The New York Times has promoted its longtime design director, Tom Bodkin, to deputy managing editor, the latest change to the masthead since Jill Abramson took over as executive editor in September.
Bodkin, who has been the paper’s design director since 1987, previously held the position of assistant managing editor. He will continue to oversee a team of 130 art directors, Web designers, graphic artists and others responsible for crafting the look and feel of the paper and its Web site. The promotion is effective Jan. 1.
“Tom Bodkin plays an essential role as our art and design guru and is one of my most valued and trusted masthead advisers,” Abramson said in an e-mail to the staff. “He is central to all of our future efforts in digital and print and to the integration of our work.”
A native of New York City who attended Brown University, Bodkin began his career as a designer for the CBS Broadcast Group and served as an art director at Us Magazine. He joined The Times in 1980 as an art director of the Home section. In 1994, he was named an associate managing editor and, in 2000, became assistant managing editor.
Bodkin was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team that produced The Times’s 1986 coverage of the Strategic Defense Initiative or “Star Wars” program. His stark “U.S. Attacked” front page and other layouts after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks earned him a special award “for design in the service of society” from the American Institute of Graphic Arts.
“As we explore exciting, new forms of storytelling on advanced digital platforms, I am particularly pleased by this promotion’s reaffirmation of The New York Times’s commitment to excellence in design and user experience,” Bodkin wrote in an e-mail.
-- Amy Chozick, The New York Times