DC Agenda

by Aram Vartian

The total implosion of the Washington Blade, and the resulting creative force from the surviving staff that created the DC Agenda, were some of the most amazing weeks of my life. There were many stories about the birth of the DC Agenda, but none have talked about the design work that went into the company.  Here is my view.

Monday: Nov. 16, 2009

It was a nice morning; clear, sunny and cold. One last bit of fall before the coming Snowpocalypse 1.0. I was walking on the South side of NY Avenue, on my way to our offices at the Press Club building at 14th and G. It was a few minutes after 10 when my cell rang.  Kevin Smith, the online marketing coordinator for Window Media, was calling.

I answered quickly, as I was late, and Kevin was my connection between the local D.C. office and Window Media in Atlanta.

“I’ll be there in five minutes.” I announced, assuming my tardiness was the reason for his call. I braced for a lecture.

“Hey,” was all he said in response. One word, and his voice still managed to crack.

“Hey,” I echoed.

“We’re done.”

I knew immediately what he meant. The parent company of the Washington Blade, Window Media, had been in trouble for some time. Even before the guys at Queerty gleefully rushed to place our tombstone, the writing on the wall was pretty clear: Window Media owed the Small Business Association 39 million dollars and had no ability to replay the loan.

The staff wasn’t too worried about it, though. There had been a firm plan put in place over the last month to buy the Washington Blade after Window Media filled for bankruptcy. A substantial bid had been placed on behalf of an “employee-owned venture” and Lynne Brown, the Washington Blade’s publisher, was reasonably sure it would be enough.  It wasn’t, but it in the end that did not matter. The Washington Blade was dead.

Tuesday: Nov. 17, 2009

Low, gray clouds hung over Washington.  It was fitting; the LGBT community was in mourning.  Facebook, Twitter, texts and emails, all wondering the same thing: was I OK, and what were we doing to save the Blade? I had many reassurances to offer, but no answers.

The staff and a few others including Glen Ackerman, a lawyer and former Washington Blade advertiser who was donating his time to our cause, met in the Corner Bakery in the lobby of the Press Club building.  I liked the location; it felt defiant.  And it matched the tone of the two hour meeting to come.

Lynne and Kevin Naff, the former editor of the Washington Blade, told us the 40-year run of the Blade was truly over.  The name, website and archives were locked in bankruptcy along with Window Media, the Southern Voice, The South Florida Blade, and a pair of bar magazines in Atlanta and Fort Lauderdale. If we wanted to continue, we needed to pick a new name and to get some sort of print edition on the street by Friday, which meant we had to be ready to go to print Thursday night.

We went through a few names pretty quickly.  Our Classified’s Manager Phil Rockstrough had an idea for a play on the Washington Blade, but it didn’t get any traction.  Kevin suggested “the Agenda” which got a few laughs and some quick words against it, and was pushed to the side. I had been playing around with the idea that the .gay domains would be available at some point in the next year, and had a design, logo and print layout ready for newsdotgay (newsdotgay.com).  It proved cumbersome and difficult for half the people gathered to understand, much less say correctly, and there was concern the name would alienate some of the community. It was rightly abandoned.

My mind drifted to a few months prior when Lynne Brown brought me into her office and discussed the possible need for a new name.  As soon as she said the words I started flipping through mental notes of ideas and designs, and it took me a second to realize she was still talking to me, and was suggesting names of her own.

“How about New Columbia Blade?” she asked.

I could feel my face fall, and I am sure she read my reaction plainly, but Lynne seemed to appreciate my honestly so I added “Lynne, that is a terrible name.” She looked shocked for about two seconds before she laughed. So when I heard her bring up that same name again at the Corner Bakery, I knew we weren’t getting anywhere.

The room was also aware, and grew quiet.

“I want to revisit the Agenda,” I offered.  Kevin was quick to chime in, describing how he believed by naming ourselves after the idea of a Gay Agenda concocted by opponents to LGBT rights we would be echoing those in the community who embraced other labels, making them their own. A quick glance around the room found Josh Lynsen (News Editor), Rob Boeger (Art Director), Chris Johnson (Reporter) and Michael Key (Photographer) all nodding eagerly. Lynne caught it as well and suggested “DC Agenda,” and it stuck.

Thursday: Nov. 19, 2009

The website build-out took just under nine hours. With the assistance of programming English guru Paul Heald we chose a Wordpress Template and skinned it with a simplified web version of my newsdotgay web layout. A few widgets and a few tweaks later, and we were ready to launch.

It was a rush job but it was solid design, and it was functional. Over the next few weeks, I made several graphic and code additions to the website, including the ability to share .pdfs of our print edition, photo gallery layouts, social media networking (including the logo for our Facebook page and the layout, colors and icon for DCATV’s YouTube home).

