Last night, I enjoyed taking a trip to Wallace, N.C. for dinner at the massive restaurant, Mad Boar.

Jessica, known to readers here as a Guitar Hero, showed me around the place. It is large. Too large. I counted four bars, tons of tables, lots of open space, lots of opportunities for weddings, high school prom receptions, and any other large gatherings that may include a formal theme. Its proportions relative to Wallace baffle me.

“It’s strange,” Jessica said after we knocked back a few Jamesons, “the town is really nothing. There’s a large, gated community that we passed, and this place. And a golf course. Other than that, the town is just really small. Most of the regulars live in that gated community.” And when I looked around at the patronage, I saw lots of what some call “deep pockets,” which, sorry to say, didn’t reflect the Wallace townfolk, at least to me.

This dichotomy is analogous to what may be found in Kinston, which I’ve posted about earlier (see Weekend). An individual in that post championed private investment as a way to, perhaps, induce positive growth. My immediate reaction was something like: “Yeah, and sooner or later — The Verizon Wireless Neuseway Riverfront Boardwalk, or other somesuch.”

But he’s right. Private investment did produce this way-too-huge restaurant out in the middle of nowhere (whether the townies can afford it, I’m not sure). And it’s positive.

Earlier that night, I dropped a tiny bit of knowledge on Jessica, that knowledge being the then-top secret deal with Spirit AeroSystems, which was covered by The Free Press HERE.

This private investment will produce jobs, not a restaurant. And, it is a supremely positive investment to me for largely one reason: Hopefully, it won’t produce Spirit AeroSystems Chamber of Commerce, or whatever. And maybe, fingers crossed, it’ll be the first thing to lead the way for a nice middle ground on which kids like me can stand.

Maybe.

Check in on “Lost in K-Town” for coverage of tonight’s whatever that tractor/trailer/monster truck/drag race event is.

My thanks to The Charlotte Observer and The Raleigh News & Observer for allowing use of their respective material. A link to The Charlotte Observer’s Wednesday front page is HERE.

And unfortunately for us, there is some strange pixel aspect ratio business skewing the PDF page of The Free Press. I’ve compensated by taking a picture and using that picture here. For an even clearer image, I suggest a combination of your imagination and subscribing to the paper via (252) 559-1100 or the link HERE. (Yeah, it’s pretty embarrassing that I work at the place and still can’t get a good image of the front page. Tell me about it.)

This post is published today instead of Wednesday out of respect for the news organizations, because I’m focusing on the design more and the content less. And finally, keep in mind that I’m somewhat new at this sort of thing, (see About the author/about the blog) and any comments are welcome and encouraged.

Among these three front pages, I note first the dramatic use of the flag by Charlotte. In one stroke, it tells readers the answer to perhaps the most important question and displays that answer’s importance. All three used a picture of Sen. Obama as their main art. Raleigh chose the obvious route to play the standard podium picture large. I could’ve done without the rounded edges on Kinston’s package. Charlotte’s use of art came off more appealing to me.

After learning the answer to the first question, readers would immediately desire answers to other questions, namely the N.C. Senate primary victor, N.C. Governor primary victor, etc. The Raleigh News & Observer opted for a large tw0-line head with the governor’s race doglegging to the right of the page. With a map of the democratic primary results in the center, refers to the left and a bit of analysis to the right, the political package is neat, tidy and well rounded. However, it doesn’t answer all questions as quickly as the other two.

Both The Free Press and The Charlotte Observer chose to present statistics in a rail along the side their pages. Charlotte blew up the percentages of the big question nearly as large as the headline, leaving the rest at a small and easily accessible — all the way down to county commissioner. Kinston displayed all political races equally, leaving a top-down strategy for importance. While I would have like more variance in the sizes of the rails’ individual packages, and lose the stars, to me this strategy is more effective in communicating the information. Also, I prefer an actual tally of votes over percentages or averages every time.

