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	Judges' Comments
	"The work meets the criteria for explanatory journalism — clear organization, solid research and skillful renderings, all with the reader in mind."

Dayton’s new park along the Miami River was so conceptual that John Hancock unveiled it in Freehand without using a single color or black-and-white photo.

"We had to work from a combination of photos of a not-yet-completed area, plus blueprints and other maps and information," the Dayton Daily News graphic artist recalled.

Dayton’s special place in the modern world is highlighted in the park’s "inventor stations." They have models of famous U.S. patents born there including the Wright Brothers’ airplane.

Cox’s graphic artists such as Hancock are working in an area of improved technology. For example, the new presses that Cox has afforded make possible color printing inside sections. At first it required extra coordination between the artist, desk and production staff. Now, Hancock said, it’s grown to be fairly commonplace.

"We use it (interior color) whenever we can," he said. "What we tend to do is make both black and white and color versions of graphics, so that they can choose at the last minute which to use."

Hancock is old enough to recall the newspaper industry’s quaint cold-type era, when photo-type had to be cut apart with art knives and pasted on boards using melted wax.

"We made maps with border tape," Hancock recalled. "It always ended up in your underwear."

The St. Louis native graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in art and design. Before joining the Dayton Daily News in 1992, he was a graphics editor at the Philadelphia Daily News, Associated Press, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Daily News, Las Vegas Review-Journal and Arizona Daily Star.

What are his interests away from the workplace?

"Mainly I’m a family guy," he said. "I’m involved in my church. I do try to write. I’m trying to be a published science fiction writer. I’ve gotten a lot of rejection slips."