In a reminder of the cold reality of large-scale cuts sweeping through the print world, the San Jose Mercury News designer who famously documented layoffs at his paper through a series of bleak photos was axed in the paper’s most recent round of cuts.
Martin Gee, whose series of photos at flickr.com showing the abandoned nature of “the Merc” newsroom was laid off the day before his birthday and on the heels of the death of his father, Visualeditors.com reports.
Gee confirmed his layoff in a posting on his flickr page: “i got laid off yesterday while i was on vacation. i had no warning since i wasn’t there for the announcement the day before.”
He capped off his photo essay with an image of his hand (at least one would guess it’s his) flipping the Merc’s sign the bird.
During an interview with PDN in April, Gee had prophetically speculated that his number would be up during the next set of layoffs. Check out the interview during an audio slideshow of his series, which he titled “reduction in force,” here: http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003791338
Check out the Visual Editors report here: http://www.visualeditors.com/apple/2008/06/the-merc-lays-off-martin-gee/
Check out Gee’s entire “reduction in force” series here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hellvetica/sets/72157604470612285/
