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Charles Apple: The Visual Side of Journalism

 

‘Small papers’ archive

Number of comments in parentheses

May 17: A fun summer super-hero movie page

Amy Olding of the Lee regional design center in Munster, Ind., sends us this fun summer super-hero movie page from today’s Journal of Sioux City, Iowa. Click for a larger view: Amy tells us: I had my comic loving Significant Other look it over and used his comic collection for inspiration. Q: What font is that? Is that one of [...]

May 10: A huge highway fire results in a poster-front treatment in Pennsylvania

A tanker truck turned over on Interstate 81 at the intersection of U.S. 322 north of downtown Harrisburg Thursday and burst into flames. The fire burned so hot that it damaged the interstate as well as the overpass above it. The state Dept. of Transportation advised motorists to divert to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Which then closed itself when a truck [...]

May 7: Unidentified crime suspects on page one

Reposting photos of two alleged — and, as it turned out, falsely accused — criminals you pulled out of a Reddit thread to see if your friends can identify them: Ho-hum. Building a section front out of those photos: So last month. The new standard: Posting surveillance photos of eight alleged criminals — at the request of local police — [...]

May 6: Palm Beach Daily News goes sideways with an A1 infographic

Alex Chihak writes: I’m an editor at one of Cox’s hubs, and we design and edit The Palm Beach Post, Austin American-Statesman and the Palm Beach Daily News, or Shiny Sheet. The Shiny Sheet is a seasonal paper. It’s daily during the season (September to May) and twice a week in the offseason. The season’s when the super wealthy people [...]

May 3: Two fun ‘Iron Man 3′ features treatments

A couple of fresh Iron Man 3 pages for your Friday reading pleasure… — DAILY MAIL Charleston, W.Va. Circulation: 17,879 News and design editor Philip Maramba writes to say: As all the Charleston Daily Mail‘s comic book nerds have gone on to other papers or been bumped into middle management, it’s been a while since we’ve had a front devoted [...]

April 26: In-your-face design from the Victoria, Texas, Advocate (1)

I love pages that make me smile. Especially if I’m not the one who has to answer the phones. This entertainment tab front from one of my favorite small newspapers — the 26,531-circulation Victoria Advocate — is a couple of weeks old. But I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at the headline. That’s a crawdad, y’see. And folks in [...]

April 12: Pro tip: Never made a ‘mud hen’ angry

The Toledo Free Press — located in Toledo, Ohio, home of the famous minor-league Toledo Mud Hens — pulls out all the stops every spring for its baseball preview edition. On the left, here, is the free tabloid’s 2010 cover. The other two are the paper’s two 2011 front covers: The one in the middle is the actual front cover [...]

April 11: A fun fast-motion video look at a cartoon illustration in progress

My pal Robert Zavala — an editor and illustrator for the Victoria (Texas) Advocate — won a statewide award this week. But it wasn’t for his illustration work. It was for a fun illustration of his illustration work. Via a video. I’ll let him tell the story. Robert writes: I just won the Texas APME award for best video under [...]

April 2: One of these front-page shenanigans a joke. One is not. Can you tell which is which? (6)

I have two things to show you this morning. Example No. 1: The front page of Monday’s Times Daily of Florence, Ala., where the editors decided to play a little April Fools’ joke on readers. Can you see the lead art? Here’s a slightly larger look. Yes, that’s the Loch Ness Monster, Godzilla and a UFO floating over the Tennessee [...]

April 1: A fun cartoon illustration for a baseball preview section

Here’s a fun Opening Day baseball page from the Daily Journal of San Mateo, Calif. Sports reporter and designer Julio Lara tells us: We’ve been super busy with other end-of-the-year features at the Journal that this project really came together at the last minute. I got really lucky, a good friend of mine, April Vallero, is a hell of an [...]

