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Charles Apple: The Visual Side of Journalism

 

‘Free publications’ archive

Number of comments in parentheses

May 23: Omaha’s Jay St. Pierre moving to Chicago Tribune’s RedEye

Sports designer extraordinaire Jay St. Pierre announced via Facebook this week: Well, it’s official: I took a design job at RedEye, a Chicago Tribune publication, and am moving to The Windy City in June!!! It’s been an amazing two years in Omaha, and I cannot thank the people at The World-Herald enough for everything they did for my career. A 2009 [...]

May 1: Our first ‘Iron Man 3′ features treatment

My pal James A. Molnar of the Toledo (Ohio) Free Press Star writes: I’m excited to share with you our Summer Movies package. Once again, Iron Man is center stage.   I found a cool photo of Iron Man sitting on a couch and thought I’d add popcorn, as if he’s watching a movie. My editor, Michael S. Miller, asked [...]

Nov. 28, 2012: Edgy cartoonist protests cancellation by Boston alt-weekly

The sequence of events… 1. Karl Stevens — writer and artist of a graphic novel-like comic strip called Failure that’s run, in various forms, in the alt-weekly Boston Phoenix since 2005 — makes fun of a product sold by one of the paper’s biggest advertisers, Bud Light beer. 2. The paper cancels the strip. As Mark Shanahan and Meredith Goldstein [...]

Oct. 7, 2012: After he’s fired by the Village Voice, cartoonist Tom Tomorrow melts down on Twitter

Cartoonist Dan Perkins — who works under the pen name Tom Tomorrow — is perhaps the best-known cartoonist in the world of alternative weeklies. His editorial strip, This Modern World, began in 1990 in SF Weekly and was eventually carried by as many as 80 papers — most notably, the Village Voice of New York. His work has also appeared [...]

July 11, 2012: Cool cover illustration alert (2)

The publication: SF Weekly, an alternative weekly based in San Francisco. The story: The battle over copyright standards like the Stop Online Piracy Act, the Protect IP Act and others of that ilk. The cover: Note that the cover — and the cover copy — is reversable. The illustrator: The art director of SF Weekly, Andrew J. Nilsen. Who’s most definitely [...]

June 20, 2012: At the very least, I hope that guy bought the gun dinner first

This past week’s alt-weekly Orlando Weekly certainly had an interesting cover illustration: A man French-kissing a gun. Orlando Weekly‘s Dave Plotkin blogged about the cover, how it came to be and showed preliminary sketches. Read all about it here. Find the actual story — about Florida’s gun laws — here. The illustration itself is by Philadelphia-based artist James Heimer. A [...]

May 29, 2012: New S.F. Examiner design director promoted from within

The San Francisco Examiner announced today is is promoting arts and entertainment and special projects designer Brooke Robinson to design director. An unbylined story posted today reports that Brooke will oversee design at both the Examiner and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, which the Examiner is in the process of buying. The story states: Since joining the newspaper in 2008, [...]

Jan. 27, 2012: On the front of today’s tbt* tabloid: Not exactly a horrific crime story (1)

tbt* — the free, youth-oriented tabloid published in St. Petersburg by the Tampa Bay Times — has a very unusual front page today. Check it out: That — and the bullet hole art — really gets your attention. The only clue that the story might not have a horrific ending is the little yellow text across the bottom, telling us [...]

Jan. 6, 2012: The year’s most deliciously naughty alt-weekly tab covers

Over at the Society of Professional Designers, magazine design guru Robert Newman has been posting the year’s best alt-weekly tab covers. A few of them we saw here in the blog this past year. Like, for example, the “comics issue” front of the Village Voice by master illustrator Ward Sutton: Or this amusing look at the predicted End of the [...]

Oct. 28, 2011: Pittsburgh alt-weekly prints Spanish edition as a protest

As a protest, this week’s Spanish edition of the Pittsburgh City Paper will get plenty of attention. The edition is a reaction to yet another proposal by a state legislator — Republican RoseMarie Swanger — to make English the official language of the state. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette‘s Mackenzie Carpenter reports: “We were having a little fun because this discussion always [...]

Sept. 1, 2011: Steve Cavendish named editor of weekly Nashville City Paper (3)

Longtime visual journalist Steve Cavendish — laid off this summer by the Chicago Tribune – is returning home to become editor of a weekly newspaper in Nashville. Business site Nashville Post reported Wednesday: “I am excited Steve is coming home to Nashville to take the helm of The City Paper. Steve brings years of experience at some of the best [...]

June 30, 2011: Baltimore Sun’s free daily ‘b’ youth tab going weekly

Poynter’s Jim Romenesko reports today that b — the free youth tab published daily by the Baltimore Sun — will be switching to weekly publication next month. Already, the spinning has started. Romenesko reports that Don Farley — publisher of the weekly Baltimore City Paper – says: Obviously cutting back to one issue is admitting it’s a failure. Yet, Tim [...]

Feb. 17, 2011: One more Valentine’s Day page for you… (1)

Reagan Branham of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch built a really interesting Valentine’s Day page this year. Being the humble type, she felt a little guilty about sending it to me. But after reading about some of the other Valentine’s Day packages I posted — here, here and here — she decided to share. Naturally, I’m glad she did. Reagan writes: [...]

Aug. 30, 2010: Fort Lauderdale’s Chris Mihal moves to Creative Loafing in Atlanta (1)

Chris Mihal — news design director at the SunSentinel of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. — is now the creative director of Creative Loafing, a weekly tabloid in Atlanta. Monday was his first day on the new job, he tells us: My last day at the SunSentinel was a couple Fridays ago, I think. I’m really excited about the opportunity to continue [...]