Business in Savannah and 'Twitter 101'

Every week, I get the privilege of designing our weekly business publication, Business in Savannah -- or BiS for short. At first, I was not excited about this opportunity. I had spent a few months being BiS's resident copy editor, and I found the content to be dry and boring. However, it has been growing on me. It is a tall tab format and mostly made of submitted columns from local businesspeople. There's a few profiles in each 24-32 page issue, and, most importantly, a double-truck cover story that is treated like a magazine article. While some of the cover story articles are questionable (local sausage makers, anyone?), the majority are actually pretty interesting.

One of these more interesting articles was "Twitter 101." It was a two-part series explaining the ins and outs of Twitter for businessowners. I was given some screen shots of the website and the chunky story, and I am really proud of what I made.

I traced the Twitter bird and added a few of my own touches to him. I also carried him over to the cover. Can you say eye-catching?

See? I get to do all sorts of cool stuff in BiS. Here are a few of my other creations ...

Positivity

Recently, it has been hard to be positive about things going on in the workplace, but I have learned that while it might suck for a while (overworked, layoffs, etc.), having a positive outlook on things can only make it better. So, instead of whining about the bad, I am going to show you some of the good. A new project!

One of our business writers has started a new series, which I got the opportunity to bring to life. Each monthly piece will be about a different part of Savannah's real estate market. The idea is to give readers an idea of where to move, the amenities you'd get there and what's close by. It is a concept that just screamed huge infographic to me, so I got to toughen my Illustrator chops a little. We are two months into the series, so I have two clips to show you.

The first:

And the second:

The first one had a lot of things to map, so it looks a little more finished, but the second one shows just what the godley area is: suburbia. I also added a little county map to show where the area was in respect to the rest of the city.

I spent a lot of time developing the concept of a huge map and laying out all othe bits and pieces. It got rave reviews in the newsroom. So, what do you guys think?

The opportunity to do something cool

I feel like I have gotten the opportunity to do some pretty cool thigns at work recently. I know know if I was in a slump the past two months or something, but these past couple weeks have been pretty productive/creative.

On Saturday, my 1A was to include two 60+ inch stories, both with file art or art of buildings. The lead story wasn't an issue. The information (about the Savannah Harbor deepening) was the most important part. It was the "100 days" Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal story with which I got be creative. I searched AP images for the perfect photo of Deal, and I decided on a profile shot with the American flag in the foreground. Yes, it is a little cheesy, but he also had the perfect facial expression. He wasn't too happy with himself, and he looks like he's determined. That was the whole meaning behind the article, too.

I left the Deal package a bit airy, as to simplify its meaning. Looking back, I could have given the text even more space away from Deal's face, too. I really like the simplicity and elegance I achieved. What do you think?

Time equals ... better pages

Tonight I got some time to actually think about a design before I slap it on the page. I'm not saying that thought doesn't go into my work, though. It's just that some days, you follow the template, and some days, you get to do a bit of designing.

We focused on the snow storm (snowpocalypse, anyone?) that has hit more than 1/3 of the US. Fortunately, it hasn't affected us here in Savannah. The was kind of the lure of the story. Were we rubbing it in the Midwest's face? Maybe. But you guys can laugh at us when a hurricane comes barreling through the Pacific and covers the city with 12 feet of water. Here's the finished product:

On a somewhat related note, I want to commend the Columbia Missourian on their continuous online coverage of the snowpocalypse. They have had photos, video, graphics and user-submitted stuff they have been posting all day long. I'm excited to see their front page tomorrow, too. (If it gets out, that is. The Tulsa World announced earlier today that they wouldn't be publishing a newspaper Wednesday for the first time in their history.)

UPDATE: Newseum actually picked up my 1A again last night! Check out their Top Ten to see the best of Feb. 2!

On the redesign

For those of you that visit my blog (instead of RSSing my stuff away), you probably noticed the recent redesign. I'm trying to revamp the look of my blog, while kind of emphasizing that it is design-oriented. I'm still working out some kinks and trying to figure out what looks best. Bear with me, as I am doing this in my spare time, which is very limited nowadays

Back in the swing of things

Here's the Quartet from Amanda's wedding.
More photos are available from my Facebook page.

Life is slowly getting back to normal. It's been knocked out of whack for a while now because of staffing, life events (see above) and the holidays. We're hiring people at work. We'd be doing it faster, but corporations move a little slower than the people working for them.

For my first real-life job, it has sure been a roller coaster. I've gone through major employment shifts and multiple hiring procedures/candidates. I've seen someone be hired and fired. I've been given a ton of responsibility, and I have seen people really come to the rescue when the copy desk was struggling. We're still not at full staff, but we're getting there. I'm learning a lot from the experience.

And in the middle of all this chaos, I still get to do some pretty cool things. I designed the front page for President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, and it was the first page in a while that I was really proud of. I worked with the wire editor (who knows EVERYTHING) to come up with how we were going to piece together everything from the speech. Considering we did this all basically from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m., the finished product is kind of awesome. So awesome, in fact, that Newseum actually picked it up for its "Top Ten" front pages. I took a screen shot for evidence:

Mine is the bottom left thumbnail. In retrospect, I should have taken a better screen shot.

I have the PDF of the page saved on my computer at work, so I will add it to the blog when I'm there next. Even though the theme of that day's "Top Ten" was papers that used a specific quote from the speech as a headline, I feel honored that mine was picked! That means people actually looked at it, you know?

A lot of information -- pretty easy to follow.

New year, new me

Hello Internet folk! It has been a while hasn't it? Well, I have been fairly bogged down with work-related businesses. Sadly, they haven't been any cool projects or things I'd like to share here. Essentially, we've been down a designer for several months, as the person that was hired never really progressed from "beginner." Now, we're going to be down two designers for a while until we hire some new people. But this is not what I wanted to talk about.

I am leaving on a plane in about an hour to head back home to Missouri, where one of my best friends is getting married. I've been excited about this for a long time, but it never really hit me until last night how big of a step this is (if only on paper — they've practically been married for years). She's going to be a wife with a husband.

Sure, they're just titles, but I think this marriage also marks the beginning of a new chapter for a lot of the people involved. I know it means something to me. We're grown-ups now. Some of us have grown-up jobs, are in grown-up relationships and are becoming useful in the world. We aren't the rowdy high schoolers at Steak 'n' Shake at 3 in the morning or the clever college kids who throw "Prom" parties just to be able to dress up again. We are actual adults contributing to society.

What is going to be fun about this wedding is that it will be a mesh of all three beloved chapters of my, and Amanda's, lives coming together. If I'm getting nostalgic, I can't even imagine what it's got to be like for her right now. It's a good thing I am getting on a plane to see/help her with preparations right now!

It's all got me thinking though, where am I headed this year and beyond? What's in store for me in this new chapter of my life? The beauty of it all is that it's all an unknown. I like it that way.