graphic design before email and the web

Way Back When

I’m not thaaaaat old…. but I was recently reminiscing about how far graphic design has come in the last 10-15 years.  Back in 1994, I applied for the opportunity to work as a co-op student with a large bank in their graphics department. For a whole year, I was shown the in’s and out’s of graphic design, “mechanical paste-up” and introduced to the world of designing on a computer. Back then, Corel 3.0 was the program of the “leading edge” graphic design companies. I’d never even heard of Adobe.

Last week, I was rummaging through some stuff in the basement and found my “portfolio”. Yes, a physical, tangible item. With strings on all 3 sides that you can tie up. Here’s an example of a project I did back in 1994.

You are probably wondering “WHAT IS THAT?”

Basically, this is a part of a branding campaign that you would show your client. This sample was a brochure that was camera ready. Those red area’s aren’t ink. It’s ruby film which was hand cut. In different layers for colour separation. Is that not insane?

Let’s rewind for a second: Now there were 2 ways of developing your artwork before you get to this stage:
1) On a computer (on a 256 colour 13 inch monitor)
2) Mechanical Paste Up – where you would literally sit there on your drafting table and paste each and every letter/word onto your artboard (by hand). Of course, there was the Letraset Transfer, where you would rub the letters onto the paper to do your layout. You would also physically cut any graphics you have and paste it with rubber cement, and roll it on! (Did I just say that!?) What will really knock your socks off, is the use of Letraset Markers, where you colour your art in!! And this was a skill because anyone who has used Letraset markers will know that the effects are almost like watercolour. You can only colour in single strokes or you will get different opacity shades all over!

Then once all your design is done, you would paste it on some expensive board, almost cut your thumb with the exacto in the process, put some onion paper over it so it doesn’t get dirty, plop it in a black portfolio, drive it over, have a meeting with everybody and their brother and present it on an easel hoping they will like it. And if there was a change? Go back and do the whole thing all over again.

Colour Separation:

When the artwork was finally approved, you would have to do your colour separation. This involved using Ruby Film (shown above) and an exacto knife and cutting the art pieces in different layers of CMYK. Can you imagine how long this would have taken? When I Google “Ruby Graphic Design”, all I get is “Ruby on Rails” (a current web application framework). See? Google doesn’t even recognize this ancient practice!

Typsetting:

I even learned typesetting which would rival today’s HTML. It wasn’t just typing words in a design program such as illustrator and adjusting your text, you had to code the leading (space between the lines) and kerning (space between the letters) by picas (measurements of typography). There was no such thing as rotating text, putting your text to a path, making a letter red or blue. It was straight on typing.

Stock Photos:

Stock Photos now are available for download in a split second. I also found an old stock photo book of mine in the basement. Yes BOOK. If you wanted to order stock photos, you would need to flip through the pages, call up the company, place your order, and pay for it. They would then send you the photograph in the mail.

Camera Ready Art:

Then once everything was approved, you had to put your artwork into an envelope, get a courier guy to come pick it up, have it couriered to a place where they will PHOTOGRAPH the artwork and make a plate reading for printing!

Fast forward to 2010:

Changes don’t need to be couriered or faxed or snail mailed. Artwork is approved through email. Payment is made through the web. Meetings are no longer required. Heck, phone conversations are no longer required. I’m sure that these facts can spin this into a whole argument about the aspects of the impersonal business relationship. However lets not go there. The web has opened up many new avenues of creativity and income to the graphic designer. Web Design. Blog Design. E-newsletter Campaigns, Animation, Business Partnerships with Progammers, the list is endless!

See? I even had to use Google to aid in some of this historic research. I couldn’t remember.

posted by Marina

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