Working hard for the money
Ever since Gretchen and I started telling people we were moving home to Michigan, I've had to tell people what I do for a living. The conversations typically go like this:
Relative/friend/acquaintance: So, where are you working?
Me: I'm working at the H-P.
R/F/A: What are you doing?
Me: I'm a paginator.
R/F/A: (confused look) What's that?
Me: I put the pictures and stories on the page and send them to the printer.
R/F/A: (a little less confused look)
So to try and clear up some of that confusion. Here is what my typical night looks like at work:
I walk into the office around 4:30 p.m. When I get to my desk, I find a list with all of tomorrow's pages on it laying on my desk with my name written next to a bunch of them – typically between 7 and 12 pages.
(Background: When I tell people I work for the H-P, I don't actually work for the H-P. It would be more accurate to say I work for Paxton Media Group (but that would just confuse people even more). Anyway, I was hired as a paginator, because the company that owns The Herald-Palladium, Paxton Media Group, was consolidating its page designers for six of its papers here in St. Joseph, Mich.)
Along with my sheet of tomorrow's pages, I also get dummies for each page I'm going to design. It shows what color the page is going to be printed in and what ads are on the page. Each paper we paginate for is also given these dummies. From the dummies, the editors fill out a budget (some better than others) of what they want on their pages. Some of the pages are filled with local stories and pictures, and others with Associated Press stories and pictures. Some of the papers like to pick what AP stories are in the paper, while others will put "AP nation/world stories" and we have to pick the stories for them.
The six papers we design are: The Herald-Palladium, the Michigan City News-Dispatch, the La Porte County Herald-Argus, the Shelbyville (Ind.) News, the Connersville (Ind.) News-Examiner and the New Castle (Ind.) Courier-Times. Each one has a different look, but the "Southern" three (the TSN, the CNE and the CT) have the same general fonts and styles.
Anyway, a set of 3 or 4 people will come in around noon to do the Southern three papers because after they are designed, they are actually sent electronically to our press in Marion where they must print before five other companies papers. The H-P, the ND and the HA are all printed at the press here in St. Joseph.
So once I know what stories and pictures go on the page, I decide where they are going to be placed. It is usually based on a few different things: What the news hole is shaped like, how the art (pictures or graphics) are oriented, and what stories are important and need to go near the top of the page.
After that easy task is done, you get a proof of the page that looks like this:
or this...
Once someone has looked over the page, hopefully well, we export it off to the printer. We go into the workflow program to approve the page we sent, and that's that.
So without getting into too many boring details, that's what I do. Hopefully more of you look less confused at me when I talk to you now :-)
Relative/friend/acquaintance: So, where are you working?
Me: I'm working at the H-P.
R/F/A: What are you doing?
Me: I'm a paginator.
R/F/A: (confused look) What's that?
Me: I put the pictures and stories on the page and send them to the printer.
R/F/A: (a little less confused look)
So to try and clear up some of that confusion. Here is what my typical night looks like at work:
I walk into the office around 4:30 p.m. When I get to my desk, I find a list with all of tomorrow's pages on it laying on my desk with my name written next to a bunch of them – typically between 7 and 12 pages.
(Background: When I tell people I work for the H-P, I don't actually work for the H-P. It would be more accurate to say I work for Paxton Media Group (but that would just confuse people even more). Anyway, I was hired as a paginator, because the company that owns The Herald-Palladium, Paxton Media Group, was consolidating its page designers for six of its papers here in St. Joseph, Mich.)
Along with my sheet of tomorrow's pages, I also get dummies for each page I'm going to design. It shows what color the page is going to be printed in and what ads are on the page. Each paper we paginate for is also given these dummies. From the dummies, the editors fill out a budget (some better than others) of what they want on their pages. Some of the pages are filled with local stories and pictures, and others with Associated Press stories and pictures. Some of the papers like to pick what AP stories are in the paper, while others will put "AP nation/world stories" and we have to pick the stories for them.
The six papers we design are: The Herald-Palladium, the Michigan City News-Dispatch, the La Porte County Herald-Argus, the Shelbyville (Ind.) News, the Connersville (Ind.) News-Examiner and the New Castle (Ind.) Courier-Times. Each one has a different look, but the "Southern" three (the TSN, the CNE and the CT) have the same general fonts and styles.
Anyway, a set of 3 or 4 people will come in around noon to do the Southern three papers because after they are designed, they are actually sent electronically to our press in Marion where they must print before five other companies papers. The H-P, the ND and the HA are all printed at the press here in St. Joseph.
So once I know what stories and pictures go on the page, I decide where they are going to be placed. It is usually based on a few different things: What the news hole is shaped like, how the art (pictures or graphics) are oriented, and what stories are important and need to go near the top of the page.
After that easy task is done, you get a proof of the page that looks like this:
Once someone has looked over the page, hopefully well, we export it off to the printer. We go into the workflow program to approve the page we sent, and that's that.
So without getting into too many boring details, that's what I do. Hopefully more of you look less confused at me when I talk to you now :-)
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