I'm not that old (or am I?), but this is a great topic. I think that in the olden days one could get by with even less than you suggest--Tibor once said in one of those "be a graphic designer"-type books that all you needed was a phone and a pencil. A chair would be nice, too. I remember when the biggest non-billable expense I needed was a new $60 piece of borco once a year. Hey kids: extra credit if you know what borco is/was!

These days every person needs a computer, so that's about $1500-5000 each, depending on peripherals, that needs to be spent every three years or so. To outfit each machine with software is not cheap, and then there's another $1000 or so in upgrades every year. And that's just computers. What about printers? Internet access? Color output? For the motion-graphic types, there are DVDs and tapes and monitors and who knows what else.

But I think the biggest difference is about uncertainty. Back in the day, you'd think long and hard about what type to use, as you were asking Joe at Trufont to make it all at significant cost. At my first job back in my hometown, I had one word typeset in five typefaces, in five sizes, in five styles, in five weights, just to see the options. The cost? $3000.00 (in 1986 dollars). My boss chewed me out but said I had learned an important lesson.

Of course that lesson is now meaningless, as anyone can try out whatever he/she wants with no apparent repercussions. But the flip side is that clients used to trust us: we'd show them Xeroxed dummy copy from a magazine with color added thanks to Prismacolor markers, and that's all they'd see until the piece was printed. Now everything has to be completely produced before it's actually made, and that incredible leap of faith is gone forever.

Technology has made the designer's tools more familiar to non-designers.

Character count sheets, rubylith overlays, color tint guides, proportion wheels, and Rapidograph pens were not tools that occupied everyone’s home office. They were intimidating to non-designers (as well as some designers).

The computer makes it all so...accessible.

It makes the need for a knock-out idea is stronger than ever.

There was more craft to design, which has been sacrificed to technology for accessibility and speed.

And I agree w/ Scott — there seemed to be much more deliberateness in design decisions when things were more mechanical. When you spec' type, you better be damn sure of everything before you sent it out — size, leading, column width, margins, everything. Same with color choices. Back in the day before color Canon printers, it cost $8-$12 per sheet of Pantone paper. It was much more costly to just arbitrarily pick a color for making comps. This sense of craft has been lost to some extent in the new world.

But it's not all bad. Technology has brought a world of resources to any designer's fingertips. The latest font, photography, software, printing techniques, etc. is available immediately. Technology has also been the great equalizer and has brought globalization to the industry — which it sorely needed. I think as an industry, technology has enabled graphic design to keep up and evolve with the rest of business and the media world in general.

Scott, you talking tape or cover sheets? I always preffered a waxer over tape, but the sheets were indespensible.

My pre-computer work area had:

Light table, drawing table/desk combo, t-square, xacto knife, letraset, form-a-line, waxer, adhesives, Rubylith, rulers, type samples from printers, a 35mm camera, pencils of all sorts and colors, filing cabinet and bookshelf, rapidograph and several gallons of nib cleaner, and not much more than that. And oh yes, of course that non-repro blue pencil. can't forget that one.....

Technology has changed the process of producing files for fabrication or print. It hasn't changed the process of concepting and prototyping which remains roughly the same. Still use a pencil and sketchbook, xacto knives and straight edges, but accompanied by contemporary items: 1200 DPI calibrated prints, swatch samples, Illustrator generated mood boards, prototypes mounted on presentation boards with a borco tape substitute, or my all time fave, rubber cement.

What technology has changed/required is the initial investment and continual upgrade maintenance of the computer. Then onto software, the cost, upgrade cycles and learning new features for each upgrade. Yikes, how many programs do each and everyone one of use daily? I'd venture to say 4 - 6 major applications and 3 - 5 minor aplications, or so is the case for me. pantone fan books, color management software and various other assundries adds to the list.

Technology has in many ways made design more accessible to anyone with a fat enough credit line to buy the technology, but it has also made the process much more complicated. So, sure the argument is anyone can get a computer and basic design software, but few have the attention span and aptitude to put it to work. However, I for one am not so certain the end result of computer generated work is significantly higher in quality than back in the xacto knife days.

The old days involved more craft - it was a 'slower process' (more so the physicality of manual layout also required reflective, deliberate, thinking). There was also a lot more accountability: if you made an error it cost hard cash, it wasn't just a simpe 3pt tweak on a digital file. And there is something to be said of a grid that you can pick up and examine, measure out with a ruler you can hold as opposed to a screen simulated grid. The mind/body working in conjunction I beleive was and still is vital. Most of our day is now finger tips and buttons...

'course I am in no way addressing the interactive world here.

I started out before computers as well. I agree with most on here that there used to be more of a craft to producing design that it is today. That was both a good and a bad thing.

It led too many of us to think of ourselves as craftsmen, whose main value was the production of a well-crafted design piece rather than the architects of well-crafted design solutions.

The computer took that away from us and left us without a crutch to stand on. Low and behold, we are learning that we can stand on our own two feet! In truth, perhaps it was always about the work we did from the neck up rather than the wrists down. The computer took away the various different layers between. However we have done a poor job in communicating that as an industry.

Somehow, we've allowed the perception that our tools drive our process and are solely (or mostly) responsible for the results. Maybe we were hiding behind our tools in the analog days and could have better communicated the design process even then?

