Final entry - kinda

So it's the first day of The Nevada Sagebrush publishing which means I am no longer part of the Louisville family or The Courier Journal.

Therefore, I will close my blog with a final update of our orientation issue.

From time to time I might change the picture of the week or add some things.

For anything else, see my Facebook account or IM me. If you don't have a messenger compatible with AIM or FAcebook, get tone.

My final A1(s)

My final duty as A1 designer yesterday consisted of a back to school CP for Kentucky/Metro and a deadline car crash for Indiana.

It was a good day full of late news, crazy business, communication, delegation and everything. It was like the Sagebrush again except professional so I was the only one swearing and everything worked out great and we made deadline.

So really the only thing like the Sagebrush was my swearing and late news stories.

The photos for these CPs were great and the managing editor even told me to make them bigger, "play with the headline" and "have some fun." I couldn't believe ears; we weren't in Kentucky anymore.

I was going to do some typography for the KY headline but the copy editor and I decided to go with a quote instead because it spun the story forward. The numbers were nice and the fonts (thanks to Patty's suggestions) were pretty.

Mark took over the Indiana A1 and I like that he centered the headline for me. It's a tragic story, the jump photo is pretty intense (the pole they ran into split in half probably only held up by the high tension electrical wires strung across them).

It was a good day.

The skybox dilemma

These are raw JPEGs. Imagine text over the screens and a white line between them.


You'll never see this one.

Clips

Update: I'll spare the epic story, call me if you want to hear it (it involves smashing through windows and a lot of slow motion action). Anyway, I went back on the clock to do this late edition skybox because Barry Bonds owed me.

This A1 I really like.

It's funny how much planning went into a story about the heat wave. But then again this is the first time the temperature has risen over 100 degrees in four years. So for Kentucky, it's a big deal while I think it's pretty funny.

A Las Vegas headline would probably read

130
and still kickin'

I also like the sky box but wish the football player was allowed to go on top of the flag. Oh well, the food looks good.

This second piece I didn't design but the cover photo is mine. It's nice to be able to get a design clip and a photo clip on the same day.

Tomorrow I work Sports, then graphics Thursday and two more A1 schedules Saturday and Monday. Let's see how many of these babies we can kick out by then. Wish me luck.

Blame facebook

I find myself spending more time on Facebook than here, so I apologize for any of you who actually enjoyed visiting. So Jessica, I'm sorry. :)

You can find my facebook account by clicking the little icon to the right.

Meanwhile, I have 7 days of work left and 14 days left in Kentucky. After my last day I'm going to pack, clean, get a "sports massage" and head to Elizabethtown for the rest of the week to hang out with my dad and pretend there's no such thing as newspapers or technology (should be fairly easy).

In those 7 days I get to work at least one more A1 and work two days with the graphics guy to see how to make maps and charts and graphs. But I don't know how many A1 shifts I get because the schedule hasn't been up yet. But hopefully more than one.

Otherwise, I was a photojournalist for two days shadowing some photographers and then Friday I got my own assignment.

Other than that, I guess it's going to be a solemn week.

I'll update wedding pictures n stuff sometime in the next few days.

A photo essay from Ohio

Today we (Kyle Kurlick, Ana Lagunez, James Wagner, Daarel Burnette) drove to Ohio to watch the Chicago Cubs at Cinncinati Reds game. The day was full of personality.

Daarel (left) proceeded to harass James any way he could the whole day. From retort to counter-retort, Daarel was grouchy from a hang over after a night of drinking and go carts and not in the mood for James' usual banter. Daarel also likes to take pictures of James with his cell phone because James doesn't like it one bit.







When arriving in Newport, Kentucky across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, we ate at a semi-authentic German diner. Though it was 11am, I proceeded to drink a German wheat bier with my Talapia sandwich. Here you can see how straight my beard has been all summer. Nice and professional, eh?






With us was a small girl whose name I don't remember. She crawled around on the floor a lot and made cute faces. She was the life of the lunch.










We then walked across the Ohio River on a foot bridge because no good Kentuckian will park their car on the expensive and highly enforced roads and parkways of Ohio. The little girl got a ride because little girls can do that.









While at the game we sat next to a father and his boys who made a sign that read "Ken Griffey Jr., hit here" with a target drawn on the spot. When Griffey stepped up to the plate they jumped into the air with their sign. But an evil security guard made them sit down. In true journalism rebellion, photographer Bill Luster made his own, Ohio-approved sign.





