And to all of you eighth-graders out there who are going to be taking Ezine next year, I have something important to say. You might think Ezine is dumb (“But Ms. Richey, I don’t wanna write a feature story! I don’t know anyone interesting!”) or not worth your time (“When will I ever have to know how to use white space effectivley?!?”), but it is one of the most important classes you will take in high school. Why? Because it introduces you on an intellectual level to the media. The media which,  like it or not, controls our lives here in this twenty-first century Age of Information. And if you like what you learn, and you think it’s interesting, you might just wind up on the path to a career in journalism. It might not be for the Washington Post (more likely in blogging, Tweeting or the like), but you still might get the chance to break the biggest news story of your generation. You might get to be the next Woodward and Bernstein. And then, you, too will be portrayed by Robert Redford or Dustin Hoffman in a blockbuster movie.

And that will be worth all the useless blogs you ever had to write.

With typeface the emotional (or subliminal, in advertising) message can be conveyed. It can appeal to one consumer group (again, in advertising) or catch the attention of all who read it (in the case of magazine articles, where it is more often the designer’s choice than the writer’s). For example, in the documentary Helvetica one of the designers showed off a rather badly written, in his opinion, article which he set in Dingbats (in a magazine, which was printed that way). So that meant that nobody had to “suffer” through reading the article. It also communicates the designer’s opinion that it was a badly written article in a way few, if any, other design techniques can.

Although that’s a sort of extreme expression of it, typeface can be used to set the tone or emotions in a piece as well as what the designer feels about it. This is apparently interpreted incorrectly by (amateur?) designers who use Comic Sans for things like bowel-cancer awareness posters; although the message might not be misinterpreted per se, it will still look weird and unproffesional. And we all know, if it looks weird, it’s a bad design.

(that’s a generalization, I know, but you know what I mean.)

1. Before you knew the story, what did you think about it?

1. when I saw this picture, the first thing I thought was, “Hey, I’ve seen that picture before.” Because, as a matter of fact, I had, in a book that I used to have a really long time ago. It was a book about famous shipwrecks, with ships like the Titanic and the Lusitania; it also had a chapter about the Andrea Doria.

2. Write a summary of the story behind the photo.

2. The SS Andrea Doria (not from memory now, from the Internet) was sailed by the Italian Line between Genoa, Italy and New York City. At 11:10 PM on July 25, 1956, she collided with the smaller passenger liner MS Stockolm off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts in heavy fog. The Andrea Doria’s state-of-the-art watertight compartments were piereced, and the ship began to sink. Due to the fact that the two liners collided so close to the coastline, rescuers were able to arrice quickly enough to save all but forty-six of the 1660 passengers and crew on board. As word spread of the crash, newspapers all over the Northeast sent reporters off to document the rescue at the slowly sinking wreck. One of these photographers, Harry A. Trask of the Boston Traveler, shot from an airplane flying 75 feet above the wreck, and got a sequence of shots only about nine minutes before the ship plunged to the bottom. One of these was selected as the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph for 1956.

3. Explain how this photo captures the essence of the story.

3. This is, most basically, a news photograph, because it shows the event that took place without any disturbance in the frame. There are no people or other boats, but floating in the foreground there is still something to scale the ship to: a mass of lifejackets floating in the water. This suggests the humanity of the disaster, without having to be as graphic as to show floating bodies. it’s a simple picture, but it’s powerful in its depiction of the tragedy.

Wal-Mart, or more properly Wal-Mart Stores Inc., is often in the news. Its name can be found in press releases, news articles, lifestyle pieces, opinions, editorial cartoons, and an abundance of advertisments. So it seems rather nonsensical that a print-journalism person such as Bill Walsh is chagrined about the dropping of the hyphen from the discount-chain’s logo and signs. Now they will read only “Walmart”, and this has the potential to save the collapsing newspaper industry literally trillions of dollars in ink and printing costs. The savings from one less hypen and the change of the “M” from upper-case to lower-case has the potential to do nothing short of save the industry from ruin.

Really, though, we all know that the only reason why things like this is happening is because there is a societal shift towards shorter and simpler writing, spelling, and formatting of words. Anything not covered by style guides (like the MLA or the AP, which is used by newspapers) has followed the general trend of acronyms and simplifications. Much of this is due to simplicity, and advertising is an industry that banks on simplicity and the concept of making your brand easier for the consumer to remember than the competition’s. For example, it is much easier to remember “State Farm” than it is to remember “State Farm and Life Mutual and Automobile Insurance Company”. This is the reason that so much of this simplification of names and logos is occurring on the corporate level, as Bill Walsh points out.  