Of course, the readership of the respective newspapers is not lost on me. A large metro paper like Charlotte’s must play to its audience like Kinston’s to its audience. The Free Press‘ refer to the inside is the obvious way to treat this story, allowing our readership to focus on what is more directly important — school board seats and the county commissioner race. Yes, it’s a little strange to compare Kinston’s paper to Raleigh’s and Charlotte’s due to their respective sizes. But, I argue that such comparisons are necessary to further the presentation of news. The content may be what motivates individuals to consume news, but its presentation — especially in the information age — is especially crucial, and becoming more so each day.

Questions, comments, random jabs: All are received with the same loving attitude. Check in on “Lost in K-Town” next week to talk about more fun stuff.

There are parts of Kinston that are absolutely gorgeous. The picture above is one such place.

My beautiful new friend Laura and me spent some time in the cornfield painting this tree. She has my completed artwork; I have her completed artwork.

Like I said, there are several places where the sun reaches the horizon in such a way that tears drop to the rolling green fields. However, there are other places in this town that cause tears to drop but for different reasons entirely.

As I drove through town with Laura showing her the sights, it became clear to us this dichotomy. For example, a few blocks west of North Queen Street sits a neighborhood of houses one could describe as overly opulent. Obverse this location sits a neighborhood where harsh glances and weather-taken buildings are abundant.

Reasons for the east side’s dilapidated state could stretch without end, and foremost in my speculation is a lack of civic involvement due to feelings of disempowerment. In other words, I don’t know. Who does?

It’s good to know that Pride of Kinston exists, and that some people care about Kinston’s direction. I hope that someday this town will balance itself, meaning the overly opulent becomes less high-faluten, and that the less approachable neighborhoods become filled with good life again.

And I know. If you see what I see, you may surmise that such a future is impossible. Well, I don’t necessarily agree with that. If everyone in Kinston were to accept and love this town, the negative energy that holds this town back would dissolve. … but there I go again with my hippie ideals.

Check out “Lost in K-Town” for all your random garbage about Kinston.

Originally, the pig parade was my primary concern. Somewhere along the way, I had the idea that at the Festival of the Neuse, they’d parade a real pig before slaughtering it. Thus, my goal was to rescue the pig from certain demise.

Later, I learned that at the time of the parade, the pig was long slaughtered. Rescue was no longer an option. Nevertheless, after an early Saturday morning that included a brisk jog and a routine oil change, I decided to take the camera out to the festival.

I’d've’d this post up Sunday, but due to improper care of my film from the folks at Rite Aid pharmacies, 201 W. Vernon Ave., Kinston, all the pictures I’d taken were inverted a full 180 degrees on the photo CD. Now that the problem is corrected, I’ll post the pictures.

The camera I used was my somewhat trusty Canon A-E 1, circa 1970s. Most of the time, the trigger siezes halfway into a good groove of shooting. This time, to my surprise, it was reliable. Maybe it was because of the heat. Who knows.

When it comes to using a pig carcass, this man was awarded for his work. His name is Wayne. Wayne was awarded the first place trophy.

One cute kid paints something for a cute girl with whom I didn’t get a chance to speak. Such is life. 

I like to call this image “Before and After.”

The bike presentation was somewhat exciting. The gentleman in the white T-shirt is shouting into a microphone, which is plugged into a small amplifier. A crowd of about 30 watches.

See, the other thing about this camera is that it produces this reddish line on the left side of some frames. I don’t known exactly what it is. Fungi? Light leakage? Just don’t know. If anyone does, you know how to reach me.

It was an extraordinarily beautiful day.

This pair, father and son I assume, took advantage of a quiet part of the Neuse River and strung up a fishing line.

Of course, a good amount of joshing and tomfoolery did ensue.

Not everyone enjoyed the festival, however. In this bush, a small bird sat in its nest terrified and screaming. It is difficult to see because the lens I used was of the long-distance variety. Ironically, the one time I didn’t bring my digital camera I found myself wanting it for only one picture. Shucks!

A trail of either grease or hydraulic fluid stretches for about 50 feet across the grass in Neuseway Park. During my days as a maintenance staff member of golf courses, a leak of even a quarter distance to this leak would be grounds for immediate dismissal, if failing a mere reprimand. The grass should heal with time. If I would have had a jug of dish soap at the time, I might have saved the grass. Such is life.

