Some changes afoot in the visuals department of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, including promotions for Sharon Yemich to Design Director/Features and Emmet Smith to Deputy Design Director/News.

Full memo from Design and Graphics Director Michael Tribble and AME/Visuals David Kordalski after the jump. Congrats to all!

Hey folks,

In order to handle the demands of thoughtful, content-centric design across the newsroom, David and I are announcing a few structural changes in the design department that will improve communication, add accountability and increase efficiency so we can better tell the stories of our community.

Scott Sheldon moves from Features Design Director to Graphics Editor. Scott has a proven track record as a strong journalist, informational designer and department manager and a well-earned reputation for being extremely organized. He will use these skills to oversee the work of our team of artists as he manages all graphic work that appears in The Plain Dealer and on cleveland.com. 

Sharon Yemich replaces Scott Sheldon as Design Director/Features. She will ultimately be responsible for the planning, design and production of The Plain Dealer’s features sections and for the scheduling, coaching and managing of our features design team. Sharon will work closely with the features staff to ensure open communication between designers, reporters and editors, will represent the design team at daily and planning meetings. 

Amanda Hamann steps into a larger role as Deputy Design Director/ Features. She will work closely with Sharon to help manage the features design team. In her new role, Amanda also will concentrate her strong design background to ensure that informational design, illustration and typography is consistent and effective throughout all features sections. She also will serve as the art director for our Sunday features sections.

Emmet Smith moves from his role in features to Deputy Design Director/News. He will be ultimately be responsible for the overall design and planning for The Plain Dealer’s news sections and will serve as the paper’s coordinator/designer for projects and special topic work. Emmet will represent the design team at daily meetings and will troubleshoot potential visual challenges throughout news sections.

Lisa Griffis moves from her role on the news desk to an expanded role as Deputy Design Director/Business. She will be responsible for the overall look and feel of the daily and weekend business sections. Lisa will manage graphics and illustrations for the business sections and work closely with editors and reporters to create dynamic visual solutions for topics that at times can be complex and dry. 

Bill Lammers and Chuck Caton will continue their roles as Deputy News Editors. They are responsible for evening operations and news editors at The Plain Dealer, including scheduling, deadline management and operations issues. Both will work closely with me to ensure efficiency and organization in all aspects of nighttime production. Both are lead designers at night and will continue to run the daily afternoon meetings.

Ken Marshall moves from Graphics Editor to Assistant Graphics Editor/Print, becoming the primary graphic artist for daily and project work that appears in The Plain Dealer. This new role puts Ken into a position that plays to his real strengths: An extremely talented graphic artist with a good understanding of what makes a news graphic great.

William Neff's current role as Assistant Graphics Editor morphs into Assistant Graphics Editor/Online. He will be the primary graphic artist for daily and project multimedia work that appears on cleveland.com. One only has to see what he's already accomplished with the Johanna online graphics to know that Bill is the perfect person to lead this charge.

Neff will work closely with Dale Omori, who David and Director of Photography Bill Gugliotta recently promoted to the new position of Deputy Director of Photography/Multimedia. In his new position, Dale will oversee the photography department’s visual online content, including video, audio slide shows and multimedia projects.  He will work closely with other departments to coordinate multimedia efforts and be heavily involved in training and technology.

Thanks,
Michael and David