Deb Withey — SND Lifetime Achievement Award

2012 Society for News Design

Lifetime
Achievement
Award

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

2012 Society for News Design
Lifetime Achievement Award

Deb
Withey


“Deborah, like her mother,
is a talented and caring art teacher.
Her work in newspapers or classrooms
shows how inspiring she can be.”
~ Juan Antonio Giner,
founder and President INNOVATION
and Deb’s husband


“Almost everyone at SND was from huge
papers and the conference wasn’t very
friendly to small papers. Everyone talked
about managing their huge staﬀs and
there were no sessions on things like a
one-person art department. We vowed
to get involved in SND and open the
group to smaller papers.”
~ Bill Ostendorf,
president and founder,
Creative Circle Media Solutions


“I might have been the ﬁrst person Deb Withey hired in
Detroit 25 years ago this week. Folks in San Diego
wanted to know how I could possibly leave the
greatest weather on earth to head to Detroit. But I
knew early on after meeting Deb that I wanted to work
with her. A few years later, she painted this cool mural
on the wall in our daughter's room as a baby gift. I’ll
never forget watching the transformation of these
unique musical characters over the span of a couple of
weeks. It was pure magic ... much like Deb herself.”
~ A.J. Hartley,
AME/Tech, Detroit Free Press


“When Deb was the design coordinator for all the Knight Ridder papers, she
made perhaps her most-lasting contribution by helping smaller communities
ﬁnd their visual voice — beyond the Big Eight, as KR people might like to say.

She did that in Duluth.
And Aberdeen. And Boulder and Belleville.
And State College. And San Luis Obispo.

The editors loved her. The designers had a new best friend.
And you know what? So did the readers.
Deb has some swell thank you notes from folks in those towns.
They're the kind few of us in newspapers are used to getting.
Why? Because she got to know each community before drawing one sketch
or conceptualizing a single prototype. That”s how design should work.”

~ Matt Mansﬁeld, Medill — Northwestern University
formerly of the Mercury News (one of KR’s Big Eight)


“The thing I love about Deb is she never grew up. By that I
don’t mean she is immature or anything like that at all.
What I mean is Deb never lost her childlike curiosity and
enthusiasm for beauty, art and experimentation.

I think Deb wakes up every day and sees a whole new
world, unlike yesterday and different from tomorrow.
Everything, from the color of grass to the shape of a rock
inspires her to do something special.

She is a force of nature, a spinning top of ideas and
creativity. Deb makes everything she touches feel
alive.

Who wouldn’t want to be around that?”

~ Denis Finley, editor Virginian-Pilot


“The morning after The Pilot’s redesign debuted,
operating on maybe three hours of sleep, Deb, Jim
Haag and I joined in a teary-eyed, laughing group hug at
the company launch party. Then, the marketing
department served cake and started an ‘Electric Slide’
dance-oﬀ. It was horribly wonderful and the perfect,
delirious end to months of hard work.”
~ Lori Kelley, of the Washington Post, formerly of the Pilot


“When I visited her at her Norfolk home,
that's when I saw clearly the broader
scope of her creative life. She lived her
art. She surrounded herself with it.
Art-making was part of her everyday
existence. I was doubly inspired.”
~ Julie Elman, Ohio University,
formerly of the Virginian-Pilot


“After many years improving visual journalism
around the world now she has discovered how
rewarding it can be to share her talent with old
and young people here in Wales, her homeland.
She is a passionate person, loving
journalism, loving art, but more than
anything else, loving people."
~ Juan Antonio Giner


Deb Withey — SND Lifetime Achievement Award

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Deb Withey — SND Lifetime Achievement Award