Tan is right, what has been lost pails in comparison with what has been gained. We now have the ability to work much more closely with other individuals in a cross-disciplinary way.

available immediately

For resources and efficiency, yes indeed.

But in moderation please (!) -- I had a client call me at 11 pm on a weekend recently. The immediacy of technology has allowed this encroachment on boundaries to happen. Ah, the age of immediate and 24 hour access... But that's a whole other side of technology as well as client to designer perceptions :-/)

It led too many of us to think of ourselves as craftsmen, whose main value was the production of a well-crafted design piece rather than the architects of well-crafted design solutions.

And now I would say that we're in danger of having the opposite be true. I tell my students that having the idea is only as good as being able to execute it perfectly.

I would never long for the good ol' days of stripping lines, laying linetape, cutting rubylith and applying letraset accents to typeset characters, then having everything shift on the boards and having to redo it.

However, that Trust issue is a big one. Clients really did have to take a leap of faith, that this hand-drawn thing with Pantone felt pens and swatches was going to turn into something altogether ... slicker.

I find these days that digital proofs are so good, so brilliant, that getting the job off the press is either no surprise, or a disappointment. That moment of delivery is like opening a present you helped wrap: "Oh yeah, there it is, just as I thought it would be."

A funny story, 10 yrs ago I worked with a much older designer who had been out of the game for a while. He wanted photos done with a 45� line screen (not a dot), and although Quark could do it in theory, the printer's rip kept overriding it and creating a dot. The designer simply couldn't understand why something which was so simple in his day would be so difficult with computers.

I think back in the day you had to have fairly decent drawing skills in order to communicate your idea to the client before doing the layout on the project. You were compelled to really think about your concept. I don't think as many people today use thumbnails. I can't seem to work without them. I didn't think I was old, but I am "old-fashioned" in that respect.

I'm not buying that teaching paragraph. You really think a smart person could be up and running in a day and a half with the old ways? If one could, she'd be bringing along some fair knowledge, no? As such, I would think said smart person could learn comparable skills with InDesign. It's not so hard.

Yet, why teach the freakin' software at all? If I were king of the forest, I'd leave the software 'til the very last day. (So to speak.)

Yeah... I sniff a lot less rubber cement and Bestine, tho'.

Being a barely thrirtysomething I resist to label myself as an "old fart", however I must say that when I was majoring in design on the early 90s, many of the courses were still focusing in the traditional way of doing things - I remember this guy who was our professor of typography, a dude of German descent who claimed to be a disciple of Adrian Frutiger. And I bet he sure was - exercises were pretty strict and he could spot a micrometric error a mile away. It was no picnic to pass his course. And no computer cheating was allowed - we had to do it the old-fashioned way: bristol boards, ink and Speedball pens.

Now that I have been doing web design and development for almos 10 years, I could be tempted to say all those exercises were worthless for what I do now - but they weren't. If there is something I learned there, it was attention to craft, details, and to justify every element I present on a design concept and/or composition - something I see lacking on too many so-called "designers" today... computers have become both a blessing and a curse for the business in that respect.

However, that Trust issue is a big one. Clients really did have to take a leap of faith, that this hand-drawn thing with Pantone felt pens and swatches was going to turn into something altogether ... slicker.

But technology changes should not result in a loss of trust. In truth, trust must be earned in other ways that have nothing to do with technology, analog or digital.

So we can no longer pull a rabbit our hats. At the end of the day, if the solution is a good one and has been well-crafted, I think the excitement is still there. Perhaps delayed until they see results.

Here is a fantastic link from the NextDesign Institute website that illustrates the shift in designer workflow from back in the old days to the present and future.

While you're absolutely right that execution is a critical part of a successful design process, IMO that is still "neck up" work rather than "wrist work".

Steve—I wasn’t making any suggestions about teaching in schools. I was refuting the idea that the entry costs to graphic design are now low (and, by implication, they used to high.) Many graphic designers struggled with type spec’ing but for anyone who could multiply it was no big deal to learn. Sufficient knowledge to do paste-up for most projects wasn’t hard to learn. Most of the production skills people learned were wasted. I used to talk to strippers who’d tell me that the first thing they’d do is tear off people’s layers of rubies and cut their own. Unlike now, you could walk into the printer with a mechanical that people could look at and say "I want it to turn out like x" and someone could say "We’d better write a note about that on the overlay” and it would get done.

There were certainly some skills that were needed to get the job done—basic hand/eye coordination—and real skills needed to communicate—drawing skills, for instance—that are less important now.

The example of the line screen is one where it was simpler from the designers’ standpoint because other people used to cover our asses. It wasn’t really simpler then, just simpler for us. I remember designers saying “But Mac type just isn’t as good” and I’d say that their Mac type wasn’t as good because they never figured out how much work their typesetters did to make them look good.

A pencil and trace stills cover the basics.

He wanted photos done with a 45� line screen (not a dot), and although Quark could do it in theory, the printer's rip kept overriding it and creating a dot. The designer simply couldn't understand why something which was so simple in his day would be so difficult with computers.

It is definitely a bonus to trade in the stat camera for Photoshop line conversions of hi res grayscale to bitmap files. Any line screen and angle instantly.

I think back in the day you had to have fairly decent drawing skills in order to communicate your idea to the client before doing the layout on the project.