The series ends with a small girl vying to make a wish at the wishing fountain.

Check in sometime this week. Be sure to check in later on in the week.

[NOTE: The links will only be available for today. In the future, talk of newspaper design will be mentioned far in advance so readers can take advantage of the links.] 

Around the mid 1400s, Johannes Gutenberg gave the world movable type. It changed everything. People could create massive quantities of information in a shorter period of time. This information could be dispersed more easily, allowing for more thought and opinions to be made from those who may not have had the privilege.

I believe typography also influences emotions in myriad ways. Even now, as you look at this type, you are assimilating dark characters based on the white space around them. From these shapes, you are able to translate information — and from nothing else! Whole sentences, opinions and an undercurrent of emotions can be sent without us ever having to meet. I dnot eevn need to slpel tehm rhgit. Absorb this achievement of mankind for a moment.

Helvetica, a Swiss typeface invented in the mid ’50s, is as good as any reference point to speak on today’s opinion. It is everywhere. (Arial is a near close type, if you don’t have Helvetica in your list.) Helvetica is so utilitarian and, in many ways perfect, that it is ubiquitous in modern society — from Gap ads to hazardous waste barrels. The reason is that it has no inherent meaning; it can mean anything. The next time you’re out and about, check out how many different ways you see it: bold, thin, tall, italicized, all capital letters, in what context?, does it convey any other meaning that the words?, etcetera. (Feel free to comment on your impressions here.)

The point I’m trying to make with Helvetica is that type can convey whatever you want, or it can mean nothing. Take this page from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. As you can see, the story centers on Sen. Hillary Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania. The headline is decidedly huge and in all capital letters. And from this, one can infer a number of things: the political mindset of those in Atlanta favors Clinton as a democratic candidate for president; the designer, and by extension the editorial staff, favors Clinton; large headlines are a usual thing for this paper.

Having a loose knowledge on how its front pages come together based on a visit of one of its A1 chairs to a design classroom I attended about a year ago, I gather headlines of this nature aren’t normal fare. I could be wrong of course. And, of course, without a closer look at a large sample of the newspapers work, it’d be unfair to generalize based on one front page. Nevertheless, the headline, to me, screams: “Thank God! she’s still in the game! …” And they’re not the only newspapers to do any screaming — see Hobart/Merrillville Post-Tribune, see The Wichita Eagle, see The Lincoln Journal Star.

The designers obviously had a choice to go with all capital letters, great big above the fold. It conveys meaning, whether that meaning is FOR the consumers, TO the consumers, or out of that newspaper’s set pattern of headline writing. As consumers, “Why?” is a question that should be permanently on our lips.

And now, I think I’ve had enough of Clinton’s polished smile. Check in this weekend. Maybe I’ll write something.

Saturday came early.

Friday night, I spent some time drinking Macallan at La Azteca. I convinced the bartender Jessie to get Macallan, which made me happy. And after a few rounds of pool at Pasttimes with a man who after a mere 90 seconds of acquaintance confessed to me he’d indulged in too much of an elicit substance an hour prior to our conversation, the substance being called, in slang terminology, ectasy, I realized I’d stayed awake way to late. 

Even though, I managed to volunteer my morning to pick up trash in and around Kinston’s downtown area.

One can always glean interesting information by digging through the garbage of another person. The same can be said about digging through a town’s garbage. My first and last pieces of garbage I picked up were chicken bones. Cigarette butts are littered like salt on potato chips throughout the city. I picked up many. Lots of sucker sticks, lots of paper, beer cans, etcetera. Perhaps the worst trash I found was a bottle of bleach with a large gash down the side. Bleach must have been loosed on the ground because of a lack of weeds immediate area. Its placement under the bridge over the Neuse River made my heart sank.

Several 40-oz. bottles of “King Cobra” were also found. The bucket, I imagine is for sitting.

I was paired with a lovely group of people pictured here. Though, inevitably, I became separated from them and found myself on Shine Street.

