My name is Chris Lusk, and I’ve started a blog—News By Design—because I want to share and discuss media design, but it turns out I’m missing one key ingredient: you. More specifically, I’m looking for college journalists (and the many people connected to college journalism) to partner with me on this project by bringing their work to my attention. I want you to help spark the conversations by pointing out examples of your work, sharing stories you think would interest others, and/or suggesting topics you want to read about.
Because let’s be honest: scouring the Internet to find examples and choosing topics at random won’t be my recipe for success.
Let me back up and share a little about me. I am a 2012 graduate of the University of Oklahoma, and I worked at the campus newspaper, The Oklahoma Daily, for eight semesters. I quickly became enamored with presentation — in print and online — so I spent most of my college newsroom days working in that realm. I went on to serve as editor-in-chief, managing editor, design editor and online editor for The Daily, and I am now heading to California in February to work as a designer for The Orange County Register.
I decided to start a blog focused on design because I want to stay as connected as possible to what my peers in journalism are doing. I also have a pretty strong desire to end up in some sort of professor/adviser position down the road, so I hope this type of online forum can help me improve my teaching/training skills.
Have you ever seen Charles Apple’s blog on the ACES website? (Check it out, if you haven’t.) I’d like to provide student journalists a similar service. Here’s an example of what I would like to do: O’Colly calls for Oklahoma State to end its ‘culture of secrecy.
I don’t want this blog to be a tool to criticize and cast judgment by any means, but I do want to build a place where people who are interested in design can come see, discuss and, hopefully, learn a little. Of course, I don’t want to limit us to conversations about traditional design; I want to provide a forum to discuss the wide-ranging issues college journalists navigate each day. After all, I’m only six months removed from that environment. So from print design to Web design to special projects to investigative work … anything you want to share is fair game.
Obviously, there are many other college-media-focused blogs out there—established blogs from very credible professionals (Hi, Kenna!)—so I would primarily focus on sharing design-centric work from the college media world.
So, what do you say? Can I count you as a new partner in this endeavor? There are various ways to contribute: email, Twitter, Facebook, comment on my blog, etc. If you or your college publication produces something you are pleased with, find interesting or that has a backstory other people might enjoy hearing, bring it to my attention. If you can share PDFs of your work, that would be great. Is your organization launching a special project online? Share that, too.
The key is, quite simply, interaction. And I look forward to all the interesting conversations our interaction will spark.
chrismlusk says
@profkrg Thanks for letting me be a guest, Kenna!
profkrg says
@chrismlusk you’re welcome! Thanks for writing. Let me know if/when you want to post again.
susansilver says
Good Luck Chris!