Biography

Photo of Charlie Zimkus

I have been a staff artist for The Columbus Dispatch since 2001. For the past two years, I have turned my attention from print to Web design, which I have found to be challenging and exhilarating.

My favorite Web project is a site dedicated to the history of Lebanon, Ohio, which has combined my love of design with my interest in the story of my hometown. HistoricLebanonOhio.com now has more than 1,000 fans on Facebook, where my father (local historian John) and I post weekly examples of Lebanon’s rich history.

I learned Web design and video and audio production while attending graduate school at Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication, where I was a 2008 Knight Fellow. While in Athens, I also taught three infographics classes and helped lead this year’s installment of the award-winning Soul of Athens multimedia project. This spring, I will teach my second page-design class at Capital University in Columbus.

Many of my more-creative print designs for The Dispatch were for The Flip Side, a now-defunct weekly page for celebrity gossip, strange news items and staff-generated parodies. My favorite pages include the Swimsuit Issue (where we "treated objects like women" by dressing a guitar and a medicine cabinet in bikinis) and Olympic Symbol equations (where we combined athletic events to create new "sports").

Before working for The Dispatch, I attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where I studied painting and journalism. Each summer while in college I interned in the Dayton Daily News art department.

I have self-published two books: Drawing A Crowd, a collection of editorial cartoons from my years at Miami, and Historical Footnotes of Lebanon, Ohio, about my hometown of Lebanon, Ohio and written by my father.

Currently I live in Columbus with my lovely wife Svetlana, who works as a nurse practitioner at nearby Arbors at London.

Experience

The Columbus Dispatch, staff artist, 2001-present

  • Design and code Web pages, including a new site for high-school football and an in-progress redesign of The Dispatch’s Blue Jackets coverage
  • Design section fronts for daily features pages and special-section covers
  • Generate humorous and serious illustrations for features and news pages using traditional and digital media
  • Create infographics, locator maps, standing logos and graphic pages, including a series of ten pages to mark Ohio’’s bicentennial

Dayton Daily News, summer intern, 1996-2000

  • Designed features pages, drew illustrations, created infographics and contributed editorial cartoons

The Western Star, editorial cartoonist, 1994-1999

  • Drew weekly editorial cartoons for Warren County Ohio's weekly newspaper

Education

Ohio University in Athens, Ohio

  • Master’s of Arts degree in photography/multimedia, 4.0 GPA, 2009

Soul of Athens, senior producer, designer

  • As one of seven senior producers, led efforts of more than 75 graduate and undergraduate students in the production of a year-long multimedia project that tells the story of Athens, Ohio.
  • Organized and led designers and Web developers through the design process of research, brainstorming, design comps and execution.
  • Served as senior producer for several interactive infographics and videos, including:
    • An interactive history of the Ridges
    • An interactive map of Court Street
    • An interactive map of the Hockhocking River Bikepath
    • The story of pregnant teen Caeshel Sue Rae Allen
    • A visual exploration of Athens’ open-mic nights
    • The journey of four Jewish women becoming bat mizvah
  • Created an audio slideshow profiling an Athens bellydancer and a video about ACEnet, an organization that helps Appalachian small businesses thrive, with some selling their products worldwide.

Miami University in Oxford, Ohio

  • Bachelor’s degrees in both English-journalism and art, 3.94 GPA, 2000

The Miami Student, art director, editorial cartoonist, 1996-2000

  • Redesigned Miami University’s student newspaper, created infographics and illustrations, designed pages, trained page designers, and drew twice-weekly cartoons

Computer skills

  • Highly skilled with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash and Dreamweaver; HTML and CSS
  • Skilled with ActionScript 3, Final Cut Pro, Motion and Pro Tools; and the content management systems Drupal and Exponent

Awards

  • 2008 Knight Fellowship from Ohio University's School of Visual Communication
  • 2009 Award of Excellence for Feature Page Design from Society for News Design
  • 2008 Award of Excellence for Infographics from SND
  • 2008 Award of Excellence for Special Section Cover from SND
  • 2007 Award of Excellence for Feature Page Design from SND
  • 2008 first-place award for page design from Associated Press of Ohio
  • 2007 first-place award for illustration from AP Ohio
  • 2006 second-place award for illustration from AP Ohio
  • 2006 second-place award for infographics from Cleveland Press Club