Still a major requirement for designers I hire. Hands, head and heart are at the top o' the list way before knowing the latest version of Software X.

The green rubber-y stuff that went on the drawing table...

I am not that old really, only 30 i think, but when I was at college, although we had access to a good amount of computers and programs, out tutors insisted that for the first year and a half of uni we hand render everything. We became one with our type rule, if we wanted to use a certain typeface it was a case of tracing it from a book, if we wanted it larger then over to the Grant Enlarger it was (still the greatest machine invented). Due to the amount of time it took to render something in one font we pretty much ended up using the same font for everyhting we did. How boring I hear the students shout. Not really I reply, this process of working meant that we were taught about the fundamentals.

After the first yeah of doing this it was a lot easier to notice why leading didnt look right on the computer, or why certain kerned pairs acted in certain ways. I so often come across young desiigners who havnt looked at this process and it shows. They lack the fundamental skills and vision.

So to answer the initial question, who isnt a designer these days, as long as you can afford a computer? i guess it depends what you call a deigner. If you are apssionate about your trade then you learn about it, you learn where it came from and you have influences. A computer program cant do this. A computer is just a tool, just like a Grant enlarger or a type rule.

Now breathe

Daniel Green’s comment that Technology has made the designer’s tools more familiar to non-designers points to an important issue. In those good/bad old days, as the wisps of blue smoke wafted lazily from the overheating waxer, we designers held the magic key to getting design of any sort to issue from a printing press. Because getting type or images to happen at all was so damn circuitous and difficult, we had to know what we were about. This imbued us with a certain level of expertise and awe which meant we were listened to and respected. Nowadays, anyone can get their printer to blurt out text and pretties in an orgy of bad taste. Most sadly, the public can rarely recognize the difference between that and good design. You may be interested in checking out an extensive article I wrote about all this for Communication Arts which is online at: The Designer is Dead, Long Live the Designer.

Scott, you talking tape or cover sheets? I always preffered a waxer over tape, but the sheets were indespensible.

Huh? Now I don't know what you're talking about. I always used a waxer (we have M&Co's old Daige Speedcote here at Open), but tape or cover sheets? You lost me there.

Light table, drawing table/desk combo, t-square, xacto knife, letraset, form-a-line, waxer, adhesives, Rubylith, rulers, type samples from printers, a 35mm camera, pencils of all sorts and colors, filing cabinet and bookshelf, rapidograph and several gallons of nib cleaner, and not much more than that. And oh yes, of course that non-repro blue pencil. can't forget that one.....

Wow. That's all the stuff I coveted when I wanted to become a designer. And don't forget the fancy "professional" swivel X-acto knife (which never worked all that well, but still).

The green rubber-y stuff that went on the drawing table...

Steve, you win the prize: four rolls of crusty Chartpak tape, a jar of black Plaka and a box of blades for the aforementioned swivel knife. I'll throw in my old ultrasonic pen cleaner too while we're at it.

borco

well, borco - at least products I used in that name, include a number of supplies for architects (now) and architects/designers (back then):

two-sided tape, coverboards that protect your drawing/drafting/innspection tables, etc.

that's my reference. what's your's? now I'm lost :)

I can remember back to when we used to use 100MB ZIP discs to store our files... ahhh the good old days.

When I started, not only were there no computers, there was no Fed Ex and even no fax machines! Can you imagine?

The magic complicated skill that designers needed to master was something called copyfitting. This involved estimating the amount of text in a client's typewritten manuscript, and calculating how long the text would run if it were set in, say, 12/13 Sabon in a 32 pica column. Or in 12/14 Sabon, or in a 29 pica column. Yes, it involved math and was not for the faint hearted: typesetting mistakes were costly, as Scott Stowell pointed out above. Would-be players who thought that "graphics" might be "fun" often faltered in the face of a challenging bit of copyfitting. I miss it.

Let's not forget the students right now that not only have to own laptops and legal software, but still have to own all the aforementioned tools. That stuff may have been less expensive back in the day, but now, since its hardly used, its impossible to find and expensive when you do (except getting hand-me-downs from older designers, whic I frequently do). I don't think Plaka even has an American distributor anymore, but we still have to use it. Plaka,a ruling pen and a high contrast serif face made for the worst 48 hrs of my life two years ago.

I have the utmost respect for anyone that has a handle of those tools, but I really think the learning curve on a computer is much quicker (possibly a generational thing though).

Gunnar, Gunnar, Gunnar:

Not sure if I want to take this trip down memory lane with you. Since you cast the line I'll bite.

The major difference for me were the make up of departments. The BULL PEN doesn't exist today.

In my day, there were specialist. Beginning

with production people; layout artist, comp artist, airbrush artist, illustrators, photographers, typographers, and art directors.

You did not become a Designer until you graduated to layout artist or art director.

Often times that did not happen. Depending where you worked.

Typographers were first and foremost considered Designers. In some circles you were not considered a Designer unless you were a Designer of books or periodicles.

Today, the Designer is the END ALL BE ALL. Because of the computer, he/she is responsible for every aspect of conceptualization to finish art. Often times act as typographer, production, photographer, illustrator, etc. Departments have been remarkably reduced in size.

Different entities had different hierarchy of the food chain.

