Charles Apple

Kenneth Eriksson is design director for Vestmanlands Läns Tidning or VLT, a daily in Västerås, Sweden.

A gigantic auto show for American cars is “taking over” his city this weekend, Kenneth tells us. So VLT responded in a big visual way today, the day the event opens.

Here’s the front of today’s paper (click for a larger view):

Kenneth writes:

We made it as a wraparound with two more pages of graphic on the inside spread.

Here’s the inside of the wrap. Again, click for a larger view:

Kenneth writes:

The idea is to enable the readers to tear it off and keep it during the festival — providing important information, schedule and rarely known facts. A regular front will be on page three for our more traditional readers.

We have been working with Malofiej 2010 Best of Show winner, Thomas Molén, on this project and it has been great fun.

I stepped in on this project as the lead designer, it being summer holiday and all, but main credit goes to Thomas. For sure.

Thomas and I have done some fun work on our weekly supplement Latte earlier. (The supplement was awarded Gold in the Swedish Design Award.)

A few examples of collaborations in Latte by Kenneth and Thomas (click any of these):

Kaitlin Yarnall recently conducted a Q&A with Thomas Molén for the Society for News Design web site. Find that interview here. Find even more info about him here.

Read more about the PowerMeet — in Swedish, of course — here.

We reported the other day about a free meetup this coming Monday night in Boston sponsored by the Society for News Design.

If you’re in the Boston metro area, reserve Tuesday night, July 20, as well. This one, too, sounds like a real winner for visual journalists.

Matt Carroll of the Boston Globe writes:

There’s a new group called Hacks/Hackers, which is aimed at journalists interested in learning more about digital and technologists interested in media. (There are chapters in New York and San Francisco, too.)

We’re holding our first meeting: “Timeless: Tools for helping reporters create a visual timeline”

Speakers: Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viegas, creators of the Many-eyes.com data visualization site.

Also: Austin Gardner-Smith, of Pinyadda.come, a web application designed to make it easy to gather, customize, and share news and information from across the web.

When: Tuesday, July 20. [Drinks and munchies are served from 6 p.m to 7; the talks begin at 7]

Where: Microsoft NERD Center, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge

The closest MTA station would be the Red Line’s Kendall/MIT stop.

Charge: A $10 contribution (or what you can afford) is requested for food and drinks. Students free.

Find more information about the event here.

The Boston chapter of Hacks/Hackers held its first social meetup last month. Read about that here.

Matt is hoping to get the word out on this. Please feel free to the news along.

Read more here about the free SND meetup planned for Monday [July 12] in Boston.

Fred Matamoros has left the Tacoma, Wash., News Tribune in order to join SB Magazine, a city magazine that covers Shreveport and Bossier City, La.

Fred will be SB Magazine’s creative director starting Monday. His last day at the News Tribune was a week ago today, he tells us.

Fred writes:

The family is very excited about the move. It’s sort of a return home. My wife was born there, as was our daughter. I worked at the Times in Shreveport in the early nineties.

A 1985 graduate of Woodbury University in Burbank, Calif., Fred spent four years as a designer and art director for a major L.A. ad agency before becoming a staff artist for the Daily Breeze in Torrance, Calif. He spent three years as assistant graphics editor of the Shreveport (La.) Times and five-and-a-half years as graphics editor of the Olympian in Olymbia, Wash., before moving up the road to Tacoma in 1999 as an artist and illustrator.

A few samples of Fred’s work:

Find more on his personal web site.

Fred writes:

If you can, please let our many friends know that the News Tribune is searching for a newsroom artist.

Find the want ad here.