I’ll be in Harrisburg, Pa., Sept. 15-17 for three days of intensive visual journalism training for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association.

Joining me there will be Darren Sanefski, assistant art director of the Syracuse Post-Standard and an adjunct professor at Syracuse University.

WHAT WILL THIS SEMINAR DO FOR ME?

We can teach you fundamentals of news design and graphic storytelling. We can show you good work done at papers across the country and how brilliant work got that way.

We can show you shortcuts. Better yet, we can show you which shortcuts not to take.

We can sharpen the skills you need to sell your ideas and your newspapers.

Best of all, though, we can give you hope. When you return to your newsroom Thursday, you’ll return inspired, refreshed and ready to kick butt.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

Anyone invested in news design or graphics or who wishes to understand more about visual journalism. Big papers, small papers — we’ll cover it all.

WHAT SHOULD WE EXPECT?

We’ll start bright and early each day. We’ll be a little late to dinner each night. But by the end of our three-day cycle, you’ll have a greater appreciation for challenges facing visual journalists today and strategies for dealing with those challenges.

DAY ONE: MONDAY, SEPT. 15

Our editors say they want us to think outside the box. But how, exactly, does one do that? We’ll spend the first morning discussing the nature of creativity and how we can be more creative on the pages of our newspapers.

We’ll also discuss at how the brain accesses information and show how a smart designer can use psychology to move a reader around a page and through our newspaper. You’ll never look at an empty page template the same way again.

Darren Sanefski teaches Gestalt theory of
news design in Waterbury, Conn., in May.
—

It’s all too easy to get wrapped up in design, though, and forget about content. We’ll spend time the first afternoon looking at brilliant approaches to complex stories and how to brainstorm using word association and concept mapping.

That evening, we’ll hold an informal “campfire” session so we can sit around and do some networking. We may not have a real fire, but we can promise hot chocolate and s’mores.

DAY TWO: TUESDAY, SEPT. 16

We’ll cover a number of nuts-and-bolts issues: Design grids and why they’re important. How to use color more effectively in our newspapers. What you can do in your everyday design that will aid your paper’s branding efforts. The importance of thinking big.

After all, it’s not about the size of your paper. It’s about the size of your ideas.

DAY THREE: WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 17

We’ll discuss principles of typography and why it’s important, trends in Web design, Flash, multimedia and animated storytelling and tips that big papers use in order to stay productive as they pursue brilliant visual work.

IN ADDITION…

In this business, it’s important to think fast. With that in mind, we’ll anchor each afternoon with a hands-on session aimed at sharpening your thinking and conceptualization skills. We’ll also hold a number of critique sessions, not only picking apart your samples but also explaining why they may or may not work and what you can do to make your pages more effective.

BUT WAIT! THAT’S NOT ALL!

We’re programming in a number of brief, break-out sessions on a number of specific topics. We’ll allow the group to choose which of these optional sessions we present.

Some of the topics on our preliminary wild-card list:

* Top 10 Adobe Illustrator tips
* Top 10 Adobe InDesign tips
* Top 10 Adobe Photoshop tips
* Visual ethics in the 21st century
* My all-time worst job interview experiences
* Sporting News Today: An experiment in PDF
* Teaching news design in Manila: A travelogue
* 3D or not 3D: Which rendering technique is the best?
* Charles Apple’s infamous battleship graphic and how it came to be

WHAT EQUIPMENT SHOULD I BRING?

We’ll have hands-on exercises, but this isn’t a software seminar. This is about the journalism — it’s about thinking, it’s about ideas, it’s about telling stories. Feel free to bring your laptop, but you won’t necessarily need it. Bring your brain, a notepad and be prepared to work hard.

Do bring some samples of your work, though, in PDF or JPEG format. We’re planning to spend some time each day with a group critique.

HOW MUCH WILL ALL THIS COST?

Very little. PNA is charging only $249 for PNA members and $279 for employees of non-member papers. If you want to attend only one day, it’s $99 per day or $149 per day for non-members.

WHERE WILL ALL THIS HAPPEN?

At the headquarters of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, across the street from the Susquehanna River just north of downtown Harrisburg.

The address is 3899 North Front Street. That’s just off I-81; the red dot on this Google map:

View Larger Map

Find detailed driving directions here.

IS THERE A DECENT (CHEAP) HOTEL NEARBY?