Such as:

1. Identity Consultancies

2. Branding Packaging

3. Corporations

4. Advertising Agencies

5. Publishers

6. Printers

7. Typesetters

8. Sign & Display Companies

9. Sales & Promotion Specialist

10. Television and Broadcast Stations

11. Audio Visual Presentation

12. Point of Purchase Display Firms

13. Exhibits and Model Making

Overwhelmingly, the biggest difference for me making the transition from Air Brush Illustrator to Designer. I come from a background where I achieved a certain amount of proficiency with a tool, pigments etc.

Here is a monitor, key board, and tower with software. Which can assimilate the airbrush effect with a key stroke in nano-seconds. Where as it took enless hours cutting frisket, thinning pigments, and trying to keep the air compressor and airbrush from spattering.

Coming from that background of arsenal with achieved skill.

The computer put everybody on the same playing field. Regardless of background, status or proficiency in other areas of Visual Communication. I resented that. More so in the early 1980s when employer(s) only hired people with proficiency in operating software. Educated and trained Designer(s) weren't considered.

Another barrier as an Independant Designer/Consultant today. Getting through the LAYERS of Bureaucracy. Direct Contact with the Top Decision Maker is highly improbable.

I was recently without a computer for three months. I wouldn't give up my computer to work traditionally.

Although, there is some ROMANTICISM in pulling out my T Square, Triangle, Eagle Drawing Pencils, Chisel Point Lettering Pencils,India Ink, Crow Quill Pens, Rulling Pens, No 3, No 7 Red Sable Brushes, Press Type, Zip A Tone Paper, Onion Skin Paper, Hot and Cold Press Illustration Board, and Double Tone Board.

Today, the CRAFT aspect of Design is MASTERING the SOFTWARE.

Mastering the use of Software Packages is what separate proficiency among Designer(s) today.

well, borco - at least products I used in that name, include a number of supplies for architects (now) and architects/designers (back then):

two-sided tape, coverboards that protect your drawing/drafting/innspection tables, etc.

that's my reference. what's your's? now I'm lost :)

Ah. I get it. Your "cover sheets" are what we called "borco" (short for "board cover" of course). Now you get the prize, Gregor! Sorry Steve--we have some lovely consolation prizes for you.

>00MB ZIP discs to store our files

Oh brother. How many here remember floppy disks? Not the 1MB diskettes, but the 5 1/2" plastic ones that carried 128K? Or 256K if you punched a hole in the corner to make it double sided?

And I remember when the Mac operating system used fit on a 1MB diskette w/ room to spare.

>even no fax machines! Can you imagine?

Haha...back in the days before I got into design, I used to work at a large teaching hospital doing lab work. Anyways, once in a while, we had to submit a requisition or grant form via facsimile. To fax something, I had to bring the form down to the "Fax" department — which consisted of a large room filled with a fax machine about the size of a Civic. The machine was staffed with no less than three people whose job was to operate and maintain that complicated and expensive machine.

Today, the CRAFT aspect of Design is MASTERING the SOFTWARE.

Mastering the use of Software Packages is what separate proficiency among Designer(s) today.

Well DesignMaven, I respectfully disagree with this statement.

While the production/deployment end of the design process requires a degree of technical proficiency -- why not? We live in a technological world -- the craft in design today, just as it was back when we were all producing with traditional tools, is from the neck up, not the wrists down.

There are a great many individuals out there who are technically proficient in programs. That does not make them designers nor does it make them good craftsmen. Not any more than technical proficiency put the layout artist on equal footing with the art director in the old days.

An effective designer will be proficient in their software tools because the old, top-down methods no longer apply. Today we work in cross-disciplinary teams with individuals who are not designers. Our work is far more collaborative. There is no time nor is there room for "handing it down". Instead, we farm out or outsource work that we cannot handle to equally talented partners. Not the doomed souls who used to toil in the "bullpen".

And while the mention of these materials from days gone by does make me nostalgic for my design school days, they don't make me nostalgic for the "good ole' days". I'm actually happy they're gone, to be honest.

Today, we have the opportunity -- and do so on a daily basis -- to craft solutions whose impact can be felt in areas of the globe that were closed off to us in those days. We have the opportunity to craft solutions across various media. THAT is exciting to me and far outweighs the emotional bond I had to the old materials I was trained on.

The "good ole' days" are fun to visit but I CERTAINLY don't wanna live there again! LOL!

Lovely! So close! I'll take the consolation prize. Zipatone? (sp?)

Copyfitting? Copyfitting?!?!?!? Heck, Just ruling the board was a chore!!

While we're looking back, can't we at least celebrate the demise of the airbrush???

I can remember back to when we used to use 100MB ZIP discs to store our files... ahhh the good old days.

How 'bout a SyQuest drive (w/ 40 meg catridges) hooked up to a Mac SE30 w/ a separate "page size" monitor (thus began the addiction to double monitors!) That sweet baby turned out a ton of pages in "Aldus" Pagemaker! lol

four rolls of crusty Chartpak tape

cool - I win. does it have remnants of dust bunnies stuck to the edges (especially nice on clear rolls with dashed lines)?

my son recently discovered a box in the basement with sheets of nice and brittle letraset (helvetica, 12pt) I bought around 1989, and he's having a ball with it. the chartpack will be a perfect companion.

talk about distressed typography. I may just have to scan some of that. hmmm, what's the license agreement on letraset? back then we didn't have font piracy....

speaking of press type, anyone remember running to Kinko's to make an emergency repair to a headline using those machines that

output your titles on acetate?

what did they call those machines -- I completely forget.....

