07/10/2024
😀I have something money can’t buy…
✊Hands-on experience designing and producing artwork by hand, on a drawing board, with a Rotring pen, set square, and sliding rule.
📷Back in the day, when I started my first job working for Tecno Retail (a bit like Dixon’s today), I produced artwork for our catalogues by hand.
🧪I coded the typographic elements on a Lynotype Linotronic machine. This spat out photographic film which I had to develop in a chemical-filled, toxic-smelling room and then pasted it up on my drawing board.
✍️Over the text base there would be layers of film showing the repro house where an image would go and what size it should be reproduced at and any other print-related information.
✍️This process gave me a real feel for the finished product and a deep understanding of printing processes.
✍️Accuracy was key.
✍️This is a skillset that doesn’t exist today, which is a shame because the tactile connection you have with a physical piece of artwork is a great grounding for today’s digital world.
🖥️😍Of course, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my iMac and wouldn’t be without it, but I do miss my drawing board.
👀Check out this great 2 minute trailer that gives a potted history of paste-up on drawing boards to computers: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/graphicmeans/157620840
👉I’d love to hear how your industry changed since you started – let me know in the comments.
PS – who remembers Letraset????
