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Michael Higdon
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Michael Higdon's Groups
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Page one design
148 members
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Journalists Under 30
147 members
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Typography
79 members
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THE SWAMP
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Michael Higdon's Discussions
Web Comments
Replied Oct. 16, 2008
Environment Blog
Public journalist
Latest Activity
hey, my friend told me about this site to get free ringtones... just spreading the word check it out here
yes, it kind of sucks. we even sent in the b section at 10pm so the printer would have plenty of time to make it print well. then when we sent in the last page they said that the section had printed really well. liars. it's my fault probably for n...
I like this treatment but I think there are some problems with text size. The decks are too big compared to the main heads and the credits are too big. Same with the flag and date. Work on contrast, scaling and refinement with your typography and ...
This is cool. I didn't see this in the paper. I love the film strip, that's something I was never able to pull off right (so usually I just gave up). This is also a good shape with nice organization
Don't you hate that everything looks so shinny and nice on the screen that is all faded and ickified in print?
yes yes! Definitely
Profile Information
- What best describes your role in journalism?
- Editor, Designer, Editor, News artist, Photographer
- What organization are you with?
- The Nevada Sagebrush
- Location
- Reno, NV
- Biography
- I'm a designer and a Public journalist in the making. I like to take pictures but tend toward the art side. I also do political science but that's more of a theoretical hobby with a minor degree attached to it.
- Web site
- http://mikehigdon.com
- http://www.linkedin.com/pub/7/49/a84
- AIM
- CmdrTrekk
- MSN
- CmdrTrekk@cox.net
Michael Higdon's Images
Comment Wall (14 comments)
- At 12:57am on March 25, 2009, Emily Stott said…
- yes, it kind of sucks. we even sent in the b section at 10pm so the printer would have plenty of time to make it print well. then when we sent in the last page they said that the section had printed really well. liars. it's my fault probably for not knowing enough about color choice and printing.
- At 8:37am on August 22, 2008,
John Zhu said… - Yo. Congrats on being the public editor, and good luck. Look forward to seeing what you guys come up with.
My summer's been going good. Just been staying busy, blogging almost every day about all things trivial, watching the Olympics, getting pissed at the western media and the Chinese government. Oh yeah, and I got married, too :-)
Hope you had a good summer. How was the stint at Indy? I saw some of the pages you did. Good stuff.
- At 9:20pm on April 16, 2008, John Zhu said…
- I just took a quick glance at the winning pages and skimmed through the live blog from the contest. It looks like the judges definitely had a very strong affinity for conceptual illustrations and tabloid/magazine covers. Quite a few of the blog posts had stuff about them discussing how broadsheets need to mimic that. Heck, they even talked about feature centerpieces being "ruined" by having other stories on the page. I see it as different strokes for different designers, and keep in mind that it's just a 3-judge panel -- hardly an industry consensus.
I've never really given a damn about contests, SNDs included (I've never entered an SND contest, nor had any particular wish to), because so much of it is personal taste. Don't get me wrong. I think it's great to have a community of designers so you can learn from each other, but when you are picking winners out of hundreds of entries, without a firm guideline, how much stock should one really put into the results? I've seen great stuff that didn't won, and I've seen winning entries that didn't impress me. I've looked at some award-winning portfolios and just shrugged -- they were decent, but if I was shown those portfolios, I would've never guessed that they won an SND. Hell, the L.A. Times wins a ton of SNDs every year, and I think their daily pages look like crap, but some would swear by it.
Moral of the story: Don't worry about the contests. If you feel like what you are doing is serving your readers well, then that's all you .... well, you know how the rest of that cliche goes. But it's true. It really, really is.
- At 9:58am on March 28, 2008, John Zhu said…
- Agreed, about the lack of contact info. I would've liked to see the "call this number to request a light put in or to complain" box.
Looks like they did more on the topic of safety today:
I liked the Is Your House safe graphic, but again, wish there was contact info for the police safety advice services the story mentions.
- At 8:00am on March 27, 2008, John Zhu said…
- What's new Michael? In light of the student body president being killed at UNC, the student newspaper here did its own campus safety package today, if you're interested in comparing and contrasting.
- At 5:32pm on March 24, 2008,
Oscar Yanez said… - Welcome to the Typography group Michael!
- At 12:30pm on March 17, 2008,
Anders Tapola said… - Of course you should have the link. Unfortunately my chronichle is written in Swedish.
But it's pretty easy to read. You have the words why and how in the start. The why is why I should care as a reader, or whatever kind of public you are. The how is how we should make the job depending on what platform we are using.
The why is the most important question. If we can't answer that from a kind of reader point of view, why should we write (make a vide on line thing or a web version or whatever it can be) about it?
And I think that your comment about the lack of transparency in our business has a lot to do woth those questions. We must be more open, show the public how we are working and take their point of view really serious.
That's the short summary of the chronichle, the rest I think you can understand although its written in Swedish :-)
You can find the article at www.snds.org. It's on the front page under my picture.
- At 1:37pm on March 14, 2008, Anders Tapola said…
- Hi Michael,
I just used your name for my chronichle in SND Scandinavias Magazine. It is around your article about transparency and elitism that I still haven't commented.
Hope it's alright (I mean bringing your name in – in a conversation in Scandinavia)
Have a good weekend
- At 9:05pm on March 10, 2008, John Zhu said…
- Sorry to hear about your friend. That's A LOT of work for one person. Why do they do it? Probably the same reason that U.S. toy makers have their toys made in China even though the quality is suspect. The measuring stick isn't how good the product is; it's making a product that'll maximize returns while minimizing cost. Sure they might lose some customers who are weary of the track record of chinese imports, but the savings in labor cost probably still makes it cheaper than what it'd cost to make a high-quality toy. Journalists talk about the significance of quality journalism, but without a dollar amount attached to it, it's worth almost nothing to a number cruncher. And of course, I think journalists, b/c they are so committed to doing good work, let the suits off the hook by busting their butts even more in order to do more with less. While that keeps the product quality up, it also gives the owners no incentive to add staff and may even convince them they can cut even more.
I don't know if you ever go to sportsjournalists.com. It's ... umm ... a slightly different atmosphere over there than on VizEds. Sometimes I feel like VizEds is where smart people get excited about newspapers b/c they see the exciting, great things that newspapers have the potential to do, while SJ is where smart people gather to commiserate after seeing what their newspapers actually did. Some of those discussions over there will drive a man to drink ... even crab juice.
Hey, I just saw McBee's comment. Don't knock the BMW lifestyle till you've sold your soul and lived it :-)
- At 5:57pm on March 7, 2008,
Jim McBee said… - PR, my friend. Where good journalists sell their souls the The Man for the BMW lifestyle.
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