Every time I travel to Harrisburg, I stay at the Days Inn at 3919 Front Street, less than a mile away. They’re the purple dot on the map above. Find their web site here.

It’s a very nice place, there’s a Wendy’s next door — Helloooo, Frosty! — and the folks there greet me by name. I even stayed there with my wife and daughter when we passed though on vacation a couple years ago.

WHO ARE THE INSTRUCTORS, AGAIN?

DARREN SANEFSKI has a varied editorial and advertising design background.

He received his visual communication degree from Syracuse University and went to work as a staff artist at The Syracuse Post-Standard. Fast forward more than 20 years and Darren, still at The Post-Standard, is now the Assistant Art Director/sports designer. Darren also works as an Adjunct Instructor at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and teaches graduate and undergraduate students design theory and practice.

In his free time Darren runs a freelance graphic arts business, DMS Design Studio, where he designs for local and national companies on a variety of visual projects. His current and past clients include Boeing, Pacificare, Syracuse University, LeMoyne College, and the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce.

Darren has won numerous national and international awards for his information graphics and designs. He regularly conducts seminars on various aspects of information design, most recently presenting at a Society for News Design quick course in Waterbury, Conn., in May. He is scheduled to speak at a student session at the SND annual workshop in Las Vegas. Darren is a regular facilitator at the SND Annual Best of Newspaper Design Creative Competition.

Find his online portfolio here.

—

CHARLES APPLE is art director of Sporting News Today, a daily sports e-newspaper based in Charlotte, N.C.

He spent nearly ten years as graphics director at The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk and graphics editor of The Des Moines Register. Previously, Apple was an artist and page designer for the Chicago Tribune, The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer and for small papers in South Carolina and Georgia.

Apple has won numerous awards from the Society for News Design for page design, graphics and graphics reporting. He redesigned The Athens (Ga.) Daily News in 1987, The (Rock Hill, S.C.) Herald in 1990 and two Gannett weeklies in 2002.

This will be Apple’s fourth session for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association. He has also taught for the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, the Alliance of Area Business Publications, the American Press Institute and SND. He was a presenter at SND annual workshops in 2000 (Minneapolis) and 2006 (Orlando). He taught a three-day session in Manila in 2007. Apple is a moderator and blogger for VisualEditors.com.

Apple, 46, is in the process of relocating with his wife and 15-year-old daughter from Virginia Beach to Rock Hill, S.C. In his spare time, he reads 20th century U.S. History, collects Star Trek action figures and writes about himself in the third person.

Find his online portfolio here.

OK, OK, I WANT TO GO. HOW DO I SIGN UP?

Call the PNA’s Bev Hendry at (717) 703-3003 or e-mail her at beverlyh@pa-news.org.

Find more information at the PNA web site.

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Things are slowly settling down for me in my new job as art director of Sporting News Today.

I’m still working some pretty long hours, which is eating into time I’d normally spend on silly things like e-mailing, blogging and sleeping. But as I adapt to my new routine — and as we phase out of start-up mode and feel our way into normal operations — things will eventually settle down.

Until then, I’m way behind. On vital things. Like e-mailing, blogging, and sleeping.

Compounding matters somewhat: This summer has been a tremendous time for news in the news design field. Redesigns, layoffs, changes galore in the industry. I think we’ve been able to stay on top of most of them for you.

A few programming notes:

—
BIRTHDAY NOTICES

You may have noticed I stopped posting birthday notices. I simply ran out of time to write them. And August was a particularly heavy month for birthdays.

Birthdays I wanted to tell you about but didn’t:

Aug. 12: Michael Tribble of the Cleveland Plain Dealer
Aug. 13: Juan Antonio Giner, design and management consultant
Aug. 14: Casandra Riddle of the Times of Northwest Indiana and a recent Purdue graduate
Aug. 15: Matt Mansfield, consultant and next year’s SND president
Aug. 16: Michelle “ShellyVal” Valenzuela, formerly of the Raleigh News & Observer
Aug. 16: Brandon Stuck of The Virginian-Pilot
Aug. 17: Patrick Garvin of the Florida Times-Union
Aug. 18: John Earle of The Virginian-Pilot
Aug. 19: Danny Dougherty of Stateline.org
Aug. 20: Bill Bootz of the Oklahoma City Oklahoman
Aug. 20: Mark “NewsDesigner” Friesen of the Portland Oregonian
Aug. 20: Tonia Cowan of the Toronto Globe & Mail
Aug. 20: Niketa Patel of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Aug. 20: Carlos Moreno, student, San Jose State University
Aug. 21: Allisence Chang, Michigan State graduate and intern at the Arizona Republic

Whew! Did I really miss all those?

Yes, you did, schmuck. And shame on you.

I think I’ll try a different — perhaps a somewhat less time-intensive — approach to birthday notes until I get my schedule under control.

—
THE SALE OF THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

Still not sure when the sale will go through or who will buy it. I’m monitoring the situation and will post the news as soon as I get it.

I’m very glad I’m no longer in that situation. But the pain of watching my friends suffer through it day-to-day is just as bad as suffering through it myself.

Hang in there, folks. I’m hoping for the best.

—
SND/LAS VEGAS

Normally, I’d be all over this with previews and posts and tips.

There’s a very good reason I’ve not done this: I’m not going this year.

It breaks my heart. But due to the cost of our delayed relocation to Rock Hill, S.C. — anyone out there want to buy a beautiful condo in Virginia Beach? — I had to cancel. It was just too expensive.

I will have a preview/tips post coming up shortly. For now, find the Vegas web home here.

I hope you all have fun there.

—
TRAINING IN HARRISBURG, PA.

I’ll be teaching a big, three-day visual journalism seminar next month for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association in Harrisburg, Pa.

This will be my fourth session for PNA. And it’ll be, by far, the most extensive. With me will be Darren Sanefski of the Syracuse newspaper and a professor at Syracuse University.

The dates are Sept. 15, 16 and 17. I’m hoping to have something more extensive up shortly. Watch this spot.

—
SPORTING NEWS TODAY

It’s been wildly successful. We launched a month ago yesterday and passed 100,000 subscribers a while back. The feedback we’re getting from readers has been phenomenal.

My dad even gushes about it during our weekly phone chats. And he’s reading us via a dial-up modem! I’ve had friends tell me it even looks great on iPhones.

The design is a bit formatted. But that’s OK: It ain’t about the design. It’s about the content. And our content has been second to none.

This was the job I was born for. And I’m enjoying hell out of it.

—
PERSONAL NOTE

I had the entire weekend off — my first since I moved here. My wife, Sharon, is still working in Virginia Beach until our place sells. My daughter, Elizabeth, has moved in with me. She started 10th grade last week at Rock Hill High.

The two of us are crammed into a tiny apartment in Rock Hill, the city where we lived for many years and where Elizabeth was born in 1993.

Here’s Elizabeth, chatting with her internet friends via her iMac, in the corner of our tiny living room. She sleeps on that fold-out futon on the right. I have a mattress on the floor of the bedroom, off to the left. Note the framed photo of Tribune Tower above the TV.

Our living room was awfully bare until I put up two pictures into the spot of honor: The tributes my staffs at The Virginian-Pilot (left) and The Des Moines Register (right) bestowed upon me when I left them.

I also brought a few of my autographed pieces, which hang on my bedroom wall.

At upper left are drawings I did as a kid of Miami Dolphins great Bob Griese and Atlanta Braves knuckleballer Phil Niekro. Across the bottom are caricatures of Star Trek actors James “Scotty” Doohan and Marina “Troi” Sirtis. I did those in the late 1980s.

At upper right is an Adobe Illustrator cartoon portrait of Green Bay Packers legend Paul Horning. I did that one back in 1996.

Finally, I must admit, I’m a bit lonely here without Sharon. I’m trying to make do, however. Here is a photo of me with a cute cheerleader I picked up on Saturday:

Thanks for all the kind e-mails, folks. Keep checking the blog. We’ll be here.

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The plan for today had been to fly into Charlotte Tuesday afternoon, spend all day Wednesday teaching at the Gaston Gazette — as part of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association’s Traveling Campus — and then fly back to Norfolk on Thursday.

Instead, my new job meant that I was only about a half-hour away from the site of my last scheduled speaking event of the summer. Only 72 miles, both ways. Hardly even worth the trouble of pulling out my iPod.

The presentation — my all-day program, The Art of Being Brilliant — went pretty well, I think. I freshened up a few of the slides last night but, for the most part, it was substantially the same show I gave earlier this year in Dallas and Lexington, Ky.

