Daniel John Gayle

I’ve recently been working on a font similar to Trajan, based off of the letterforms found on the cover of Joy Division’s Closer album. What I thought would be fun would be to add Greek uppercase letters to match, and eventually Cyrillic.

This is not about that font.

But in my research, I came across a super cool Greek inscription that, to my eyes, is heavy metal before metal was heavy (Did that make sense?) I thought that it would be fun to start digitizing this example as well.

I don’t know how many letters I’ll need to build from scratch, but it shouldn’t be too hard, as everything is built out of similar parts. Look for it sometime, uh, whenever.

Well, apparently I spoke too soon. Right as I agreed to work on the Ebbtide again, but who do I get a call from? The Seattle Times.

Wahoo!

So instead of the Ebbtide, which is an opportunity that I’m seriously going to be missing out on, I’m working temporarily for the region’s biggest daily newspaper. The job is for about two months long, but it’s a foot in the door for sure.

Basically what I’m doing is repackaging some of their stories for contest submissions such as the Pulitzer. For instance, what I’m working on right now is a series called “Miracle Machines” that ran for three issues last November. I have to take all of the text and all of the images and graphics and re-format them to fit into tabloid and letter size packages, which is no small feat considering that it’s all originally broadside size.

It’s pretty cool. I have my own desk, my own Seattletimes.com email address, my own phone, etc. I’m right there in the midst of all of the Features designers, which is a great perspective to see what goes on at a big paper like the Times.

It’s too bad that I can’t do both, but as it is I’m already stretching my time way thin. I already have a regular job, so taking on two other part-time jobs alongside all of my other responsibilities would be the death of me.

There have been two different Design Directors at the Ebbtide since I left that position two years ago. I never thought that I’d do it again, but apparently I’ve been tagged to do just that.

Unfortunately Bill, the DD starting this year, has scheduling issues that prevent him from getting the publication done on deadline. It’s too bad. It’s a great experience for anyone looking to get into editorial design.

But his loss is my gain. I get a second chance to re-design the paper, and this time I’m gonna make the most of it. When I designed it the last time, my prime directive was to make it into a literary and arts magazine in tabloid format. That’s exactly what I designed.

But when it came time for writing, our entire staff wanted a news newspaper; a directive that my design did not fit at all. Instead of re-designing again, like I should have, I tried to shoe-horn everything into my design.

Bad idea.

But now I get a chance to do it right, the way I should have to begin with.

Because I’m not “officially” hired as the DD of the Ebbtide, I can’t implement a wholesale re-design for the last paper of Fall Quarter. What if someone else gets hired *instead* of me? A redesign of one paper would suck, and it does the campus and the readers no good.

So what I’m doing is using this opportunity to bridge the gap. I’m not changing the masthead. I’m sticking, mostly, with the same headlines. The body copy will stay the same. Some other visual aspects will stay the same.

But 90% of what I’m doing now will be carried over to the new design. The standing heads. The formatting. Mostly the visual cues and hierarchy will be changed into my new design.

It’s a good opportunity to get some actual clip sheets this time for my portfolio.

Sorry Bill. But it’s my turn again.

EDIT—07/02/07
I resigned this position because I’ve decided to finish school this summer if possible. That means, unfortunately, that I won’t have the time or resources to devote to writing tutorials. Bummer!

I just got a new job writing tutorials for wpdesigner.com, and I’m excited! Small Potato writes the best tutorials on Wordpress blog theming, so I’m glad to be a part of his growing WP theme development site.

I’m not really a coder, so it’s a good experience for me to learn a bit more about PHP, XHTML, CSS and all of those other mind-boggling acronyms. (Did you know that PHP stands for “PHP Hypertext Pre-processor”? THE ACRONYM IS PART OF THE NAME THAT IS ACRONYM’D!!!!!)

What I hope to bring to the table is more of a designer’s viewpoint, and also a bit of humor. The humor part will come as I get more into things, but rest assured, that’s to come.

Also, I was just put in charge of design for the tech/geek culture blog that I write for at geek-vs-life.com. I’ve been a putz and haven’t gotten a chance to do anything for it yet, but big plans are in the works.

New Media Consultant. I love the sound of that. Fortunately, I believe that is my new title at my new job working for my school. They needed someone familiar with Web 2.0 technologies and online marketing strategies. While I’m no expert, I do know a little about what’s going on, and that’s what counts.

Now that I have an official goal to pursue, it should be easy to find out exactly what it takes to become an expert.

To start, I need to hunker down and do some research. Like, right now

I have too many projects coming up, and I have no idea how I’ll find the time to get them all going.

1. Plan a trip to Vancouver, BC. I’m in charge of our photo club on campus, and I managed to get the student government to give us some funds to go visit Vancouver. Now I have to plan the trip, but I have about 10 to 15 people to arrange for. Yikes!
2. Organize a new campus publication. Last year I managed to put together a book for our photography club.This year, I want to aim even higher. After seeing the response to our book on campus, I’ve decided to push ahead and try to make it a full-on campus publication on the level of the student newspaper (that I happen to work at) and the literary arts journal that is published once a year. I have the full support of the entire photography/art department, but can I get the necessary funding from student government to make it a reality?
   
3. Organize an online portfolio for my writing/photography/graphic design. First I have to get everything together into one place. Then I have to edit them appropriately for the web. Then I have to find the best way to present them online. This sucks.
4. Create a new arts magazine. This is the dream that I am kicking around. I want to publish an independent magazine for the arts. Possibly a Seattle arts magazine? I dunno. I’m interested in the publishing side. I really need to find someone to help me with the content side. I have an old friend that I’m discussing things over with, so help should be on the way.
5. Volunteer to help re-build in New Orleans. My friend Tony is going there in March, and he said that if I get my things in a row I should be able to join him. That would be awesome.