A Farewell to The Times
It feels a little weird to begin my Medium writing with an ending. But every ending is some kind of beginning, right?
After 7 years, 4 months and 8 days, I’m leaving The New York Times for Buzzfeed. I joined the Times as a freelance web designer in November 2007, and over the years worked on everything from section redesigns, iOS apps, the pay model/digital subscriptions, breaking news events, Olympics, elections, and long-form narratives. Hell, I even ran the Trello.
Saying goodbye this week has brought forward such a rush of memory and emotions, it’s almost too much. Below are the remarks I gave to the Times newsroom, on April 1st, 2015.
❧
These things are never easy, but I’d like to say a few words before I go. I’m sorry if I leave out anybody, but I love you all.
In October of 2007, I walked into this building determined to convince Khoi Vinh to give me a job. I had just moved to New York, having quit my job in Boston, and I was fast blowing through my savings.
I met with a few design team members, Pau and Sean, and had some really good conversations. We talked for an hour about the internet and typographic grids, Wordpress and Flash, and a little about what it was like to work as a designer at The Times.
I was feeling pretty good about my chances.
And then, they led me into Khoi’s office, and I introduced myself. As I rattled on about my old job, and everything I was hoping to offer The Times, Khoi just sat there, staring at his screen, clicking through my work.
After a minute or two, he turned to me, as I was mid-sentence, and said, in a very Khoi way: “I don’t really see a portfolio here.”
AS HE WAS LOOKING AT MY PORTFOLIO.
So that kind of took the wind out of my sails. It was all over in another minute or two, and I was ushered to the elevator.
On the way down, I thought, uh oh.
In the days that followed, I compulsively emailed Pau and Sean, ingratiated myself with anybody Khoi interacted with on Twitter, and called the recruiter a couple of times to follow up.
Amazingly, I was annoying enough to get called back, and a few days later, I found myself sitting in Fiona Spruill’s office with her and Jim Roberts, being peppered about my “news diet.” (I think I detected a frown when I mentioned CNN.com first.)
But that too was a blur. The one clear image of that day, that I can still conjure up, was of Jim’s cowboy boots, sticking out the bottom of his suit pants. The whole time, I was sitting there thinking, “Who the hell is this guy???”
Years later, I would take comfort in the sound of those boots, marching down the hall. (There is something very comforting about Jim’s slow, deliberate gait.)
But anyway, Khoi ended up offering me a freelance slot, not a full-time job. And I took it. I wanted to be here. And my life as a Times designer started about 7½ years ago.
I have to thank Khoi for giving me that shot, despite having such a thin portfolio. And I have to thank him for bringing me on full-time 6 months later — it was nice to have healthcare again. But he always pushed me to do better work, and nurtured my ad-hoc design education, at a critical time.
I have to thank all of the designers that went to bat for me back then, including Pau and Sean, Alex Wright, Jeremy Zilar and Elliott Malkin. I learned so much from them, so fast.
I learned from Elliott that you could take any half-baked, work-in-progress design comp, and safely present it to stakeholders, so long as you put the word WIREFRAME at the top, in big red letters. A handy trick!
I’d like to thank Tom Bodkin, who is the personification of design at The New York Times. During that year or two when we all reported directly to Tom, I confessed to him in one of our 1:1s, that I was a liberal arts major in college — that I had no formal design training. Turns out, he followed a very similar path.
I learned so many things from Tom, but I think one lesson I’ll take with me to Buzzfeed, is this: there are a million information sources out there now, so the effectiveness and impact of good journalism depends on the form we give it. The strength of that presentation is critical to differentiating The Times, or Buzzfeed, in a sea of information sources.
Ian Adelman, when I was reading stories on Slate in the ’90s that were art directed by you and your team, I didn’t even know what an art director was. But I remember thinking, this would be a cool job. (I had a Geocities page at the time.) I’ve learned so much about design from you, but also, more importantly, how to talk about design. I’m going to need to channel some of you in my new role.
To my friends on the design team over the years: Heena, Anh, Jon Chretien, Lacy Garrison, Bart Szyszka, Rebecca Paterson, Angela Rutherford, Paul Lau, Jennifer Brook. And everybody else. We did some great work, and had so much fun. We nursed each other through heartbreaks, we celebrated every milestone. And we did Thursday Thursdays.
To my friends in the art department, photo and video: Aviva, Nicholas, Kim Bost, John Macleod, Meaghan Looram — I learned more about design and visual editing by watching you work. Thank you for always making time to answer my questions.
To the producers and copy editors and visual leads and everybody I came up with from the Web newsroom, and what followed — thank you for teaching me everything I know about journalism.
Thank you Andrew DeVigal, whose generous spirit and sense of adventure permeated every corner of the newsroom.
Marc Lavallee, you’ve come a long way from our collaborations when you were “social media developer.” (I’m not even sure you were yet a senior social media developer.) You’re a true friend. You explained the mystery of git to me, so thanks. And I still remember that time you hugged Steve Duenes — that blew my mind.
Graphics and INT folks, you’ve been amazing collaborators and challenged me to do the best work of my career.
And to my team…
Meghan: You too are generous in spirit, and always curious. You taught me how to loop through data in jQuery, one of those skills I will probably lose by next Monday.
Jacky: you’re our not-so-secret weapon. It’s been a pleasure to watch you tackle big things, while always remaining calm and centered. You always find an elegant solution, no matter how crazy the problem. And we’ve thrown a lot of crazy problems your way.
Smith: I think you might be known now as the “Listy” guy. But your thoroughness, and willingness to do whatever it takes — be it in the photo studio, or at a video shoot on location — is an example to all.
Rumsey: your talents are second to none. Can’t wait to see what comes next.
Matt: your code just makes sense to me. I mean that as the highest compliment, as someone with very limited technical abilities. I’ll see you in the bike lane.
Rodrigo: thank you for your enthusiasm, and ability to see things through from conception to publish. It’s a rare talent.
Troy: you’re not here, but what can be said that hasn’t already been said? You’re an incredible talent, and an incredible friend. Thank you for blazing a post-NY Times path for me.
Andrew. What can I possibly say? Andrew has been my friend, my champion, and on occasion, our internet dad. I remember a time when you shunned Twitter, and look at you now! Seriously, thank you for everything, I hope that I can someday repay you for all you’ve done for me.
And to my love, Sarah Sampsel, who is recovering from a little skiing accident in Utah — thank you for always encouraging me to see the forest for the trees.
Thank you everybody.
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I will join Buzzfeed on April 7th, 2015, as Product Design Manager.