Once I clapped eyes on the remarkable amount of garbage on this street, a photo became necessary. After snapping the photo, some gentlemen accosted me.

“What you taking pitchures for?”

“I’m just taking picturs of thu traesh,” I replied.

They proceeded to yell at one another for no apparent reason. One of the gentlemen approached me on a bicycle. He was about 5-foot 10-inches tall, about 130 pounds, very slim, the kind of slim that may be attributed to copious indulgences in illicit substances. His shirt was wrapped around his head, under which was probably light brown hair. He had blue eyes and a black tattoo on his left bicep.

“Listen man, be careful around here. People don’t know you, so… ” he panned his head around, “just watch yourself.”

Also along the street was a quaint cemetary.

Here is a photo of myself and City Councilman Jimmy Cousins.

I wanted to pick up this trash, but those in my group told me to leave it.

“Why?” I asked.

“People won’t know what to think if you pick it up!”

(OK, that exchange didn’t really happen. Just for fun, right?)

After about two full bags of trash, volunteers and onlookers gathered at Neuseway Park for lunch, which was provided by King’s restaurant. It satisfied.

At about 12:45 p.m. Mayor Buddy Ritch delivered a speech standing before a tree planted for Arbor Day.

And now, my digital ego needs a rest. Check back with “Lost in K-Town” on Wednesday for a comparison of news pages on the topic of typography.

Wednesday night, an acquaintance of mine, Carolyn, celebrated her 24th birthday. I attended with my camera. After some joking around, talk of the birthday girl’s “stalker” and a little fun at the expense of one another — all in good fun of course — the subject turned to a recent acquisition of another friend, Jessica’s, namely Guitar Hero. Having no personal accounts of using the device, and having opined on it in an earlier entry (see “The last guitar hero”) I decided a firsthand report was in order.

Jessica took me to school early. She is quite talented at the device, listing musical acts Slayer and Charlie Daniels in her repertoire, not to mention squaring fretboards against the dredded Prince of Darkness himself, Satan.

Upon Jessica’s defeat of Satan, the crowd went wild. Champagne fell from the sky. And it was my turn.

Before my hands touched the faux-fretboard, the desire to play a real guitar took hold. I examined the piece: five buttons — red, green, yellow, blue and orange — make up the top five frets; by where the pickups or soundhole would be a flap rests to pick up the back and forth motion of simulated strumming; at the end of the body is a long plastic pole, otherwise called a whammy bar; two buttons, start and select, and a bad paint job.

OK, so I got situated. From a long list of mainstream hits, I chose the song “Barracuda” by Heart. Now, I know this song backward and forward in real life. My mother played it for me when I was still in the womb (see About the author/about the blog). Countless times I can remember strumming this in countless contexts. And, on a slightly related note, more than one person has told me the song “Magic Man” was written for me (two people). While I considered how impossible that is, I began to play.

The notes come along the fretboard from top to bottom. It reminded me of what I can only call “The Whack-A-Mole” game, only without a hammer. Trying my best, I couldn’t get all of the notes. Eventually, the digital crowd, and the real crowd, voted for me to lay the guitar down. I got booed off stage.

Me? Booed? Really?

Well, I didn’t take it too personally. Who can really. It’s an electric light display. If I weren’t of the generation, I’d say it’s for the next generation. But then, my first qualm was with the next generation.

Nobody’s going to be writing music on a video game. So I’ll repeat and accept the comment on the original post: In the future, there will be music, but we’ll have to look extra hard to find it.

Anyway, here’s some pictures of Jessica’s son. He’s a cutie. We both worked on a birthday card. It says “Happy Birthday” and is illustrated with a firetruck.

Still check in this weekend.

 As a storyteller, I’m always interested in how stories are presented. Chances are, there’s an uncle, or kid down the street, or author who’s got a really neat voice by which you are enamored.

As a page designer, my interest is no less enthusiastic. Whenever I describe the job to someone outside of journalism, it is more often than not taken as a surprising job. Sedentary consumers of news, or otherwise, don’t really understand or see how the way information is presented on a news page can affect his or her news judgement, thought pattern, and even opinions! (OK, I can take things a little far sometimes.) If the designer has done his or her job well, then these are questions rarely asked by the consumers.