Interns Kyle Kurlick and Ana Lagunez spent the whole day together. They're soo cute. Even the angry faces Kyle makes when he's pretending to think I'm evil for stalking him with my camera in the same way he stalks with his.

Kyle also secretly thinks he is god.

Overtime

The "i" key on this keyboard is broken so bare with me.

This weeks, much to the chagrin of Patty, I worked a lot of overtime. Monday I worked 3 hours extra to cover the metro section due to an accidental scheduling miscommunication.

Then I worked an extra hour on that Travel cover because I didn't want anyone else to touch it. But I should've trusted them and I didn't respect the company's money.

Today I was supposed to get off early until Barry Bonds decided to be a douche and make everyone think he was going to tie Hank Aaron's homerun record. So I spent extra hour rearranging A1 (normal) and creating a new sky box with Barry Bonds all big and on top of the flag. But it didn't happen. It probably happen tomorrow and I curse him for the missed opportunity.

During all of this I've redone a bunch of A&E flags. Below are a whole new set. The one in the flag position is my favorite because it follows the consistency of the other flags while maintaining the ability to change colors. The calendar will almost certainly move down if not to another page but I left it for now. Your thoughts?

What do designers dream?

Mike: so I had a dream about me and a bunch of people trying to save a font from getting into evil alien hands. it was pretty cool, there were graphic designers from all over the world compiling the font family into large capsules and we were deciding if we should stay and fight or copy them to our hard drivers, destroy the originals and disperse through the galaxy
Jessica E: a font? only your mind would combine aliens and design
Jessica E: that's weird
Mike: it was awesome
Jessica E: I'm glad that you think so
Mike: the fonts were on casette tapes
Jessica E: cassette tapes?
Mike: but I was the only one who realized our impending doom, the others just wanted to sit around and fight with lousy pistols. One of them even started shooting the casette tapes.
Jessica E: so you were trying to keep the aliens from stealing cassette tapes?
Mike: yes
Jessica E: *wow
Mike: yah, pretty cool huh?
Jessica E: in some weird kind of way, yeah, I guess so
Mike: well what do you dream about, puppies n shit?
Jessica E: of course not :-P
Jessica E: the last dream I remember combined being in new york city, sex and the city and a musical, if you really want to know

Likes, dislikes?

This is a unique chance for you all to participate. I had some inspiration about redoing the A&E flag (if it is to be called A&E). I've provided the old flag with a bunch of samples of some new ones. I like about two maybe three of them but I'm still unsure if I should stick with this line of thinking or try something new. Which one(s) do you guys like? Or if none, what would you like to see?

Remember to think of the redesign as a whole when looking at these too. You'll notice the implementation of the new folio style. If the calendar stays it'll be a gradient, if not it'll probably go all the way across, I haven't decided yet.

My favorite page this summer by far

The magic of burn and dodge can be seen in this picture. I burned the hell out of the background layer (the sand) to create shadows and depth. I also burned the paper to make it looked curled. The only thing that didn't turn it is the box of chocolate because it was tilted wrong. But I tried my best to integrate it into the photo.

Your thoughts?

Are you guys interested in seeing the individual layers and the original pieces?

Great art = great pages

I really like the Indiana edition cover and art. The pullquote is cool too because it almost answers the question posed by the headline. I wish the tonersdidn't lighten the picture so much, it looked better darker, but hopefully it'll print how it looked before.

The Metro main photo freaks me out, the guys head is being cut off but they really liked that picture and insisted it be the lede image (with no cropping down to his torso either), so oh well. We'll see if the big guys say anything about it. If they do, they'll probably blame me for it. :)

Mom and other

I haven't been able to update for a while because of my internet, so I apologize for doing them all at once.

In any case, this is my mom, everyone say hi. She's a photo-ographer too.

Here's another picture of me.

Here's a thing I found in the park.

Expressions

Obsessed with water

Colors of the rainbow - which one do you like better? top, middle, bottom?

Is it plastic or water?

"Your Space" is my new favorite place

I'm a whore for product photos. I wish I had put a dropshadow on that top right picture but that's okay. I also noticed about 5 minutes ago that I accidentally matched the grey with the waves and the word "WIRELESS." I guess I'm just a sucker for grey.

You all like it?

More Irony

Black and white is the new color?