{"id":23785,"date":"2022-03-01T11:48:16","date_gmt":"2022-03-01T16:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/2022\/03\/01\/everything-had-to-have-a-purpose-remembering-journalism-visionary-richard-curtis\/"},"modified":"2024-11-24T23:14:44","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T04:14:44","slug":"everything-had-to-have-a-purpose-remembering-journalism-visionary-richard-curtis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/2022\/03\/01\/everything-had-to-have-a-purpose-remembering-journalism-visionary-richard-curtis\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Everything Had to Have a Purpose’: Remembering Journalism Visionary Richard Curtis"},"content":{"rendered":"

He was the fastest typesetter in Technician<\/em> history, back when every typewritten story had to be manually entered into the NC State student newspaper\u2019s IBM MT\/ST magnetic tape word-processing system.<\/p>\n

And he became one of the most influential journalists of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

Richard Curtis, founding managing editor for design at USA Today<\/em> and a 1972 graduate of NC State\u2019s College of Design<\/a>, died Sunday after a prolonged battle against cancer. He was 75.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Curtis earned his place in the North Carolina Journalism and Media Hall of Fame with his creative ideas about bright design and a more concise style of writing, a forerunner of modern digital communications.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A native of Caldwell County\u2019s Hudson, North Carolina, Curtis came to NC State via a Trailways bus in 1964 to study design, but found a passion for visual storytelling while working in Technician\u2019s<\/em> basement offices in the now demolished YMCA Building near Holladay Hall. He never envisioned that he would revolutionize the newspaper industry.<\/p>\n

Curtis could type 100 words a minute of other people\u2019s prose, but he earned his place in the North Carolina Journalism and Media Hall of Fame (inducted 1997) with his own creative ideas about bright design and a more concise style of writing, a forerunner of modern digital communications.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did almost all of the typesetting when I was a student and I was paid by the column inch, so when I became editor-in-chief, I took a substantial pay cut,\u201d he said. \u201cI think I made $75 a month as editor, which was a lot less than I made typesetting.\u201d<\/p>\n

His studies were interrupted by a two-year stint in the U.S. Army\u2019s 82nd Airborne during the Vietnam War. He graduated from NC State with a degree in product design in 1972 and began his professional journalism career in Baltimore, Miami and St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n

When Gannett developed USA Today<\/em> in 1982 it became the first true national newspaper, using Curtis\u2019 bold ideas, particularly on the colorful U.S. weather map, which was almost always the second-most viewed page after the front page.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything we did in designing and typesetting Technician<\/em> was almost exactly how it was done in the early years of USA Today<\/em> when we began in 1982,\u201d said Curtis in a 2020 remembrance prior to the student paper\u2019s 100th anniversary. \u201cIn my life there have been numerous lessons I learned in those Technician<\/em> years that are still evidenced in the pages of USA Today<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among his other revolutionary ideas during his 27 years as director of photography and graphics were the use of more color pictures, making black-and-white competitors scramble to enliven their pages, and replacing narrative stories with brightly colored, informative graphics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn those early days, most folks at USA Today<\/em> saw Richard and me as strictly the \u2018visual guys,\u2019\u201d says John Walston, a former Technician<\/em> sports editor and Curtis\u2019 successor as editor-in-chief. \u201cBut both of us had grown up on deadline-driven afternoon newspaper news desks. Yes, he had an honest-to-God design background, but he knew news and could wield a wicked editor\u2019s pen as well as an Exacto.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walston followed Curtis to USA Today<\/em> and became deputy managing editor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking side-by-side with Richard, I knew that every design, every graphic, every photo was driven with the news in mind,\u201d Walston says. \u201cHe never flinched from that. News and information would mean nothing if they couldn\u2019t easily be understood. Functional, not pretty, were the bywords. There was nothing shallow in the decision-making process.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything had to have a purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018, Curtis and Jane, his wife of more than 50 years, established a scholarship for in-state students studying in the NC State College of Design.<\/p>\n

This post was originally published<\/a> in NC State News.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false,"raw":"

He was the fastest typesetter in Technician<\/em> history, back when every typewritten story had to be manually entered into the NC State student newspaper\u2019s IBM MT\/ST magnetic tape word-processing system.<\/p>\n\n

And he became one of the most influential journalists of the 20th century.<\/p>\n\n

Richard Curtis, founding managing editor for design at USA Today<\/em> and a 1972 graduate of NC State\u2019s College of Design<\/a>, died Sunday after a prolonged battle against cancer. He was 75.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Curtis earned his place in the North Carolina Journalism and Media Hall of Fame with his creative ideas about bright design and a more concise style of writing, a forerunner of modern digital communications.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

A native of Caldwell County\u2019s Hudson, North Carolina, Curtis came to NC State via a Trailways bus in 1964 to study design, but found a passion for visual storytelling while working in Technician\u2019s<\/em> basement offices in the now demolished YMCA Building near Holladay Hall. He never envisioned that he would revolutionize the newspaper industry.<\/p>\n\n

Curtis could type 100 words a minute of other people\u2019s prose, but he earned his place in the North Carolina Journalism and Media Hall of Fame (inducted 1997) with his own creative ideas about bright design and a more concise style of writing, a forerunner of modern digital communications.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cI did almost all of the typesetting when I was a student and I was paid by the column inch, so when I became editor-in-chief, I took a substantial pay cut,\u201d he said. \u201cI think I made $75 a month as editor, which was a lot less than I made typesetting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

His studies were interrupted by a two-year stint in the U.S. Army\u2019s 82nd Airborne during the Vietnam War. He graduated from NC State with a degree in product design in 1972 and began his professional journalism career in Baltimore, Miami and St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n\n

When Gannett developed USA Today<\/em> in 1982 it became the first true national newspaper, using Curtis\u2019 bold ideas, particularly on the colorful U.S. weather map, which was almost always the second-most viewed page after the front page.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cEverything we did in designing and typesetting Technician<\/em> was almost exactly how it was done in the early years of USA Today<\/em> when we began in 1982,\u201d said Curtis in a 2020 remembrance prior to the student paper\u2019s 100th anniversary. \u201cIn my life there have been numerous lessons I learned in those Technician<\/em> years that are still evidenced in the pages of USA Today<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Among his other revolutionary ideas during his 27 years as director of photography and graphics were the use of more color pictures, making black-and-white competitors scramble to enliven their pages, and replacing narrative stories with brightly colored, informative graphics.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cIn those early days, most folks at USA Today<\/em> saw Richard and me as strictly the \u2018visual guys,\u2019\u201d says John Walston, a former Technician<\/em> sports editor and Curtis\u2019 successor as editor-in-chief. \u201cBut both of us had grown up on deadline-driven afternoon newspaper news desks. Yes, he had an honest-to-God design background, but he knew news and could wield a wicked editor\u2019s pen as well as an Exacto.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Walston followed Curtis to USA Today<\/em> and became deputy managing editor.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cWorking side-by-side with Richard, I knew that every design, every graphic, every photo was driven with the news in mind,\u201d Walston says. \u201cHe never flinched from that. News and information would mean nothing if they couldn\u2019t easily be understood. Functional, not pretty, were the bywords. There was nothing shallow in the decision-making process.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cEverything had to have a purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

In 2018, Curtis and Jane, his wife of more than 50 years, established a scholarship for in-state students studying in the NC State College of Design.<\/p>"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NC State alumnus Richard Curtis revolutionized print journalism as the founding managing editor for design at USA Today. He died Sunday at 75.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"ncstate_wire","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-23785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-_from-newswire-collection-279"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23785"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23785"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24192,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23785\/revisions\/24192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}