Anyway, that’s what I do, or like and try to do anyway. In this post, the subject is color in type. That is, putting words on a page that are a certain color, LIKE RIGHT HERE!!!!

Any man or woman with working eyes can report that color is extremely dynamic. It affects humanity and emotion in ways that are still being discovered. Color can communicate information on levels glorious, unforeseen and endless.

Here are a couple of pages from Alaska and Arizona that illustrate the edge of the fire when it comes to the color red. “Anger” and “Power” are some pretty strong words on their own, and color communicates that a step further. [EDIT: the links have expired. I need to think of another way to do this, again.]

However, when I consider the two, it’s obvious to me that The Arizona Republic did a better job with their use. The package is elegant. The color is prominent and is continued in other elements like the thermostat and pie graph. Red is also not the only color; it’s within the package’s palette. Above all, Arizona’s use seems more appropriate.

At the Anchorage Daily News, to me, the designer simply thought of the word “Anger” and thought it’d be fun to put it in red. ” ‘Anger‘ is red, right?” It doesn’t seem to have the same impact as in Arizona; it’s merely color for color’s sake.

Gimmicks like these denigrate the use of such a dynamic medium as color. As consumers, these techniques aren’t necessarily considered when consuming the story. Though, continued overuse of a color for no real compelling reason can lead to nasty looking pages, and the eventual disregard of the color’s myriad semantic attachments. And nobody can say that’s a good thing. Restraint and thoughtful use of techniques across the board leads to happy consumers, designers and design.

As always, comments of dissention and agreement are accepted with the same encouraging attitude.

Check out “Lost in K-Town” sometime this weekend for an account of the Lenoir County Extension Office’s plant sale and the Kinston Downtown Clean-Up Day.

p.s. It’s funny. Spend a little time away from a textbook and my whole Communications Law class goes right out of my head.

A visit to a friend living in Wilmington coincided with the Azalea Festival.

My friend, Evan, is a bit of cynic, and his commentary on the events were toward the negative. Catalyst for his attitude may have been an unlucky turn of events with festival planners.

At about 2 p.m. on Saturday Evan and me decided to take two of the street barracades, which were left by his apartment on Fourth Street in preparation for the parade, and barracade a neighbor’s car. The prank was well documented with Evan’s camera, but, unfortunately, never came to fruition. At about 6 p.m., Evan woke me to rush outside to see a tow truck towing another neighbor’s vehicle. The barracades by then were back in their respective places.

“I hate the Azalea fest!” shouted Evan’s neighbor, Melissa, after she’d learned her vehicle had been towed. “I park on the street every night! I can’t park outside my own house?!” While I did enjoy seeing her partially clothed, it was a drag nonetheless.

Perhaps to add insult to injury, we learned that the cars on the street had been towed to make room for a group of elephants. The carrier truck transporting the elephants also blocked Evan’s BMW. Well, what goes around …

Anyway, Evan and I watched the parade from his fire escape. After a while, he decided to take a nap. Being as wide awake as I was at that point, I decided to check out the parade. The people outside were incredible. Faces of nearly everyone were lit up in beautiful smiles. The circuitous walkabout led me to spend the day with a woman whom if I were only allowed one word to describe it would be: “absolutely gorgeous.”

We watched the people, go to know each other, watched the fireworks and laughed quite a bit. Perhaps the best night since living in North Carolina did ensue.

As for the festival, it was a good feeling to be surrounded by people in such a positive state of mind. And the only speck on the horizon was that I’d forgotten the memory card for my camera in my desk at work. … Speaking of work, I’d better get back to it.

Be sure to check in sometime this week. I hope to have obliterated the aforementioned logistical impossibility by then.

My plan was to have a couple different newspapers’ front pages to compare how they covered and designed Bill Clinton’s visit to the area. Unfortunately, some logistical impossibilities exist in posting the pages. They can be solved, but I’m in no mood to solve them at this time. It’s too beautiful outside. So, watch for an account of my trip to The Azalea Festival.