Come over some time and visit my Art Supply Hall of Fame, with a retrospective exhibit on the history of Rapidograph points. Seriously, the process used to be far more mysterious to the rest of the world. We would have to send out for type and stats, and the comping process actually took time and "board skills" that the average editor/administrative assistant, etc., just didn't have. There were financial ramifications if you screwed up your type specs, too. The fact that our current technology allows for seemingly instantaneous results "demystifies" the process. Maven is right about learning the production process from the ground up, and building a nuanced eye for the craft of design.

Gregor, those machines were either Varityper or Kroy typesetters. They used large interchangeable font wheels. And then there was the Compugraphic machine with the film font strips.

Aww...the goood ol' days.

I think if I miss anything, it's the free Pantone books printers used to give-away without a care in the world.

When I started out as a writer, we went from writing on PCs to writing on Varitypers (setting the type along the way and learning a lot about copyfitting—though my first education with that skill was as a managing editor of our college newspaper) and how would we have done without our stat camera.

Rubylith, mechanicals, Exacto knives, SprayMount, t-squares, color markers were all the hallmark of the designers I knew and learned from. I still can remember the days of cutting out single letters from a mechanical and pasting in the new one to fix a typo. And for some reason, doing this on deadline, seemed fun. Maybe it was just the adrenalin rush or the knowledge that I could do it and it wasn't my regular job.

The computer really gave me a tool with which I could express my visual concepts along with my writing. The computer allowed me to really show my design abilities since I really couldn't draw—and for the most part, still can't. Without the computer I may have never gotten my Masters, may have never gotten into teaching design, may have never gotten active in AIGA, and may have never found Speak-Up.

I have a passion for great design no matter how it's created. Whether by hand or by machine, a great idea is always going to be a great idea.

Christopher Gee:

I've always said. 'Design is an Intellectual Activity with a craft aspect to it'.

the neck up, "Design" = Development, A Plan, Purpose, or Intent initiated via Ideation, Orchestration, Delegation and Collaboration.

the wrists down."Craft" = Execution + Rendering = Production.

Designer(s) need not be involved in the Craft aspect of their business. Many are, some are not. Usually because of time constraints.

Many aspects of the Golden Days of working I enjoy. The computer as proficient as it is.

Does not make a better Designer out of someone that doesn't posses the capability from onset.

Just as the typewriter didn't give birth to better writers.

There need to be a Human Mind and Soul felt in both. I'm witnessing a lot of MINDLESS SOUL-LESS execution masquerading as Design and CRAFT.

vibranium:

Ahh, buy the airbrush is alive and well.

Go to any book store and pick up a copy of airbrush action. Their seminar's rival those of the AIGA, How and other Design Conferences.

The airbrush now caters to the High Art Mileu.

How 'bout a SyQuest drive (w/ 40 meg catridges)

I can hear the wirr and "thunk" of the drive as the SyQuest drive started up and those white plastic cases the discs came in. Now that was some serious storage. I still remember measuring the case with my Schaedler rule to create the Quark templates to label them. Good Times!

You were compelled to really think about your concept. I don’t think as many people today use thumbnails. I can’t seem to work without them. I didn’t think I was old, but I am “old-fashioned” in that respect.

I couldn’t agree with you more, HQ. When I was studying design and working on student magazines and newspapers, I had to learn to do things “the old way”, but I am so happy that I did. Working with a pencil and paper, making thumbnails and sketches, seems to give you time to think things through, and a thumbnail lets you see the overall structure of a piece without any distracting details...

I am not a teacher, so I don’t know if this would work or if somebody is already doing this, but maybe students should be asked to stay away from their computers during their first year at school. Their projects could all be done with “traditional” drawing/cutting/pasting tools for the first few months... then let ’em go back to their laptops...

So the business model was very different—low capital investment but many more expenses in terms of supplies. (We used to mark up most of those expenses so the blades and ink and such were more than paid for by the 17.5% we added on to type and stats.) Now designers go to the art store little enough that Jessica Helfand was shocked to discover that things hadn’t just been frozen waiting for us to come back.

I’m still not buying into this “Hey, I’ve got a computer so I might as well be a designer” idea. Sure, people make fancy notices of Stevie’s middle school graduation party and they use Times Roman or Comic Sans to write a memo but that wasn’t what graphic designers really did. Felt tip pens and typewriters would have been the civilian tools of choice before computers were around.

Maybe it’s like the “gateway drug” theory where smoking a little dope might make you say “Hey. Maybe next I should shoot some crystal meth.” Just as some people realized they wanted to be a graphic designer when they painted a poster for the high school play, putting type and image together in a computer (in Microsoft Word or otherwise) seems like an opportunity for someone to decide that it’s a calling.

It is now much easier for someone to function as a designer with no drawing skills. That can be looked at a couple of ways:

(1) Does drawing develop visual skills that are vital? (Do those visual skills atrophy if we stop drawing for a decade or so or are they persistent?)

