High school sports and local prep athletes were a major focus in both Naples and Fort Myers papers. Palmetto Ridge's Colby Singletary was one of Naples' more notable sports figures because he was a decorated two-sport athlete. Singletary was a two-time state champion wrestler and star linebacker who had fielded Division I offers from numerous schools. He died in a single-car crash at 18 years old in 2019. The Naples Daily News conveyed his significance (an estimated 2500 people attended his Celebration of Life Ceremony) and expressed a desire to play up the feature piece. I tried to do that for them. After the paper went to print, Singletary's father emailed a request to use my illustration on his headstone on which they planned to attach the picture on bronze plate. This served as a reminder of how impactful daily designs can be for the families and communities.

Ranking the greatest 75 NBA players of all time, the Top 25: Counting down to No. 1

The NBA celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2021, and USA Today joined numerous other sports news outlets in compiling a list of players they considered to be all-time greats. To properly highlight the selected players and showcase their accomplishments, the list was broken into a three-part series where 25 of them were discussed per day. For print, I created three illustrations that ran as USA Today's centerpiece and also served as the USA Today Network's nationally shared centerpiece. The overall print layout in USA Today was done by the publication's primary designer. In addition to the print centerpieces, I created three different collages (all of a similar style) to assist my team's leadership in elevating the list's online presentation. 

NFL Homegrown Legends | Shared display

Thanksgiving and football is a pairing that rival the holiday's star side combination of mashed potatoes and gravy. During the holiday season, the workload - as one might expect - increases dramatically. To illustrate, the design studio produces two consecutive editions of each paper in one day. To reduce the stresses of a double shift, I was asked to design the two graphics (above) in what would serve as the national centerpieces for Thanksgiving sports editions and the following day. A surprising amount of prominent NFL players were from cities where the USA Today Network had a presence, and the features were widely used during a period where little live (if any) live sports events would make print. New York Giants legend Lawrence Taylor in a Washington uniform still doesn't look right to me ...

Super Bowl previews | Shared display

In terms of use, the annual Super Bowl preview shared centerpiece is often the most widely sourced design of the year. Shocking stuff, right? The first two designs of this row are the two-story displays for Super Bowl LIV and Super Bowl LV respectively. In each year, the use across the USA Today Network exceeded 100 papers and drew use from larger sites that typically had their own event-focused stories that served as their main display during this time. 

COVID-19 halts all sports | Shared display

I'm not sure there has ever been an event more significant in sports in my 29 years on earth than COVID-19. It stopped everything. This illustration was done live as details and cancellations of national tournaments/professional leagues/seasons kept flowing in. In addition to being the nationally shared centerpiece with a use similar to that of the Super Bowl previews, my graphic was also picked up by USA Today, Gannett's largest publication.

Who belongs on the state's Mount Rushmore of sports?

With only four slots on the mountaintop, the debate of which athletes are most deserving of a head on Mount Rushmore has the capacity to split the most unified fanbases and fill hours of sports debate shows during the inevitable sports lull that hits in the early summer months. The Florida properties (i.e., Tallahassee Democrat, Fort Myers News-Press, Naples Daily News, etc.) joined the debate and opened voting up to their readers to engage them in the difficult decision-making process. Why was it difficult? Consider the cast of characters to choose from for Florida's monument: Don Shula, Deion Sanders, Bobby Bowden, Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Tebow, Emmitt Smith, and more undeniably legendary figures. The illustration to the left introduced the project and the one to the right was created live after voting had closed. After the Florida project concluded, I used my template for other sites (Louisville Courier, Nashville Tennessean, Knoxville News Sentinel and more) that wished to do Mount Rushmores of their own.

SEC position previews

To say that SEC schools have avid fanbases for their respective football programs would be an understatement. Football never really ends in the south. Prior to the 2022-23 season, the USA Today Network's southern sites ranked the top players in the conference at each position, coaches and, ultimately, predicted the order in which teams would finish. In the slideshow to the left, you'll find what I designed to run as the centerpiece in the majority of the southern publications. Being this was a 13-story collection, I opted to use a consistent chevron frame to signal to readers that the stories were connected from day to day. This was the second time I was tapped to design this particular series by my team leaders.

Ole Miss becomes College World Series champion

The 2022 season finished on an epic high note for Ole Miss baseball. As the last squad to make the 64-team tournament, the Rebels beat No. 4 Oklahoma to claim the program's first-ever national baseball title. To celebrate the achievement, I designed a six-page special section for The Clarion Ledger that ran in addition to its daily sports section. 

Commemorating Mississippi State coach Mike Leach

Mike Leach can be characterized as an oddball but also an innovator. More importantly, he was a respected football coach for decades. In December of 2022, Leach died of heart complications at the age of 61. This four-page commemorative section was an addition to The Clarion Ledger's daily sports section as well.

Contact me

Thanks for coming to my site. If you'd like to get in contact with me regarding my work, experience or have questions, please email benlandis10@gmail.com. I'll do my best to get back to you with an answer to any of your questions.

FacebookLinkedInEmail