About me

Hi, I'm Alex K. Fong, the San Francisco Chronicle’s deputy creative director for design, a role for which I manage, design, illustrate, report, write and code. As a newsroom leader, I advocate for cross-discipline collaboration and for making decisions democratically.

This year, my term as a member of the City College of San Francisco Journalism Department’s Advisory Board is ending. As a former student of that department still actively working at a media company, I pushed for a modernized curriculum that will help current students secure internships and jobs in today’s increasingly digital-focused industry.

Previously I worked as a freelance creative, crafting storytelling solutions in visual and audio mediums. Before that, I was the assistant design director of China Daily, where I worked for four years at the company's headquarters in Beijing.

Prior to that, I served as one of two originating members of the Digital First Media redesign team, creating a redesign for the company's 75 daily newspapers and 200 community weeklies with Tiffany Grandstaff. I was also one of 40 DFM employees selected to join the company's ideaLab, a group formed to experiment with journalism.

I have also been the deputy design director of the Bay Area News Group (San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune, and other titles throughout the San Francisco Bay Area), and a designer for the Las Vegas Sun.

My print, digital, redesign and product work has won awards from organizations including the Society for News Design, the National Press Photographers Association, Pictures of the Year International and the World Association of News Publishers. I was a judge for SND's Best of News Design competitions in 2013 and 2021, and a speaker at its annual conference in 2020. As a member of SND’s executive director search committee this year, I made explicit the fostering of inclusion and diversity as one of the role’s job requirements.

Please see my LinkedIn profile for a detailed CV.