Longtime graphics editor and illustrator Fred Matamoros — who left newspapers in 2010 — is back in the game: He’s been hired as a senior artist by the Orange County Register of Santa Ana, Calif.
Fred tells us:
This coming Monday, Feb. 4, is my return to journalism! I’ve accepted a great offer to join the Orange County Register in So. California. Kind of a homecoming geographically as well.
The past couple of years I have spent time as the creative director of a city magazine, staff graphic designer at an ad agency and senior designer/artist at a design studio. I found myself unhappy and not creatively challenged whatsoever.
I look forward to working in a newsroom again, especially with the powerhouse team that the O.C. Register is putting together. It feels good to join a publication with such a pure, focused direction and hope for print journalism.
The Register has been on a bit of a hiring spree lately. The man who bought the paper last summer has been staffing up the newsroom, and beefing up the print product. As a former sports reporter, I’m still in awe over what the paper did last fall with its high school football coverage.
Fred will be one of two senior artists in the graphics department there. The other? Infographics superstar Jeff Goertzen.
Back to Fred, though… 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 Olympia, Wash., before moving up the road to the Tacoma, Wash., News Tribune in 1999 as an artist and illustrator.
A few samples of Fred’s newspaper work:
In 2010, Fred moved back to Shreveport to become creative director for SB magazine. He moved to Shreveport design agency Teri Flash Creative in 2011 and then moved again to John Perez Graphics and Design last spring. That firm specialized in working with the oil and gas industry.
Fred told us a while back:
Painting keeps me busy as well. I’m in private collections across the U.S., represented in three galleries and try to keep my website updated often.
A few examples of Fred’s paintings:
Find Fred’s paintings here and his infographics and illustration web site here.