Wednesday: Nov. 25, 2009

Josh, Chris, Michael and myself gathered in Rob’s apartment as we finished check-off on our second black-and-white print edition of the DC Agenda.  As we wrapped up, the discussion turned to the design of the first newsprint issue, and that lead to a debate about color.

Rob, who had been with the Washington Blade longer then the rest of us put together, was inclined to go with a spin on the Washington Blade blue. Kevin had mentioned earlier that he wanted us to be red, a tone I had set with the website design a week earlier.  I hadn’t so much as picked red as the logo and name demanded they be red.  Nothing else looked right, and I voiced support for it, as did Michael and Josh.

“No, we are not doing this like we did at Window Media.” Rob said. “This is a big decision; we need input from everyone.”

Michael smiled, stood and replied. “Quite right, Rob.  All in favor of red?”

We all raised our hands, Chris included.  Rob’s eyes narrowed slightly, then he shrugged and went back to work.

Monday: Nov. 30, 2009

Rob came over to my apartment this time, and over the course of the next eight hours, we nailed down the design for the first full-color print issue.  I had modified my original newsdotgay design to reflect both our print size and the new name and colors.  Rob came back with a series of points about the difficulty of my layout (I mainly work on Photoshop layouts; I have no idea what it takes to translate one of my designs to  workable Quark template) and we started together on a hybrid of ideas.

We started with the logo.  We well all in agreement with the color red now, but the thin, white outline I used for the ‘dc’ in the web logo didn’t translate as well in print, so Rob filled them in.  I wanted the logo to sit dead in a field of crimson, but Rob was insistant on black, and more insistant we blow up the logo so that ‘g’ in agenda skated against the lower field of red.

“Good design requires tension.” He said, then showed me what he meant.  He was right again. And even though we eventually did away with it when I suggested we should have features boxes as part of the top section, I mimicked the look on the website shortly after.

But Rob was on a roll.  He put dark transparencies over the photography and floated white text for the credit and caption, mimicking a design element that was to be incorporated in my redesign for what was meant to be a temporary dcagenda.com. He made space for features boxes and balanced text and imagery in a flurry of keystrokes and mouse clicks.  Rob is German, and therefore efficient; he had keyboard shortcuts for every Quark command, and flew through the cover layout. When he put a cutout of Adam Lambert in the top left corner, his left elbow just jutting behind the logo, I knew we had a really great design.

December

There was still much to do.  I created the Facebok and YouTube pages for the DC Agenda, added our colors and logos where I could, all while I was uploading every issue, formatting the print version, processing photography and video for the video department of the DC Agenda (including editing a new video into), and pitching in where I could to design print advertisements and promotional material, including a draft of our business cards.

And I was designing a hard launch of the dcagenda.com website.  While our numbers were rapidly rising, we had quickly outgrown our simply blog-style layout and needed a more robust Wordpress layout with a more feature-rich front page.  After a lot of research into ready-made themes that could be customized to fit our needs, I ended up with two solid designs:

dcagenda.com, design 1

[ modified News Wordpress template  ]

After an initial flirtation with the Yamidoo Magazine theme, I found this feature-rich, stunning theme by Quommunication. And while the layout was perfect for our needs, there was way too much white.  I corrected this by adding a modified web logo at the top along with our signature crimson to set off the text area below.

In the end, we decided against the starkness of the design in a desire to expose more of Micheal’s wonderful local news photography. There was also hesitation about the web logo, especially the three white stars I added as an homage to Washington D.C.’s flag.  I challenged those who hesitated to think of a single newspaper that did not have a separate logo for their online version, and I added the print logo at the bottom to reinforce the brand.

In the end, they nixed the stars, and I was happy to comply with the change, but I still think I was on the right path. I should add that Rob provided a critical eye on all my designs, and his input was invaluable during the draft stage.

dcagenda.com, design 2

After an exhaustive search of hundreds of themes, I came across this one. It had the right balance of text and photography, as well as a slider with a transparent black caption area that nicely mimicked the print version Rob had chosen for the paper.

The template had even more features, much better placement for advertising, but it would need an extensive redesign.  It was void of color and used a dynamic menu system I found cumbersome.  I tested out a few replacements, found one I loved, and presented a proposal to get the design built out and online using outside coding help.

Unfortunately, that is as far as we got. Christmas came and we all took a much needed break.  Upon our return where was a flurry of local and national stories that demanded our time, and decision about the final web design kept getting pushed back. Communication between myself and publisher Lynne Brown broke down as she juggled the hundreds of myriad tasks required to properly launch a new paper, set up payroll for staff, massage adverting clients and served as de facto public liaison between the DC Agenda and the local LGBT community.

I will miss the DC Agenda and the colleges I made during my six years at the Washington Blade and my three months at the DC Agenda, and many remain good friends. I was been given the opportunity to expand and hone my graphic and web design skills, as well as learn the field of video production and editing. It was where I truly became an adult.

So good luck to you, staff of the DC Agenda.  Here’s to another 40 years.