Creative Department Manager at North East Media

Jacob Selwood

I look after the pages, the computers and the processes behind a group of regional newspapers across Victoria and New South Wales, and I build the tools that turn fiddly manual jobs into ones that run themselves.

Email me

Experience

Creative Department Manager

2023 to present

North East Media, part of Provincial Press Group, Wangaratta

  • Paginate and prepare regional newspapers in Adobe InDesign, from layout through pre-press to print and digital edition upload.
  • Produce the annual printed business and community directories for Mansfield, Alpine, Wangaratta, Parkes and Cowra, including cleaning listing data and restructuring the category system for the next edition.
  • Build weekly footy tipping leaderboard pages for eight AFL and NRL competitions across the group’s mastheads using InDesign Data Merge.
  • Provide day-to-day IT support across Microsoft 365, Exchange Online, Teams and printing, and administer the Microsoft 365 tenant for a client business.
  • Work with external IT partners, diagnosing faults far enough to hand the right provider a clear cause.
  • Traced bad CMYK conversions after a monitor rollout to an incorrect Photoshop RGB working space, and worked through display calibration across the department.
  • Write production guides and handover documents so colleagues can run recurring jobs without me.

Owner and operator

Current

Warcry Wangaratta

  • Run a weekly foam-and-latex LARP combat group at the Wangaratta Showgrounds and organise community events.
  • Designed the group’s vector logo and visual identity.
  • Write the rules and campaign material, including a ten-week territory campaign with its own map.
  • Partnering with Stormglow Battlegame on a weekly co-branded video series promoting LARP.

Tools I’ve built

Scripts and browser tools that take the repetitive work out of newspaper production.

Chronicle weather page

InDesign Data Merge, CSV

A script that downloads Bureau of Meteorology forecasts, rainfall and Goulburn river heights, the latest satellite image and the Tattslotto results, then fills the Wangaratta Chronicle’s weather page through Data Merge.

Weather bulletin updater

HTML, JavaScript

A standalone tool that takes last week’s Alexandra and Yea weather bulletin plus pasted forecast and rainfall text, and produces the new edition with every changed figure highlighted for checking.

Ghost import builder

JavaScript, Ghost CMS

A browser tool that packages headlines, feature images, preset tags and body copy into a Ghost Universal Import file, so news can be bulk-posted to the group’s Ghost sites.

InDesign scripts

ExtendScript

Production scripts including a template setup dialog that fills publication and date variables, and an ad size checker that steps through image frames and suggests the nearest standard ad size.

Production automation

PowerShell, batch, Meta API

Scripts that build each week’s production folders from a template, and a Meta API setup for automating Facebook posting.

Newsroom Shorts MakerIn development

Browser-based video

Turns three or four photos, a headline and a masthead end card into a 10 to 20 second vertical news video for YouTube Shorts and TikTok.

Games and side projects

What I build after hours.

In development

Arcane League

Unity, C#

A 3v3 arena combat game I’m building solo, with three elemental disciplines and a parry rally mechanic, backed by a full design document, balance spreadsheet and production plan.

Warcry: Exodus

Card game design, HTML, JavaScript

A two-player skirmish card game, plus the browser card maker I built for it, with print-ready PNG export up to 600 dpi with 3 mm bleed.

Hearthwarden

Game design document

A cozy narrative management game about an elf raising children in a fantasy orphanage, with milestone systems for six children and eight townsfolk.

Battle Tactics

HTML, JavaScript

A turn-based strategy game that runs in the browser from a single HTML file.

Skills

Publishing and print

  • Adobe InDesign
  • Photoshop
  • Bridge
  • Data Merge
  • Pagination
  • Pre-press
  • Colour management
  • ICC profiles
  • CMYK print production
  • Vector logo work

IT and support

  • Microsoft 365 admin
  • Exchange Online
  • Teams
  • Windows troubleshooting
  • Mac troubleshooting
  • Printer and authentication faults
  • Managed service providers

Code and automation

  • JavaScript
  • ExtendScript
  • HTML and CSS
  • PowerShell
  • Batch
  • C# in Unity
  • CSV and JSON pipelines
  • Excel formulas
  • Ghost CMS
  • Meta API
  • Vercel

Education

Diploma of Digital and Interactive Games

Programming, game design and digital media

Get in touch

Based in Wangaratta, Victoria.