Michael
Robb's
story
Michael Robb has been in the forefront
of desktop publishing in Michigan since the 1980s. At the
beginning, he saw the tremendous professional potential
of the personal computer.
Realizing how much work he could get done on his home
computer, he started taking it to work — before there
were laptops. It didn't take long before management also
saw the increased productivity and other benefits. This
was in the days of PhotoShop 1.0.
The Internet was still geek-speak, page design was still
done by doodling on grid sheets, and digital images were
years away from reality.
But using brand-new computer tools, he redesigned two
mid-Michigan newspapers, making desktop publishing and
computer-assisted design an integral part at the publications
where he worked. During his tenure at various newspapers,
digital images became the norm, and artists went from working
with overlays, grid sheets and hot wax to drawing and designing
directly on the computer.
He has also expanded into Web
publishing and design, and was a Webmaster at one of
the largest shareware sites on the Web. From there he branched
into his own business as an information architect where
he maximized his philosophy that the medium doesn't matter — that
information, in whatever form, should be ruled by clear
content, and clean, concise design. (He also provides hosting
and other services for customers at his personal design
and public relations firm.)
Technology is not his first love, however. At age 11,
on a trip to his homeland, Germany, three BMW R90S motorcycles
blitzed past traffic between lanes along the Rhine River.
That planted a desire that led over many saddles, and has
come to fruition today in the form of a BMW R1150GS.
His second love, photography, led him into photojournalism
and newspapers. The drive of deadline and the opportunity
to daily create something new and fresh enticed him — almost
as much as the sight and sound of a high-speed fly-by by
a BMW.
Starting as a staff photographer in Saginaw, he quickly
shifted to assistant photo editor where he learned how
typography, graphics, photography and design can be melded
to tell a story much more effectively.
That led to a stint as a photo/graphics editor, where
he
redesigned and updated an entire newspaper by integrating
stories, photos and graphics via Macintosh computers.
Today he runs Ohno
Design. A design firm that specializes
in structuring client information for publication on the
web, print and beyond.
Former, he was presentation editor at The Flint Journal,
which connected all of his career threads into multiple
tasks and responsibilities. He has literally taken a newspaper
that produced no fully paginated pages to one that paginates
150 pages per week.
He has also reorganized, rethought
and retooled the content, format and work flow of The
Journal, from the reporter's keyboards on up, to create
a well-planned and cohesive newspaper.
But even that's not quite all.
Put a camera in the tankbag, the R1150GS under his leathers,
an open road in front and his wife behind, and everything
really comes together, seamlessly, effortlessly and professionally.
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