Some clips of late...

I've been busy, you guys. Not only have I been working 40 hours a week at the studio, but I've also picked up another 15-hour-a-week job at a coffeeshop. It's a lot of work, but I've been handling it ... for now.

Anyway, I've also been churning out some pretty decent pages. And even a baby shower invitation (which will be in another post). This first one is for the Alexandria, La., paper. The story is about how the smaller schools in Louisiana are using sports to recruit more students (athletes and non-athletes) to their schools. So I got illustrative. Do ya get it? Huh? TOOLS? SPORTS?

The Sunday Town Talk: Sept. 29, 2013

The second one was kind of a big deal in Shreveport -- another Louisiana paper the studio handles. The water supplies near the city tested positive for a deadly brain-eating amoeba. Crazy, right? People died from this a few years back. So I made another graphic illustration. It was on the Newseum's Top Ten the next day and everything.

Shreveport Times: Oct. 10, 2013

10 years ago today

Today I felt compelled to share my findings on Newseum.org. Everyday, the website compiles front pages of newspapers from around the world, and today seemed like a great opportunity to analyze the meanings and displays on papers across the nation. I picked out a few that I liked and that I thought were unique and different from the rest.

The Arizona Republic, Phoenix, Ariz.

The Arizona Republic in Phoenix, Ariz., put together one of my favorite fronts of the day. I have a few beefs with it, but overall, I think it is the most unique. Instead of creating an image of the towers with columns of text, like the San Diego Union-Tribune, below, the Republic  created a void, which goes perfectly with their quote-style headline, 'There's a hole in the world.' The only beef I have with the design is the flow of text from one "column" to another. After it creates the void for the first tower, I get confused as to which column I should be reading. For legibility, it should have been three columns of text with the two towers in the middle. I can see the allure of the asymmetry with the type, though.

The San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego, Calif.

The two twin columns above seem like the easy thing to do, right? I mean, columns naturally look like the buildings. I have to give San Diego some credit, though, because I think the spacing and air to the page is just right.

Sioux City Journal, Sioux City, Iowa

The Sioux City Journal, above, did something different with typography that I don't think does the trick, either. It definitely needs an explainer paragraph on the front saying where the words came from, and, to me, it feels more artsy than actually conveying any journalism whatsoever. It does, however, get a lot of air.

Des Moines Register, Des Moines, Iowa

The Des Moines Register went on a cloning spree and Photoshopped a very literal translation of an image being burned into our eyes. I am inclined to like it if only because it breaks up the monotony of the file plan-crashing-into-the-towers photo. And it is definitely "eye"-catching.

Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J.

Speaking of breaking up the monotony, the Star-Ledger in Newark seemed to think the same thing. Instead of running file images of the attacks, they told the reader, "We do not need to tell you what happened 10 years ago today. You know." I love this unique take on the day, but I could have probably done with a shorter story on the front. It is neat, though, how the writer of the story was the same writer who reported on the attacks 10 years ago.

The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Ahh, The Virginian-Pilot. Always with the innovations. Even though the front page is very self-explanatory, let me point out a few things. For one, this front is informative. It doesn't show you an image you have already seen, and it doesn't tell you something you already know (well, some you may). It gives you facts, albeit snarky ones (i.e. Number of Osama bin Ladens: 1 —> 0).

West Hawaii Today, Kailua Kona, Hawaii

West Hawaii Today is the only paper I picked that used the file photos of the towers because they went big. They flipped the front page and used the iconic image to speak for itself.Yes, it's an image we have already seen before, but they repurposed it for the anniversary.

These are just my opinions, folks. I haven't spoken to the designers of these papers, and all I know is what I see. However, I do suggest people check out the front pages for themselves on Newseum.org. A direct link to today's papers will probably be posted on the site tomorrow, and I will in turn post it here.

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.