Tom Murphy, drawn to graphic art

If you’re looking at today’s special Fall Guide magazine — and if you’re planning to be in these parts over the next few months, you should — please take a moment to pause and appreciate the cover.

It’s easy to take such things for granted. But the placement of those carefully chosen photographs, on a cheery autumnal background created for the occasion, is the handiwork of staff artist Tom Murphy.

Tom creates the cover for our annual Summer Guide, too, and so much more — including today's front-page illustration with Paul Parker's crime-statistics story, and a new online feature debuting today.

He makes maps and informational graphics, just for starters. The recent launch of our Rhode Island Economic Scorecard depended on charts depicting the state’s progress (or lack thereof) in 11 financial indicators, building to a main chart giving the state’s score. Tom created all of them.

Federal courts here and in Boston don’t allow photography in the courtroom — an old prejudice, widely shared in federal courts, that seems to stem from concern that photographers might distract jurors and diminish the dignity of the court. But those courts do let artists in to draw witnesses, judges, lawyers and defendants.

So when there’s a big case in federal court — a mob trial, an immigration case, a doctor who overprescribes opioids — we send Tom to illustrate it.

And when there’s a story whose appeal is more cerebral than visual, that’s a job for Tom, too.

For example, a big Sunday story in June that explored the arguments for and against the Providence Water Supply Board selling the Scituate Reservoir. Or our recent nine-part series on elder abuse, which needed to be tied together visually, day after day, in a way that photos just couldn’t accomplish.

Tom Murphy was raised in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts, with 10 brothers and sisters.

“I had great difficulty all throughout my schooling,” he recalls, “because I suffered with severe dyslexia at a time when it was a relatively new field of study.

“When I entered art school, I learned that there are many ways to communicate, and that language is just one of them.”

Tom got his bachelor of fine arts degree in graphic design from New Bedford’s Swain School of Design in 1979. The following year, he found his first art-related job here in Providence, with Malcolm Grear Designers. (That year, he and his wife, Kim, were married, and together they built a life in Coventry with their two now-adult children.)

In 1986, after several advertising and retail-oriented jobs, Tom says, “I discovered my true calling as a news artist for The Providence Journal.

“I fell in love with graphic design, because it speaks to the unconscious, delivering a clear message while making itself invisible. That’s how I approach my illustration, too — not trying to impress with flashy artwork, but rather getting to the point directly through the use of symbol, style and color.

“There’s great satisfaction in trying to distill a whole story into a simple image.”

Recently, Tom has entered a new world online.

“I’m discovering the use of video and animation to tell stories in a new way,” he says. His memorable collaboration with staff photographer Sandor Bodo on a video about the late Toll Gate High soccer player Gianna Cirella is just one example.

And today, we also launch the first of what Tom plans as an irregular series online: “Drawn to History: Lesser Known Stories from Rhode Island’s Past.”

This first installment features Robert Voorhis, an African-American who in the early 1800s was known as the “Hermit of Massachusetts” — but who actually lived in what is now East Providence.

I’m a bit of a history buff, but I hadn’t known Voorhis’ fascinating story until I encountered it in Tom’s new feature.

That’s the kind of enterprising work Tom does.

We’re lucky to have him.

Alan Rosenberg is The Journal’s executive editor.

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arosenberg@providencejournal.com

On Twitter: AlanRosenbergPJ