(2) Does drawing in the process of designing effect the resultant design? How?

I was fairly early in computer adoption. I bought one of the first Mac II computers in 1987. It changed my relationship with type for the better. It forced me to do some of the work a typesetter would have done (which is good news and bad news.) It also let me play with type more. I remember marveling at someone starting a job by having the type set in six different faces then having the “winner” reset in a couple of ways. She spent more on type than my entire budget would have been. When I started using the computer I could reset things until I was really happy instead of saying “next time.”

Speaking of budgets, it also changed the way everyone designed. Remember making up a hypothetical brochure: 4C process, 3 minimum sized half tones, one 4 x 5 separation. . . and later thinking you’d like the headline blue but that wasn’t in the budget unless you gave up two of the half tones? Low budget design is so much more free of constraint than it was. You can delay decisions until you know more about the implications.

(1) Does drawing develop visual skills that are vital?

I don't think so. I know many designers who can't draw worth a damn, and are still great designers. However, I'm personally drawn (ahem) to those who can draw.

(Do those visual skills atrophy if we stop drawing for a decade or so or are they persistent?)

Absolutely. I was looking at some life drawing studies I did 20 years ago, and they are amazing. I can't draw that well now. However, I would hope that if I practiced, took some life drawing classes, I would regain my former glory.

(2) Does drawing in the process of designing effect the resultant design? How?

For myself, I just can't work stright on the computer. I get blocked up, and I fall into strange routines. Recently I was trying to create a package design, based on the artwork i had done for another package for the same company. After futzing about on the computer for an hour, achieving passable but imperfect results, I gave up and went back to the drawing board. Only then did it all come together to make sense.

But that's just me. I find some of the most interesting design work these days is coming from what i assume is purely computer-driven 3D extraction. But who knows, maybe they draw first, too.

Not the 1MB diskettes, but the 5 1/2" plastic ones that carried 128K? Or 256K if you punched a hole in the corner to make it double sided?

Yep. We had some even bigger ones (10", i think) to feed fonts into our Linotronic (I think) typesetters. And prior to that, our older typesetting machines had paper tape readers to load the kerning and spacing data for each font.

If anyone knows of an online resource that has photos (or even better, a video) of this proto-digital typesetting process, I would greatly welcome it. I tell my students about this stuff: the quickly whirring drums, with flickering light to expose the letterforms on the film or paper ... and they are completely bewildered.

There are good online videos of hand-set metal type, but seemingly nothing after.

And I remember when the Mac operating system used fit on a 1MB diskette w/ room to spare.

It wasn't that long ago that the guts of Quark installed from 3 floppy disks (1.4mB ea).

All i know is: I wish i had a waxer today. It is the tool i miss the most, from a practical perspective.

(1) Does drawing develop visual skills that are vital?

I don't know about vital, but certainly a healthy choice. Like eating more vegetables. Maybe we live longer if we draw regularly.

I remember this like it was yesterday and repeat it to myself often - asked by a prospective employer several years ago: "All this computer stuff is nice, but can you draw?"

And yeah... very atrophic... use it or lose it.

I didn’t mean to ask if drawing skills atrophy. I wonder if the seeing skills that drawing (supposedly) develops also atrophy.

Waxers were great except when you accidently touched the hot wax and burnt yourself. Back in the days when you actually had to copy and CLIP your clip art.

I still begin with thumbnails. Is there anybody out there who sketches on a computer? Or, for god's sake, a laptop with one of those p.o.s. trackpads???

Thanks gang for taking me through memory lane. Ahhh…I can still remember the odor of rubber clement on sheets of type. I have my T-square and French curves near my drafting table; yes I still have it. The computer age has helped me in the production side of thing, for example the final development of a logo. Software is a great tool for final production, but my paper note pad and pencil is my development tool for both print and web design--I can’t let go the pencil and paper.

Excellent discussion; I really enjoy the comments.

I've been pondering lately whether or not design really took a dive in the '80s and early '90s as a result of the computer. Seems like when I look back at most publications of that period, everything is the same. I wonder if the computers limited what designers could do creatively (I wasn't around design back then, sorry old guys). Only now do we see a new generation (not me again...I'm too old this time!) beginning to hone the craft with computers to a worthy creative level. Thoughts?

Only now do we see a new generation (not me again...I'm too old this time!) beginning to hone the craft with computers to a worthy creative level. Thoughts?

Examples? (both representative of the sameness [who do you think represents the ’80s and ’90s?] and the current worthy creativ level.)

there anybody out there who sketches on a computer?

Usually sketching is done on paper with pencil, but I've been known to plug in the Intuos and sketch a rough in illustrator, but for no good reason.

(1) Does drawing develop visual skills that are vital?

I wonder if the seeing skills that drawing (supposedly) develops also atrophy.

Good questions, Gunnar. I think that seeing skills can be taught, just as design methodology or ways of thinking about a design problem can be taught... So I don’t think that you necessarily develop seeing skills from drawing... but I do think that drawing skills combine with “knowing how to see” and permit you to express a visual idea all the more eloquently.

I agree with Marian when she says that when working straight on the computer “I fall into strange routines”... this has happened to me too, and I remember a friend and classmate telling me something along those lines in the early days of using computers to do design work... He said that when working straight on the computer things tended to look “boxy”... I think that the tools you use do affect the results.

