John Hancock

Experience

The Boston Globe

Senior Newsroom Developer, August 2020 - Present

— Member of the newsroom development team, focused on building custom digital presentations for the newsroom's most impactful and in-depth reporting.
— Perform analysis and create data visualizations to aid in reporting of data-driven stories.

The Dallas Morning News

Editor, Data and Interactives, April 2017 - July 2020

— Lead a team of computational journalists, interactive editors and graphic artists.
— Oversee the conception, design and development of newsroom applications, interactive presentations and data visualizations.
— Work closely with reporters and editors to ensure digital products and alternative storytelling presentations complement in-depth written and visual reporting in a user-friendly manner.

Interactive Storytelling Editor, July 2014 - April 2017

— Designed and developed interactive storytelling and data visualization presentations using responsive web design techniques with an emphasis on usability and optimization, including a Pulitzer-finalist breaking news presentation for the Dallas Police shooting.
— Developed new and innovative ways to present digital content. Trained others in the newsroom to complete similar projects.

Designer, New Digital Products, April 2012 - July 2017

— Contributed to front-end development and user interface design for mobile applications.
— Worked with third parties on design direction, asset creation and collection for large-scale digital products, including the dallasnews.com website.

Lead Designer, SportsDay, Sept. 2003 - April 2012

— Designed print section fronts, special sections, illustrations, graphic packages, logos and digital interactives.
— Spearheaded the development of design style guidelines for the daily sports section and special sections.

Skills

Proficient in creating web presentations and data visualizations using front end development frameworks React and Gatsby, and languages such as HTML, CSS, SCSS and Javascript. Experience with javascript libraries such D3, Handlebars and Mapbox GL. Experience with Gulp build processes and Git version control. Familiar with Django, Node.js, and AWS products such as S3 and Cloudfront. Proficient using Python to gather, clean and parse data. Experience with QGIS.

Awards

— 20+ Society of News Design Awards of Excellence, including Individual Digital Portfolio, Product Design, Digital Features Coverage and Breaking/Daily Digital News.
— 4 Dallas Morning News Journalist of the Year Awards for Visual Journalist and Digital Storyteller

Education

NICAR, 2016 - 2018, 2020

Attended yearly National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting conferences for instruction on the latest technology and techniques for digital journalism.

Nielsen Norman Group, 2013

UX Training, Consulting and Research Usability Week

University of Texas at Austin, 2000

Bachelor of Arts, Journalism

I get a lot of jokes about my name, whether it’s asking me to put my John Hancock on a piece of paper or asking if I’m related to that John Hancock. How much is a lot? It’s enough to where I’ve grown to expect it, and enjoy it. My wife says she thinks a lifetime of being ribbed about my name has led to my good nature.

My day job is working as the editor of the interactives and data team for The Dallas Morning News, where we build immersive and unique story presentations, data visualizations and news applications. I’m passionate about finding new ways to tell stories and enhance our audience’s interaction with our content. The best thing about my job is getting to not only conceive those new and creative digital experiences, but also getting to build them. My other roles at the company include designing mobile apps and digital products. I started at The News in 2003 as a designer for the sports department.

Away from the keyboard, I’m a father to Hayes, a husband to Jamie and a human to our pug, Pagoda. I’m a Texan, through and through, and a Longhorn (Hook’em). And if you’re wondering, I’m not related to that John Hancock — as far as I know.