Tyler Mayforth

Official Website of Tyler Mayforth | Delaware Born | NOLA Living

Tag: Life on the Desk

Don’t Let Mistakes Keep You Down

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On June 10, 2015

In Journalism

It stared at me as soon as I walked in the office on Tuesday.

As I got closer to my desk, the purple circle punched me in my gut.

When I sat down and took a deeper look, I felt sick to my stomach.

After a conversation that afternoon about mistakes in display type (or headlines to those not in journalism) in general, I not only busted one, but also got the person’s name wrong in the mug. If there was any saving grace — to be honest, there isn’t any — it was on an inside page. Still, to have that happen the day of a discussion sucked.

I let it affect me much longer than I choose to admit and went on autopilot not too long after. I went right to work on paginating Op-Ed, and halfway through I found out that wasn’t my duty for the day. I only had to do sports. Oh well, I still finished it.

For some reason, while wallowing in my mistake-borne malaise, a scene from the newest Rocky move (“Rocky Balboa”) played in my mind. Yeah, I don’t know either.

All right, if we’re being completely honest here, that scene didn’t play in my mind. It just seemed so right to put in here. And when it comes down to it, that’s what I did.

I shook whatever funk I had and wanted to make sure today’s sports section sang. I put my all behind every section I design, but this one had extra motivation behind it.

Our centerpiece was a lengthy feature on the evolution of tight ends by a Georgia Grady School student. From what I understand, they write a tome as part of their curriculum and get extra credit if it runs in the newspaper. We had several others grace our section and each time I made sure it looked good for them to have a clip.

And remember what I said about good art making a centerpiece? Today’s picture, taken by AJ Reynolds, recently won top honors from the Georgia Press Association. You’ll see why. It would be a true travesty if it didn’t win, because the lighting hits it perfectly and the action inside the frame — as well as the reactions — are golden.

So there you have it. Today was quite the adventure, but with every mistake you make in life, you can either let it eat you alive or learn from it and move on.

I’ll try to do better next time. It’s all about growth, right?

Elation, Pressure and the Belmont Stakes

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On June 7, 2015

In Journalism, Sports

Elation to buried under mounds of self-induced pressure.

That’s how my Saturday night went on desk at the Banner-Herald.

Why? Well, I’m glad you asked.

Around 6:40 p.m., I walked from our downtown office to Mellow Mushroom on my way to getting dinner. Thanks to my reconnaissance during trivia nights, I knew that place had a lot of TVs and a low-pressure waitstaff, which would allow me to settle in and potentially watch history be made with a plethora of other cheering patrons.

See, American Pharoah needed to win the Belmont Stakes on Saturday to complete the elusive Triple Crown. It had been 37 years since Affirmed last did so in 1978.

I’m one of those folks who, like many I’m sure, loves to see sports history unfold in front of their eyes. Needless to say, I wanted to be in front of a TV on Saturday.

Sure enough, American Pharoah led wire-to-wire and pulled away at the end for a comfortable victory. I exchanged high-fives with people around me and walked out.

I had more important things to do, like design an eye-catching centerpiece. Oh, boy!

Once I got back to the office and got settled, I began to sift through the avalanche of images the Associated Press snapped at Belmont Park. I pulled a few that caught my attention and knew eventually they’d post one that would pull everything together.

I cycled through designs and suddenly felt a load of stress on my shoulders. It wasn’t like deadline staring me down (I still had a few hours), but the self-induced pressure of being a perfectionist. I wanted the front page of the sports section to pop since it was a big moment and let’s face it — how many are on desk when history happens?

Time marched on and while I had something on the page that looked good enough, it wasn’t great. I wasn’t going to accept anything less than great in my eyes, so I hit delete and combed through the AP’s stockpile again until something stood out.

Eventually I found an aerial of the finish, which had enough air for me to work with.

Then I found a sidebar from the AP that broke down the keys to victory in the race.

Slowly, but surely, the puzzle came together until I truly liked the finished result.

The Perfect Headline Brings It All Together

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On May 26, 2015

In Golf, Journalism

A designer’s best ammunition — or worst nightmare, depending how you look at it — is an empty budget. It means free reign on content and the all-important centerpiece, but it could also spell disaster if you don’t know what news should fill your pages.

Such a scenario presented itself to me on Sunday.

Left to paginate the entire Banner-Herald, I had a budget for news but not sports.

I did a quick perusal of the AP Sports Digest and wrote down some items I knew should get in — the Braves-Brewers game, a standalone photo of the Hawks-Cavaliers game since it would finish too late for print, an online tease for the Coca-Cola 600 and the Indianapolis 500.

Saturday and Sunday each had high school baseball as the centerpiece, so putting the Braves there was overkill in my opinion. I needed something big to happen.

A few hours before deadline and just before I went to dinner, former Georgia golfer Chris Kirk won the Colonial when Ian Poulter couldn’t eagle the par-4 18th. Perfect! Based on how much our readers love golf and the Bulldogs, it would work well.

Then I began thinking about the design and knew I wanted to go vertical with it since a few of my previous pages were horizontal. I picked good art of Kirk, but found myself stuck in a rut.

How was I going to play this? What can I package?

After thinking a bit, I stepped away from my computer and began to walk out the door for my long-awaited meal. Then I stopped in my tracks.

I sat in front of my computer and looked through the art I pulled. The best picture I had of Kirk was him kissing the champion’s trophy. What about art from the Indianapolis 500? Sure enough, I grabbed a picture of Juan Pablo Montoya kissing the bricks.

Kirk would go large; Montoya small.

I needed a headline for it all to make sense.

It didn’t take long for the idea to pop in my head.

“Sometimes there is nothing sweeter than … A CHAMPION’S KISS”

Check out the page. I thought I did a good job with it.

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