I still begin with thumbnails. Is there anybody out there who sketches on a computer? Or, for god's sake, a laptop with one of those p.o.s. trackpads???

I know many industrial designers who do computer sketches (though they also do just as many, if not more, hand sketches). A few have the monitors that you can write directly on, so I'm not sure if thats really just a high-tech pen and paper or if it realy constitutes computer sketvhing.

I think more and more youger designers who grew up on computers will begin directly on the computer. I find that in my personal student work, its about 50/50 on starting on the computer or starting with thumbnails. But when I work with older designers and clients, I have to show sketches, because there is still the assumption that computer work is final product. But in a few years, I think many people will begin to visualize computer-driven work in conceptual stages. Whether or not it will be a loss in quality, I'm not too sure.

As usual, after I posted my last comment and logged off, I remembered something else about the relation between seeing and drawing...

Milton Glaser once said, if I remember correctly, that we don’t really see things until we have to draw them... He told an anecdote about trying to make a drawing of his mother from memory, but it wasn’t until he had her sit for him that he actually started to observe and see lots of little details that he normally didn’t pay attention to...

Perhaps a parallel could be made to that old truth that we don’t really understand a concept until we are able to put it in our own words...

At the risk of sounding cynical, all this talk about seeing seems superficial. Analog is different from digital in a phenomenological sense, and that shift in experience corresponds to a shift in knowledge. So the issue isn't just seeing, but understanding. Perhaps semantics, but bear with me.

Drawing is about managing phenomenological relationships; lights and darks, detail, and focus. Making such decisions with a pointed stick in your hand integrates the abstract passing of judgments with the physical experience of being in the world. This kind of 'interdiscipline' is the core of what we do everyday; which is to make stuff.

So it would be logical that the broader the experience, the broader the understanding, the better informed the result is. The kind of ink tricks that I like to specify are difficult to express with desktop publishing software; while I never truly understood (in the core of my being) the subtlety of leading until I first sat down with Quark.

All the blather that spews out, design = thinking, design = leadership, design = strategizing, ad nauseam... is beginning to strike me as Puritanical in the worst sense. We make the word into the flesh. Our work is in the world. Our work is the world.

design = eros

Susan Sontag's famous ending to Against Interpretation— "In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art" — captures my point. Frankly, I'm really not interested in whether one knows the fragility of a SyQuest or the tedium of cleaning a Rapid-O-Graph. Such conversations begin to resemble family gatherings as a distant relative pesters you on your software and hardware selections.

Technology — like professions, cultures and languages — simply offers different ways of seeing the world; and each person's relationship to their tools is unique. I truly doubt more than a handful of people can relate an anecdote where a particular tool profoundly changed the way they understood either their work, design in general, or the world.

Fundamentals, on the other hand, are the things that I keep returning to:

How many sides does a piece of paper have?

Does this sentence agree or disagree with the one before it?

Have I considered that this piece will be seen over time?

What does turning the page mean?

Rather than being exclusively thinking or seeing, these kinds of questions are about being in the social sense… in the physical sense… beyond words.

My first semester at college, I was approached by the Graphic Design Department Head - the head of the counseling department needed a newsletter for a statewide conference. The budget was small, the newsletter was 2/2 (pms 286 and black) with clip art only. I sat with the counselor, found out what she needed, got all the stories from her. I did thumbnails, and a mockup by hand and got it approved. I taught myself enough Quark (the kind that comes on floppies) to typeset the stories, used the waxer to paste the stories on the mechanical, taped a sheet of vellum on top and marked the blue elements. I sent it off to the printer who made sepearated films off my mechanical. A couple of weeks later, I had my first printed piece. The next semester, I learned how to do color separations in Quark (the same semester I saved up and bought an 88mb SyQuest!)

Marian, those were probably 8" floppy diskettes, I remember them too. No believes me when I tell them about it, though.

Mark,

Not overly semantic by any means - although the younger crowd may think that's a virus sheild, which is fine: semantics, deconstruction, post-moderninsm are merely much disputed frameworks in which to interpret the world, not axioms. While I by no means find find myself in disagreement with your post, the core question Gunnar posed is, How has technology actually changed what you do?.

At the end of a day's trip down memory lane of xactos and waxers, the between the lines answers are, "as a new level of experience on top of what was, in the Heideggerian sense, the not yet but the already."

>While I by no means find find myself in disagreement with your post, the core question Gunnar posed is, How has technology actually changed what you do?

Gregor, asked and answered. Like I wrote: I truly doubt more than a handful of people can relate an anecdote where a particular tool profoundly changed the way they understood … their work.

Yes, it is all the not yet but the already. Yet in this thread, granted, like every other blog; many responses, few answers. In this case, I prefer to keep it simple and answer with fundamentals.

Gunnar,

What trigger my question was a trip to the local used bookstore, where you can see pay your respects to a myriad of '80-'90s designs. Start with National Geo's and go from their. Pay attention to the ads, and you'll see what I mean by the restrictions computers put on design during that period.

Then compare to work done in the '60s. A "senior" designer friend sent me an email question and curiously I wanted to see some of his "old" work. The work that he did in the '70s by hand blew me away with its originality and quality.