This modernization of brands has been occuring for decades in America, with a good example being the streamlining of the department store Sears, Roebuck and Company to “Sears”. Incidentally, Sears was the largest retailer in the nation for many decades, before it gave up its top spot to – guess who – Walton’s 5 & 10 Cent Stores of Bentonville, Arkansas. Or Wal-Mart, if you prefer. Or, more technically, Walmart. It’s nothing new, and it really doesn’t matter very much to the consumer at all. Unless that consumer happens to be a copy editor.

What I think this quote means is that, when a designer is given just a space to work with, he has a tendency to just go wild and fill the space with far more visual themes and objects than can be processed. The idea is that, when people tell a designer that he can use only a certian palette of colors or a certian amount of visual imagery, the designer can begin to craft something specialized. This specialized design, with less components than if the designer was not told specific parameters, is much simpler than it would be if those parameters had not been made clear. And simplistic designs are often the best designs. Ipso facto (i dont actually know what that means but it sounds classy), designs which have limits set for them at the beginning of their creation are often better designs than ones that had no limits. Woo.

Woo.

Wooooooooo.

thats the train! gotta go.

austin, and central texas, does not have a professional team in any sport. This is despite the fact that Austin is currently America’s sixteenth largest city, and the Austin-Round Rock area is the nation’s thirty-seventh largest metro area. With a population over over one and a half million in Travis, Williamson, Hays, and Bastrop Counties, one would think we would be a prime market. We are larger than such big-leauge cities as Milwaukee, Jacksonville, Buffalo, Salt Lake City, and Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma City. Better than us. Something’s wrong here.

Why is this, you might ask? Who has kept the National Football Leauge, the National Basketball Association, Major Leauge Baseball, and even the National Hockey League (if that’s what you want) out of our fine city of nearly 800,000 people?

It’s the University of Texas, of course.

The athletics commissioners of the University of Texas System decided, long ago in the 1960s and 70s, that they did not want any other moneymaking franchises to infringe upon their hegemony on Austin sports. Back then, when our city was just a little university town with only one large stadium (under the jurisdiction of the university) that was not something anybody wanted to bother contesting. There were always more profitable markets elsewhere. But just to make sure, they tacked on a massive concrete addition to the west side of Memorial Stadium, sending a message to all that Texas football would always be king.

Now that we’ve grown up a bit, the University has taken steps to expand that monopoly to all other sports. The Irwin Center, the new additions to Memorial Stadium (which with the south endzone addition now under construction will be able to accomodate over one hundred thousand spectators), and UFCU-Disch Faulk Field have taken care of that. And although sports has expanded too, the big leauges have not attempted to challenge. With the Spurs, the Mavs, and the Rockets, there’s not much more room for basketball in Texas. The Astros and the Rangers have split allegiances in the Austin and San Antonio markets, but the popularity of the AAA Round Rock Express shows that baseball might have a chance in Central Texas.  The Cowboys, as “America’s Team” and thusly Texas’ team generally take preference over the underdog Houston Texans, and there are even some people who still follow the Tennessee Titans due to their previous life as the Houston Oilers. And the Alamodome in San Antonio sits empty, but not due to lack of effort.

Even Jerry Jones has acknowledged San Antonio’s fight for an NFL team and supports it, although not too vocally. The city is allegedly on the short list for an expansion franchise, if such a thing ever occurs. The city and its people have strongly supported this since the Alamodome’s construction. So it is proven that there is demand for pro football in Central Texas.

With all the growth between Austin and San Antonio along the I-35 corridor, it can be observed that the two cities are beginning to become one. This joining of the Austin and San Antonio metro areas could someday provide a market of three to four million people, with many radio and television stations, cheap land, and abundant capital resources from civic-minded entepeneurs. Could this provide the Austin area with a football team to complete the Texas Triangle (DFW-Houston-Austin&SA? Another option for those who both like UT sports and a fresh one for those who don’t (crazy Aggies) would be a welcome addition to the our great cities.

(just make this recession end now, please, so we can get on with it.)

Picture found at: http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/3433/cstsrv1nb0.jpg

This picture represents my experience writing and reporting my feature story because it has been rather difficult for me to come up with a good story topic, person to interview, and way to conduct that interview (until yesterday, when I got it all figured out. Hope yall cant wait to hear about the Cheese Cracker World Series). This picture represents that because it was probably very difficult for the photographer to dress up and pose this monkey as a receptionist. This common theme of difficulty is supplemented by the fact that I felt silly not having a good idea for my story (until yesterday), and the fact that this picture is also very silly.

My magazine-content dictated story idea would be someone in the austin community who is involved with the city or with development, since my subject is on the development of downtown.

 My story will be more about my subject’s business career and what his company’s contributions to Austin have been, but I also hope to find out the personal side of a successful local businessman to help readers relate to this potentially controversial figure.

My goals in this class are to succeed in completing my Ezine so that it is well designed and features interesting content, as well as to learn other stuff about these computer programs, and to draw if its possible.

