A collection of past Street Roots' issues designed and illustrated by the newsroom's art director, Etta O'Donnell-King. Credit: Illustration by Etta O'Donnell-King/Street Roots
This is my 100th issue of Street Roots.
Etta O'Donnell-King joined Street Roots in 2023 and contributes their original illustrations and design expertise to the newspaper each week.
For 100 issues, or nearly two years, I have edited photos, laid out pages and created illustrations for this powerhouse of a publication. And it is truly an honor to put visuals to such important, investigative local journalism.
When I started, I was working 16 hours per week, focusing on illustration and a bit of layout. As time went on, I started working more, eventually taking over all print layout. But there was another reason for my hours to increase: we were working on a change.
I was tasked with thinking about how to bring Street Roots’ visual identity into the present and future. In the design process, we incorporated feedback from readers, staff and vendors to build a paper that works for our community.
I was also thinking about how to best display the incomparable content of this paper. Journalism this good deserves good design, so how would I do that? I wanted to think about the expectations for newspaper design and how to break them in ways that would catch a reader’s eye. As I often say, I wasn’t hired because I was a newspaper designer, so I don’t hold to the standard conventions of newspaper design. With that, I went to work.
And in January of this year, we debuted a whole new Street Roots. A cover that gives more space for design. A second page that is more readable and quite literally centers vendors. New fonts, consistent styles and new, eye-catching layouts for features. Clear and easily identifiable spaces for vendor and non-news content, including a simplified vendor poetry page that includes weekly art. All of this in the name of modern, exciting and readable design.
I am so excited to provide you, our readers, with a paper every week full of essential journalism about our city laid out in a dynamic and clear way. I hope you love the visual changes we have made and the changes we have to come as we continue to evolve. We will keep growing and improving visually to match our innovative and singular journalism.
Street Roots is Portland’s newspaper. We are the only nonprofit weekly print newspaper in this city and we provide local journalism that digs deep to give you news you can’t get anywhere else. We aren’t driven by profit margins, advertisers or any outside forces. Our journalism is for you. And you can get it every week from a vendor in your community. So thanks for reading Street Roots. We couldn’t do it without you.
Here’s to the next 100 issues and beyond.
Etta O’Donnell-King
Editorial Art Director
Street Roots is an award-winning weekly publication focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
