Jim Sutton

On June 1st of 1994 I gave a 30 day notice at my job. I was planning to start a newspaper that would cover three small towns plus neighboring communities and also included two school districts.

All I had, really, was a desire. I had no money in the bank, no experience, no training. I knew virtually nothing about how newspapers were run. We had a couple of decent cameras, but nothing special. I had a tiny computer system. (Anyone remember the 386SX?) I had a small Okidata laser printer that could emulate 600 dpi. I had CorelDraw and Aldus PageMaker (before Adobe bought it).

The day I walked out of my house, in the first week of July, to seel my first ads, I was scared. I had worked up some very basic pricing, but had never sold space for any kind of publication. I simply visited with area businesses and and they liked what I was selling. In another week or so we had our first issue of a tabloid-sized newspaper to deliver.

Everyone liked the paper. That made the next issue easier, since we had good word-of-mouth advertising to go with my efforts. And we started reporting local events, accomplishments, and local high school sports. We always inlcluded lots of pictures of local kids.

It became more and more fun to produce the newspaper. The only problem was that I and my wife did just about everything. That was ok, except that it stunted our ability to grow very much. Plus, our area (Western Montana) also made it costly to expand very much. After about a year and a half, we closed the paper down, allowing a nearby paper to take our area.

That was some years ago. And I am wanting to do the whole thing again, with a few minor changes. I have posted what we learned from our experiences on a website (www.newspaper-info.com) for anyone wanting to start a paper.

It’s important to be sure you have enough business to support the paper with ads. It’s important to have the support of local people. It’s important to hold quality very high in all areas of your endeavor. And it’s important to have lots of fun doing what you do everyday. We greatly enjoyed our work, and everyone appreciated our efforts. That made it great fun.

I think it is worth the effort to produce a local paper, to give the community a voice (their own voice in print), and to help local businesses get the word out about their products and services.

On June 1st of 1994 I gave a 30 day notice at my job. I was planning to start a newspaper that would cover three small towns plus neighboring communities and also included two school districts.

All I had, really, was a desire. I had no money in the bank, no experience, no training. I knew virtually nothing about how newspapers were run. We had a couple of decent cameras, but nothing special. I had a tiny computer system. (Anyone remember the 386SX?) I had a small Okidata laser printer that could emulate 600 dpi. I had CorelDraw and Aldus PageMaker (before Adobe bought it).

The day I walked out of my house, in the first week of July, to seel my first ads, I was scared. I had worked up some very basic pricing, but had never sold space for any kind of publication. I simply visited with area businesses and and they liked what I was selling. In another week or so we had our first issue of a tabloid-sized newspaper to deliver.

Everyone liked the paper. That made the next issue easier, since we had good word-of-mouth advertising to go with my efforts. And we started reporting local events, accomplishments, and local high school sports. We always inlcluded lots of pictures of local kids.

It became more and more fun to produce the newspaper. The only problem was that I and my wife did just about everything. That was ok, except that it stunted our ability to grow very much. Plus, our area (Western Montana) also made it costly to expand very much. After about a year and a half, we closed the paper down, allowing a nearby paper to take our area.

That was some years ago. And I am wanting to do the whole thing again, with a few minor changes. I have posted what we learned from our experiences on a website (www.newspaper-info.com) for anyone wanting to start a paper.

It’s important to be sure you have enough business to support the paper with ads. It’s important to have the support of local people. It’s important to hold quality very high in all areas of your endeavor. And it’s important to have lots of fun doing what you do everyday. We greatly enjoyed our work, and everyone appreciated our efforts. That made it great fun.

I think it is worth the effort to produce a local paper, to give the community a voice (their own voice in print), and to help local businesses get the word out about their products and services.

Yes, you can do it. I believe anyone who really wants to can master vector imaging. I know, ‘cause I been there and done that.

My first experience with vector art was with CorelDraw, back in the days when Adobe products (such as Illustrator) were only available for the Mac. I never had much time to devote to learning at any one sitting, so my progress was slow. Seemed as though I always used the method in a moment of necessity, when time was short and I had to have something.

Practice may not make perfect, but it des make a huge difference. Today, I use both CorelDraw and Illustrator, just as I use both Corel PhotoPaint and Adobe PhotoShop for bitmap images. I find that both have their great advantages. Just about anything can be done with either.

You can see a few of my drawings at www.jimsgraphix.com and www.gospelgifs.com . But most of the time I’m producing art for ads, catalogs, and websites.

The day-to-day routine of cranking out illustrations and bitmap images helps a lot. So maybe one of the best things you can do to really learn vector imaging is to hire yourself out to do simple stuff for newsletters, webpages, and other stuff for local businesses (print shops always need someone willing to crank out art). Don’t promise great things, just offer to help out. You will learn as you meet the challenges that come your way.

Pazzo