April 1: A little something for the kiddies on page one of the Easter Sunday paper

George Spohr, editor of the Sentinel in Carlisle, Pa., writes this weekend to share an idea with us. He tells us: My designers wanted to hide Easter eggs within the A section of Sunday’s Sentinel. My first instinct was “Hell no,” but the more I thought about it, the more I thought, “Why not?” We set some rules about where [...]

March 31: How a small paper pays homage to a local boy-turned-sports hero

This will be the first baseball season since the 1980s without Kevin Millwood of Bessemer City, N.C., on the mound or in a dugout somewhere. Millwood retired this year after 16 years of major-league baseball. Gazette sports editor Gabe Whisnant tells us: Millwood is the longest-tenured MLB player in Gaston County history. He announced his retirement this offseason, so on [...]

March 22: Step-by-step through a fun, comic book-themed illustration

Illustrator Craig Schaffer of the Reading Eagle‘s Business Weekly won a first place in Pennsylvania Newspaper Association’s annual Keystone awards with a fun, comic-book-themed illustration about — what else? — A fun, comic book-themed local company. Craig writes that, for this story, he… I wrote the story, designed the layout, took photographs and created the illustrations. That’s the front cover. [...]

March 13: Behind the Midland (Texas) Reporter-Telegram’s retro Sunday front

Trevor Hawes, news editor of the 14,592-circulation Reporter-Telegram of Midland, Texas, writes: I thought you might enjoy how we went retro for a day at the Reporter-Telegram to celebrate our 84th birthday. The first eight pages were made to replicate the newspaper’s March 10, 1929, edition, which is when the Midland Reporter and the Midland Daily Telegram merged. Click on [...]

March 1: The coolest thing I’ve seen lately: I scream, you scream…

While I’m in the process of relocating, a number of visual journalists around the country are lending a hand by telling us about the coolest thing they’ve seen lately. Nathan Groepper, creative director of the Gannett Design Studio in Des Moines, writes: I may be taking this “cool” thing a little too literally, but I thought I might pass along [...]

Feb. 23: The coolest thing I’ve seen lately: High fashion in a small town

While I’m on my cross-country trek this weekend, a number of visual journalists around the country are lending a hand by telling us what is the coolest thing they’ve seen lately. Today, my old colleague Chris Cobler — editor of one of my favorite small-town dailies, the Victoria (Texas) Advocate — shares: Here is the coolest thing I’ve seen lately [...]

Feb. 19: ‘Picky’ Fort Collins Coloradoan seeks two summer interns

My good pal Josh Awtry — editor of the Coloradoan of Fort Collins, Colo. — announced today he’s seeking two paid summer interns. Each position works 30 hours a week. Meaning you’ll have plenty of time to enjoy the gorgeous mountain hiking and driving. Or just to sleep. Whatever turns you on. Each position lasts for 10 weeks. Each position [...]

Feb. 17: Behind yesterday’s gorgeous illustration by Fort Collins, Colo. (1)

I might have been distracted by other things yesterday, but Bill Campling of Gannett’s Nashville Design Studio wasn’t. He tipped me off about this gorgeous illustration afront Saturday’s Coloradoan of Fort Collins, Colo. Click for a much larger view. Coloradoan editor Josh Awtry tells us: Saturday was one of those quickie, post-budget meeting covers where things just fell into place. [...]

Feb. 13: One solution to dealing with the State of the Union address: Localize it

So after the disappointment I expressed earlier today in the nation’s State of the Union front pages, the question remains: What can a paper do to make this somewhat abstract and often — sadly enough — irrelevant address worth our readers’ time? The answer might be in the e-mail designer and copy editor Andrea Higgins sent us today. Andrea writes: [...]

Feb. 8: Tiny paper gets huge results with… what? A complex multimedia map? No way! (1)

Tiny newspapers can’t do multimedia and they can’t do video. Right? Wrong. Make sure you watch that full-frame, so you can see all the data points on the map. Reporting and narrating a multimedia video — featuring Google Earth Pro — is the editor of the Fort Collins Coloradoan himself, Josh Awtry. Josh writes today via Facebook: Yes, this is [...]

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