brian craig

My position at the Marin Independent Journal allowed me to focus more on design. My primary responsibility was designing and laying out the front page every day of the week. During my time there, I designed over 1,000 front pages. I also designed the lifestyle covers and pages, and inside news pages. I assisted and filled in for the digital editor, deploying, managing and updating content for the website. I also filled in for the news editor on solo work days, where I alone would design, layout and edit an entire news section in a single shift.

I began my journalism career at the Lodi-News Sentinel, beginning as a copy editor and then quickly moving up to assistant news editor and then news editor. While there, I designed over 2,000 front pages. In addition to designing the front page, I also supervised the copy desk and reporters. Design and editing decisions, and wire content for the newspaper, ultimately filtered through me as I was tasked with signing off on all the pages. It was common for me to proofread the entire news section in a shift, and design and lay out other pages in addition to the front page.

During my time at the eLearning Guild as a Publications Specialist, I was responsible for creating both print and digital materials. I did design and layout of eBooks, reports and white papers (including conversion to EPUB and MOBI formats). I also managed articles for the Learning Solutions Magazine website, which included curation and creation of images and illustrations to use with articles. I created illustrations, infographics and charts for publications and articles. I also aided with conference materials, which included brochures, and uploading images and course information to conference websites such as DevLearn. While this position was focused more on design, I also did copy edit articles. In addition, I learned to troubleshoot issues in HTML when there were formatting issues with articles.

As a Page Designer and Copy Editor at this Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper, I designed pages and edited copy. Design days varied, and included the front page, local, business, inside and sports pages. While I had no previous experience in sports, or any sports background, I was asked to join the sports desk for several days a week to design and edit pages, and even assemble agate. I was entrusted to manage the sports pages on off days for the sports editors. I also helped managed articles on the website using a content management system.