Ezine Magazine Presentation

Chris Daemmrich 1/11/09 Richey 3-4

Thnk u 4 prchsng noTYM Mgzn!

          This is the inaugural issue of noTYM Mgzn, a weekly U.S. and world current-events and news publication for those who, in this harried modern world, do not have enough time to read and process complete words. Founded in 2009 by fast-rising magazine executive Chris Daemmrich, this publication attempts to convey its message of literary convenience directly to potential buyers through its name. These potential buyers are those in the younger generation who have experience reading text messages and do not currently get much of their content from traditional news sources (i.e. through blogs and other Internet sites where news does not come directly from its source). This publication is an attempt to meet them halfway: to provide them with professional news coverage that is as easy to digest as a text message. With a length of four pages total, it will also be less expensive to print as well as easier to carry around. As the twentieth century had TIME Magazine, so the twenty-first will have noTYM Mgzn.

N Ths Isu

          In the inaugural issue of noTYM Mgzn, we hope to explore both important current-events stories of January 2009 and to provide descriptions of these stories so that they can be read and completely understood in less than 30 seconds.

-         Hw Obama Kn Prvnt A Nw Gr8 Dpprsn

Snce th ekonmc cllaps bgn n rnst n sptmbr 2k8, thr hv bn mny qz bout whthr th nw prsdnt wl b abl 2 fix it or whthr th USA n th wrld wll c a rt 2 an ekonmc st8 lke n d 1930s. ths RTcL wll l%k @ sum of doze qz n, thru Xclusv tlks w/ svrl Obama ekonmc plcy Nsdrs, 2 gve n Ncyd lk @ d 1st stps d nw admn wll tke 2 stp d dwnwrd sprls o bnkrptcy, job lss, n dclng cnsumr spndng.

(Since the economic collapse began in earnest in September 2008, there have been many questions about whether the new President will be able to fix it or whether America and the world will face a return to an economic state similar to that of the 1930s. This article means to address some of those questions and, through exclusive interviews with several Obama economic policy insiders, to give an inside look at the first steps the new Administration will take to halt the downward spirals of bankruptcy, job loss, and declining consumer spending.)

-         D War N Gaza: An Nd n Syt?

Altgh d fytin cntnus aftr mor thn 2 wks of dedly bttles n d volatle Gaza Strip, a cse-fyr deal brokrd by Egypt w/d hlp of d EU, 4mer brit Prime Minister Tony Blair, n /:-) prez Nicolas Sarkozy l%ks lk it myt brng bout @ lEst a temp Nd 2 d crsis. dis RTcL xplrs hw a lng-trm peace agreemt cUd posibly B reachD n

w@ probs stil st& n d wA of such an agreemt.

(Although the fighting continues after more than two weeks of deadly battles in the volatile Gaza Strip, a cease-fire deal brokered by Egypt with the help of the European Union, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy looks as if it might bring about at least a temporary end to the crisis. This article explores how a long-term peace agreement could possibly be reached and what problems still stand in the way of such an agreement.)

-         d motr CT gOs Grn – Elektrc TeknoloG @ d 2k9 Dtroyt Auto shO

It hs bn a bad yr 4 d US’s Big 3 automkrs, no dout. Plngng sales, beggiN 4 a bailout, n thru it ll d contd img of cmmtmnt 2 1ly bldg gas-gzzlng SUVs av cmbiND 2 put GM, 4D, n Chrysler on d edG of bnkrptcy. @ dis year’s Detroit intl Auto shO, hwevr, nu bgnnngs abnd as d dmestcs Rlease hi-milage sdans n shwcse elektrc mods, lk d 2k10 Chevrolet Volt. wl dis B nuf 2 compET w/nu hybrids frm d lyks of Toyota n Honda? Read mor 2 fnd ot.

(It has been a bad year for America’s Big Three automakers, no doubt. Plunging sales, begging for a bailout, and through it all the continued image of commitment to only building gas-guzzling SUVs have combined to put GM, Ford, and Chrysler on the edge of bankruptcy. At this year’s Detroit International Auto Show, however, new beginnings abound as the domestics release high-mileage sedans and showcase electric models, such as the 2010 Chevrolet Volt. Will this be enough to compete with new hybrids from the likes of Toyota and Honda? Read more to find out.)

Our Ideal Staffer

          noTYM Mgzn is dedicated to providing high-quality journalism condensed into very simple collections of letters and symbols that may or may not be actual words. To that end, the ideal staffer would be someone with experience in cell-phone or BlackBerry keyboard typing but who also has a background in professional journalism. Another advantage of our format is that reporters can be sent right into the thick of the action; as long as there’s cell phone service, they can send in a story. So potential staffers should also be prepared for assignments in war zones and disaster areas, because you never know exactly where the news is going to strike.