Oops! Caught red-handed, shilling a bit for my
new employer, Sporting News.
—

My only real regret: A couple of ill-timed digressions on my part ran us over by ten minutes. So I broke my promise to the crowd to not run over our scheduled ending time of 4:30 p.m.

I was surprised when my wife and daughter showed up at mid-morning. They’ve never seen me teach. Ninety minutes later, we had lunch and then they left. Quickly. Bored shitless, they said.

Oh, well. So much for watching Dad in action.

The crowd seemed to appreciate the presentation. At least they didn’t throw garbage. Folks asked really good questions and seemed interested in finer points. I was delighted that so many word journalists showed up. I usually have a few, but nearly half the room were neither designers nor artists.

A number of reporters came and went, but for
the most part of the day, we had 20 to 25 people.
—

A few attendees took me up on my offer to send out CDs containing my slide shows and the handouts I would have, um, handed out if I had printed up any. I’m still in the process of relocating, however, so I’ll be a little slow in sending those out. I still have three or four CDs to send out from my Lexington show a few weeks ago.

Thanks to editor Hunter Bretzius — truly a friend of visual journalism — and her crew at the Gaston Gazette for being such wonderful hosts. Additional thanks to Graham Kimbrough and the classy, classy folks at SNPA. The association has gone way out of its way to provide high-quality instruction to staffers of its member papers for absolutely no cost at all. With training budgets shrinking and disappearing but the need for training greater than ever before, that’s just amazing.

I’ve been proud to play a part in that effort this summer. Thanks for inviting me!

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It’s still not too late to make plans to join us in Gastonia, N.C. Wednesday for The Art of Being Brilliant, an enlightening and inspiring show about brilliant visual journalism.

We’ll begin at 9:30 a.m. sharp in the offices of the Gaston Gazette at 1893 Remount Road in Gastonia. I promise to have you out by 4:30 p.m.

View Larger Map

That will make for six hours of slides, lectures, war stories, how-to’s and tips you can take back to your newsroom — big or small — to help inspire you to take your own visual journalism to the next level.

And the best thing about it? It won’t cost you a red cent. The fine folks at the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association have seen to that.

All we ask is that you contact my good friend Graham Kimbrough at SNPA headquarters in Duluth, Ga., and let him know you’re coming. You find a faxable registration form, phone numbers, schedules — everything you need to know at the SNPA Traveling Campus web page.

I posted all about this in greater detail last week. Find that post here.

We’ll look forward to seeing you on Wednesday!

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Here’s wishing the happiest of VizEds birthdays to my former boss, Deborah Withey, DME for presentation of The Virginian-Pilot.

Deb and Jim Haag show off prospective page designs
on Election Night 2004. Photo by Julie Elman.
—

Deborah has been at the Pilot just over four years, overseeing the photo, design, copy, day and graphics desks. A recent realignment changed a few of those assignments, however, including elimination of the graphics department. So don’t hold me to all that.

Last summer, Deb oversaw the debut of a massive — and very successful — redesign of the Pilot. It was the latest redesign of Deb’s career. Before she went to the Pilot, Deb was design consultant for the Knight-Ridder chain. Among the papers she remade: The Detroit Free Press; the Philadelphia Daily News; the Centre Daily Times of State College, Pa.; El Universal of Caracas, Venezuela, the Duluth, Minn., Tribune; The San Luis Obispo, Calif, News-Tribune, the Aberdeen, S.D., American News and the Monterey, Calif., Herald.

Previously, Deb worked as design director of the Detroit Free Press and assistant design director of the Dallas Times Herald. She was president of the Society for News Design in 1995 and a magna cum laude graduate of Syracuse University.

Deb, center, with design consultants Lucie Lacava
and Gabi Schmidt last October at SND/Boston.
Photo by Steve Dorsey.
—

She’s been known to do consulting work for Bill Ostendorf’s Creative Circle group as well as her husband’s firm, Innovation. In her spare time, she designs furniture and woodwork via her studio, Cheese & Pickles.

She, her husband, Juan Antonio Giner and her son, Tam David, live in Norfolk but still have a home in St. Davids, Wales.

Deborah shares a birthday with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon, former Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens, actor Billy Bob Thornton, jazz great Louis Armstrong and Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

In our birthday notice last year, we reported that Deb had turned 29 years old. This year, however, I’m happy to report that Deborah is turning 29 years old.

Happy 29th birthday, Deb! Best wishes!

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