Author Archives: George Petras

Vietnam War Through Time

Posted on October 18, 2017 by George Petras

This was a center-spread page I designed for a USA Today tabloid published in tandem with the release of “The Vietnam War,” the PBS documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Florentine Films, Burns’ production company, supplied the text and … Continue reading →

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Charles Lindbergh’s Epic Flight

Posted on October 18, 2017 by George Petras

This piece on Charles Lindbergh’s New York-to-Paris flight in 1927 is one of my favorite projects. I researched and wrote this, collected most of the artwork, and designed both the print page and the online presentation. In history-related articles like … Continue reading →

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Scary But True

Posted on October 17, 2017 by George Petras

This simple graphic compares the amount of horsepower offered by the new Dodge Challenger SRT Demon and its predecessors, the iconic muscle cars of American automotive legends. I did this as a Social card, a 2,000-pixel-square graphic that’s posted on … Continue reading →

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The War to End All Wars

Posted on October 17, 2017 by George Petras

The history of World War I — how it started and how the U.S. was drawn into it — was splashed across this double-page inside a USA Today special publication. I did all the research, found the artwork, wrote and … Continue reading →

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We’re Going to Mars

Posted on January 12, 2017 by George Petras

This was a fun graphic for a USA Today tabloid publication. I researched the history of U.S. exploration of the red planet and talked to a few NASA engineers about the Orion spacecraft, the next American vehicle to travel into … Continue reading →

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Prelude to Pearl Harbor

Posted on January 12, 2017 by George Petras

I researched and wrote a detailed timeline of the events leading to the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor for USA Today online and for a special insert in Gannett papers across the country. As I wrote in … Continue reading →

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The Cultural Revolution

Posted on May 16, 2016 by George Petras

I put together a full-page graphic for USA Today looking back at the Cultural Revolution in China. Numbers on atrocities committed are disputed; I ended up expanding my usual research to include two books written by historians to provide a … Continue reading →

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Backlash against intolerance

Posted on May 8, 2016 by George Petras

I assembled a full-page graphic for USA Today showing the backlash against North Carolina and Mississippi laws discriminating against people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. It was helpful to include reactions of corporations, sports teams and entertainment figures. My … Continue reading →

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The toll of Syria’s five-year war

Posted on May 8, 2016 by George Petras

I researched and designed a full-page graphic for USA Today on the human toll of Syria’s five-year war. I used common references — the number of refugees equaling the population of South Carolina, for instance — to show the magnitude … Continue reading →

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Interstellar Insight

Posted on April 12, 2015 by George Petras

I reworked a NASA graphic depicting the Hubble Space Telescope for a USA Today/National Geographic Channel tab on the 25th anniversary of the telescope’s deployment. The original version has great artwork but the text is too jargon-heavy to the average … Continue reading →

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