theology&geometry

I’m starting a little something new at The Memphis Blog. Let’s see if it catches on.

Don’t mind me, I’m just clicking and dragging and portfolioing.

Shelby Farms: Urban oasis
A story about the growth and change Shelby Farms is experiencing, accompanied by stunning photos.

Check out the story here, as well as Jim Weber’s beautiful photo gallery.

In the shadows
A follow-up to the shocking CA story about civil rights photographer Ernest Withers’ secret life as a FBI informant.

Check out part two of the Withers saga here.

The CA, for a few months now, has been receiving letters from self-identified jihadist Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad as he spends time in prison for his part in the death of one soldier and the injury of another at a military recruiting center in Little Rock. This past Sunday, we printed some excerpts of those letters, in which Muhammad describes his purpose and what he sees as an all-out war on Uncle Sam by those Muslims who have been called to fight. It’s interesting and pretty terrifying stuff. I figure most of all, it’s just sad to see someone give himself over to violence with such fervor and sense of moral duty. I don’t get it.

Read the story and take a look at his writings here. Here’s how the spread looked in the paper:

In other design news, I found out late last week that I won a Scripps third-quarter design award for the work I did on the Ernest Withers special section. Awesome! That brings me to three Scripps quarterly awards. It’s nice to know that the company is paying attention to how the paper looks, and giving our team some kudos!

More news designs to share!

This small but fun package ran this past Sunday in Viewpoint. The story –which is a great read and might make you tear up a little or, ahem, a lot — is here.

When my friends Brandon and Amanda moved into their new apartment, they came upon an April 4, 1950, issue of The Commercial Appeal, and they were kind enough to let me get my grubby paws on it. The thing is quite yellowed and brittle, and has a tendency to shed bits of itself as you flip carefully from page to page. It’s fascinating stuff; the pages are absolutely chock full of tiny briefs and stories mixed with ads and cartoons and testimonials and photos of beauty queens.

Check out this masthead (fun fact: “masthead” means the staff credits/info box and NOT the nameplate/flag on the front page and I will remove your kneecaps with my teeth if you argue with me about that):

Look at those cheap mail subscription rates! A month for a dollar! Crazy!

Look at those phone numbers! So devoid of digits! Crazy!

Look at all those bureau offices! So numerous! Crazy!

Look at this crazy cigarette ad!

Does your throat feel smooth as a baby’s ass? That’s because you’ve been sucking on a Camel!

Check out this crazy mix of news! A snuff factory! Chilly nights that require topcoats! Topcoats, can you believe it!?? (Also, was “cloudly” a word in 1950 or did I just copy edit this paper FROM THE FUTURE?!)

Do you think Miss Sanidas was scandalized at being placed so near an ad for a cream that relieves pimple itching?

It’s all a pretty odd mix, and certainly puts into perspective the idea of some golden bygone era of quality, untouchable, objective journalism.

I mean, try this little story on for size:

First of all, mad props for a badass and ballsy headline.

But on to the meat of the story: Yes, folks, those poor white motorists who had every right to arrive at their destination unmolested were undone — UNDONE, I SAY! — by those pesky negroes. It is such a foreign thing to see that sort of language used, and so cavalierly because it was just how things were said and done. It just was. What a world. What an awful fucking world. This, more or less, is why I don’t believe in The Good Old Days. Next time some old timer tries to lament the past and how America has gotten away from its true and noble values, remind that old timer that The Good Old Days were shit for a lot of people.

I’m glad I have a little tangible piece as proof.

(More photos of the paper are here. I will probably add more down the line before the thing disintegrates.)

Part two of the True Crime series rolled out on Sunday. The story chronicles the Clementine neighborhood, which is statistically the most violent area of Memphis. Some pretty incredible journalism here.

Part one’s layout is here.

Nine pages of news-design goodness. Next installment hits the streets Oct. 18. (Please ignore the wonky spread alignment here; were I smarter, I would have tweaked the spreads before uploading individual pages, but I am very, very dumb sometimes. Rest assured that the folios printed in alignment. Or should have.)

Every now and then I get to head up the design on a special project at work, and for a couple of weeks now I’ve been wrestling with this behemoth True Crime special section (will post images as soon as I can get my hands on them; the front-page teeze is at left). A lot of hours and eye twitches went into this section, and I’m really grateful for my co-workers for stepping up to cover so much live design while I was busy trying to pull everything together from multiple sources (lots of reporters and photographers worked on the story, and we farmed some of the graphics out to an intern at another paper) while tons of editors kept close watch and had intense debates about headlines and display photos and what it all meant. Anyway, it was fun to work on, if not completely fucking stressful. Check out the web component here. This is the first in an occasional series. I’ll post the others as they roll out later this year.

Spent my evening working on a Flash project for work. It didn’t start out well, because I’m still in self-teaching mode (and rusty from the weeks of atrophy following my early February Flash blitz course). But it ended just fine. In fact, I leapt up from my chair and ran around the water fountain and danced a little jig.

I hope my luck holds because I’ve got to haul ass to get this thing done soon and I don’t usually have the luxury of time that I had tonight.

That’s the new newspaper landscape. Less people doing more.

Live it. Love it. Etc.

[Project 365]

DUDE! At 2:53: