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Charles Apple: The Visual Side of Journalism

 

‘Free-lance’ archive

Number of comments in parentheses

Feb. 2: Tim Ball leaving the Washington Post to go freelance

One of the top sports designers working today — Tim Ball of the Washington Post — is leaving daily newspapers to go freelance. Tim tells us this is… …a move I’ve been considering for a while now, and the result of some very careful consideration, and one which has me thrilled at my prospects for the future. I’m heading to [...]

Jan. 25: A sales pitch for citizen journalists

Have you heard of OneNews? It’s one of those “citizen journalist” operations that, some say, are the future of journalism. Today, a blogging friend forwarded the sales pitch OneNews made to him. My friend writes: As if there weren’t enough problems in journalism, apparently someone has decided to turn everyone with a smart phone into a reporter. Who knew being [...]

Dec. 5, 2011: Twenty-five handwritten fonts. For free.

How about giving yourself some new fonts for Christmas? No? Well, how about if they’re freeware fonts? Rachel Schallom, a grad student at the University of Missouri, found a web site — Designm.Ag — offering 25 free handwritten fonts. Designm.Ag‘s Steven Snell compiled the list but cautions: As always when you are dealing with freebies, be sure to check the [...]

Aug. 31, 2011: Gaddafi with the wind

Surely by now you’ve seen the cover of the new issue of Time magazine featuring Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. Yes, that’s by illustrator Tim O’Brien. The same guy who did the X’d out portrait of Osama bin Laden a couple months ago.   In his blog, Tim writes how a… …short e-mail from TIME‘s [design director] D.W. Pine read, ” are [...]

May 17, 2011: How the St. Pete Times scored that ‘viral’ shuttle picture for A1 today (8)

Just about everyone saw, at some point yesterday, that terrific iPhone picture — by Stefanie Gordon of Hoboken, N.J. –  of the space shuttle Endeavour breaking through the ceiling of clouds and climbing towards the blackness of space. Stefanie took the picture plus some video, and tweeted it. And, of course, the striking image went viral. Well, guess what? The [...]

May 8, 2011: Inside Huntsville’s special tornado section

Today, the Huntsville Times — a 47,107-circulation daily in northern Alabama — published an enormous 38 page retrospective of the giant tornado that wrecked the area 11 days ago. You’ll recall there were a number of tornadoes that day and the next. Anywhere from ten to twelve hit the state of Alabama, killing at least 236 in that state alone. [...]

Dec. 6, 2010: Buy a short story from a copy-editing novelist and help fight hunger

Craig Lancaster is not only the leader of the news and sports copy desks at the Gazette in Billings, Montana, but also he’s a novelist whose second book will be out in a few weeks. Craig is trying to make this Christmas season just a little less grinchy for some. He’s putting the finishing touches on a limited-edition short story [...]

Dec. 4, 2010: A fun first-person graphic for the business page (4)

There’s something very interesting on the back page of today’s Sake24, the business section inserted into the Saturday Afrikaans-language dailies here in South Africa: Die Burger in Cape Town, Volksblad in Bloemfontein and Beeld here in Johannesburg. Or, at least, I hope it’s interesting. It’s a first-person alternative storyform graphic in which I write about my experiences dealing with South [...]

Nov. 21, 2010: Have you bought your Christmas cards yet? Consider these…

This is Thanksgiving week, right? You’ll soon need to send out your Christmas cards. And most likely, you’ve not yet even thought about what you’re going to send out this year. You want something that’s bright, cheerful… and, of course, immaculately designed. So why not buy from a fellow news design professional? Meet Stephanie Hinderer. Page designer for the Metro [...]

Oct. 16, 2010: My latest freelance project: A recap of the Chilean miner rescue (5)

I was surprised and delighted Thursday afternoon when my friends at Rapport — the Sunday South African national newspaper that launched a redesign 51 weeks ago — asked me for some help with a last-minute project for this weekend. Looking for something visual to include in the Sunday edition, the folks at Rapport thought it might be a good idea [...]

Oct. 5, 2010: Harrisburg’s Meg Lavey and her latest project: Collaborating on a web comic

Today marks the debut a new web comic: Namesake, drawn by Montreal-based artist Isabelle Melançon (below, left) and written by our pal Meg Lavey. Who happens to be a page designer for the Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pa. Namesake is a graphic novel. A fantasy story told in comic-book form, at a rate of three pages a week. A new page [...]

July 21, 2010: A missed opportunity. And a lesson learned. (1)

Some of you may have noticed the homage to the Clemson Tiger Paw logo that I inserted today at the bottom of my morning birthday post. I put this item into my calendar a while back with the intent of searching though South Carolina papers today to see if anyone did anything clever with the 40th anniversary of what has [...]

July 13, 2010: Following up on Friday’s awesome Plain Dealer page (2)

I have a confession to make. Late Sunday evening, I was smack in the middle of assembling a nice Q&A to post here on Monday, on the first day of my new blog. The Q&A was with David Kordalski, Michael Tribble and Emmet Smith, the brains behind that awesome LeBron James page on the front of Friday’s Cleveland Plain Dealer. [...]

July 12, 2010: The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat

You can spot the thrill and agony right away on front pages commemorating Sunday’s World Cup final. Click either of these for a larger view: On the left is El País of Madrid. The victorious Spanish team shed the blue jerseys it wore for the final and dressed in the more traditional red-and-gold for the post-match celebration. The photo is [...]