With some tongue-in-cheek Wikipedia sauce.

William Troy Pliske (February 26, 1965 – present) is an American graphic designer and builder of websites. His works enjoy a limited popular appeal in the United States, where Pliske is most famous for the cover designs of many Pittsburgh Post-Gazette special sections (1994-2005), his contributions to the rise of author Richard Florida, and currently, his design work for azcentral.com. Among the best-known of Pliske’s designs are his work on the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Trek of Tears” special section, his “Wanted Poster” (Steelers Super Bowl), and the creation of many Event Wrap designs over the years.

Life and works

Early life

Bill Pliske was born on February 26, 1965, in Newport News, Va. to Terrance and Linda Pliske. He has two siblings, Chuck, 43, and Traci, 39.  The family of five resided in central Ohio for most of the first 19 years of Pliske’s life. Moving was somewhat common his first 12 years, as the family bounced around to various locations in the Columbus area, finally settling down in the small town of Pataskala.  Here, Pliske spent his formative years of middle & high school, where he began dabbling with his drawing skills, and dreams of being a comic book artist. As a skinny kid lacking self-confidence, he, like many others, was simply trying to find his way. But things took off three years later.

Lone Star move

Pliske’s father took a job at Houston-based Network Solutions in 1985, and the 20-year-old soon followed his family down to Texas the next year. There, he discovered two things: volleyball and design.

After stumbling on to some pickup volleyball at a local rec center, Pliske quickly found a good use for his long arms and 6′ 5″ frame. Volleyball clicked. A year later, he was introduced to Arthur Hults, Terry Snyder and Rich Campbell … who encouraged him to join their USVBA men’s team. He did, and spent many memorable weekends over the next five years as the fourth-tallest member of the Dog Patrol.

2009: The Dogs, in reunion mode.

While working at a local Subway sandwich shop with his brother, a close friend set up a job interview with a local paper, The Citizen. With absolutely no experience, other than some drawing ability, the paper took a chance and hired Pliske on as a temp advertising artist. He was given a small office, an original Macintosh and a copy of QuarkXPress 1.0.

Pliske found that he not only excelled at mastering this new program, but was also quickly getting a knack for this design thing. He eventually transferred to one of the chain’s larger newspapers, and found his way over to the editorial side of the business. There he began learning how to build infographics, design feature pages and separating color with Rubylith, among other things.

Moving on

In March of 1993, he soon found himself with a new job, as graphics director of the Victoria (Tx.) Advocate. Even though he spent only a year there, he’s been quoted as saying it’s “one of my favorite places to work and live.” Here, Pliske won the first of many design awards, with feature page entries to the state’s annual newspaper contest. In February of 1994, Pliske attended a newspaper conference in Reston, Va., where he was introduced to Tracy Collins, the graphics editor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Collins practically offered him a job right there in Reston. Sure enough, the Pliske’s found themselves moving to Pittsburgh, Pa. in the fall of 1994.

Surrounded by a staff of illustrators that took his breath away, Pliske enjoyed 11 incredible years as assistant graphics editor, graphics editor and design director for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. During his time there, his staff won countless local, state, national and international awards in both illustration and design.

It was here that he first stepped into the world of web design. Pliske convinced editors in 1995 that they needed a website, so he locked himself away in a room for three weeks, and taught himself some rudimentary HTML. What resulted was the first prototype site for what would eventually become post-gazette.com.

It was also here in Pittsburgh where three of the most important things in Pliske’s life came to be, his children. Forever known as Pittsburgh “natives,” Emily, Joshua and Carson are still to this day Steelers fans, and have a true fondness for the city.

Joshua, Carson and Emily

In 1997, Pliske and Collins formed a design business on the side, called Spectrum Design Group. Over the next nine years, the two worked with a variety of print and online clients, and also established Event wraps, which kept them busy writing and designing for years.

Arizona

Pliske accepted the position of News Design Director at The Arizona Republic in February of 2006. With newspapers suffering declining circulation and budget cuts, design became a youth movement at the Republic. While that might sound like a risky move, many of those design interns became full-time employees, and while many are still in their mid-20s, their work today speaks volumes. As the newspaper industry continues to go through some rough times, the Republic’s design has held strong.

In 2006, Pliske renamed his side business to Estrella Studios, LLC, after the mountain range just east of where he resides in Goodyear, Az.

Pliske found himself completely immersed in the online world when the paper named him their digital presentation editor in 2009. For the past two years, he has been involved in countless online special projects, and is doing that to this very day.