For design work today that seems to compare to the pre-80's '90s period, just open up your web browser and start surfing. Pick up a magazine at the bookstore or jaunt through the books.

It seems that only now the tools have again caught up with the craft. Or is that vice versa?

Frank,

Pay attention to the ads, and you'll see what I mean by the restrictions computers put on design during that period.

Can you describe some of what you mean. I don’t have fifteen or twenty year old National Geographics convenient but I also wonder (a) whether the phenomenon you describe was localized rather than universal (there were plenty of stilted crap ads in the ’70s and there are now and I suspect your book store examples weren’t representative of everything happening in the time) or (b) that you might be attributing things to technology that were stylistic trends of the time.

I’m also curious if there is a date range where you can say the change took place—things were better before 1983—87 or 1991—95.

I am relieved to learn that your observation was direct. When you said “Seems like when I look back at most publications of that period, everything is the same” I thought you had looked in a design history book and decided that everything looked like David Carson. We often get really warped views of certain time periods. I suspect that a time machine taking us back to the late 1920s would leave us dazed at the scarcity of the cool Modernist revolutionary stuff and the ubiquity of stuff that looked 19C or timelessly mundane.

I think it’s possible to see some evidence of changes in technology in some places at some times but I also think that a lot of chicken-and-egg problems come up in technology/formal correlations.

It seems that only now the tools have again caught up with the craft. Or is that vice versa?

I think the craft took a leap off a cliff, not merely a slide downhill in many ways when computers caught on. We still haven’t recovered from the crash. In other ways the craft was greatly improved. For instance, typography is now often so much worse and often vastly better than it has ever been.

Mark:

First and Foremost, You didn't think you were

going to use MAVEN's LAW of RELATIVITY.

And not get a reply.

Design = eros

Only in a perfect word, Mark.

However, I do see TARGET using that metaphor in their next television commercial.

Better get that copyrighted.

Fact of the matter; Design in its PURITANICLE sense is very Structured, Rigorous, Departmentalized, and Compartmentalized.

Albeit, being Elitist with Pecking Orders to Boast.

Personally, iterating from the position many observe as any work being commenced by the hand as menial (ridiculed) . Any work being commenced by the mind (glorified).

Agreed, such mindset is ELITIST SNOBBRY to boot. I've known people that learned the Profession from the ground up. That were better Designer(s) than people that reached the Pinnacle. Many Supervisors and/or Design Managers cannot copyfit, use a haberule, cast off and count characters. Much less speak the language of the printer. At the same time, puch printers to perform their best. Many get their Production Manager to trouble shoot his/her mistakes. The above reference interation is how you and I learned the profeeeion. We're Blessed!!!!!!

Realistically, BOUNDARIES EXIST. Graphic Design is perhaps the only Creative Profession where Designer(s) are involved in the craft aspect of their business.

Architects are Designer(s) they are not involved in the craft aspect of their business.

Architects don't lay bricks. The supervise construction.

Fashion Designer(s) are not seamstress, nor cutters nor fitters. That work is delegated. Including the Illustration of their product.

Industrial Designer(s) are not involved in the craft aspect of their business. Their models are given to model maker(s) and various specialist in their respective expertise.

At the same time, there is nothing more Nauseam to me than Designer(s) associating Craft with Design.

They are as separate as DAY and NIGHT. Although, smaller and independant sources cross pollinate the two.

They are separate and not equal.

If Designer(s) didn't invent the separatism and pecking order. Personnel Departments are surely responsible.

I've had any number of Production workers come to me as a Design Manager within Private sector and Government wanting job discriptions changed. Can't be done.

I agree, Design = Eros in a Utopia. I'm all for the Passion and LOVE of Design. Everything you love doesn't love you back. Personally dedicated to my Passion, and Drive.

For those confronted with Disillusionment and Disenchantment of Design.

Where is the LOVE ???

LOVE IS NOT EARNED. PASSION IS LEARNED.

Both are GIVEN. Both are UNIVERSAL.

Gunnar: I'll need to do some digging and scanning. We've read National Geo for so long, I guess I take it for granted others do too. I think this topic (the influence of the computer on design from say 1980-1998) would make a great research paper/article for someone who has the time (which I don't right now). It would be interesting to correlate the timelines of the computer, design software and example ads across several different types of print publications of the period and then see if the theory holds water.

Frank: I know what you are saying. You really notice the transition period from old school to new school (with old schoolers winning there for awhile!) when you look at the Design Annuals, say from about 1986 to 1993, or so. It appears kerning and leading gave people trouble. Corel is one company that comes to mind that had some pretty nastily-designed ads.

It would be interesting to hear specifics. A lot of what people blame on computers had other causes. Even into the late ’80s Apple ads were typeset rather than Mac’d.

What constitutes trouble with leading?

On a slightly different note, Michael Blowhard’s comments on design and technology.

Me, I'm just happy because I found an old box of Design� markers two days ago - so old they actually contain xylene.

I haven't smelled that in years. I'll never forget the time my roomate made me pull over on the way to school one morning because he thought I was drunk. I wasn't drunk, I had just been in my room working on marker drawings for 11 hours straight.

I love Photoshop, but you just can't get a good buzz from it. I hear the next version of InDesign will be scratch an sniff though.

Now where did I put that can of Super 77�?