DO WHAT YOU GOTTA DO

As a former agency art director, and later as an independent designer, I welcomed every opportunity to collaborate with a diverse group of immensely talented copywriters, fellow art directors and graphic designers, typographers, illustrators, photographers, stylists, retouchers, storyboard and mech artists, editors, filmmakers and printers. Everyone excelled in their own key roles in the process of bringing ideas to life.

Then along came the Macintosh^®. Most of us, myself included, wasted little time transitioning to digital production. From fax machines, photostat cameras, word processors, phototype, Pantone^® markers, Color-aid^® papers, Spray Mount, X-Acto^® blades and so forth straight to desktop computers, the requisite software of the day (Aldus Freehand, QuarkXPress, etc.), various storage drives, and dial-up modems.

Armed with my first computer (a Macintosh IIsi), laser printer, flatbed scanner, and SyQuest cartridges – I did most of the customary editing, typesetting, mechanicals, a modest amount of illustration, and a lot of the necessary pre-press work myself. It didn’t take long to bridge this analog-to-digital divide, but it came at great cost. Gone were the days of “spec’ing” type, midnight calls from the type house, paste-ups, and – unfortunately – a lot of brainstorming, camaraderie and creative teamwork.

I miss those early days. We handled more projects, turned them over faster, and had a lot of fun along the way without getting bogged down in frivolous details. I’m still in touch with many of the friends I’ve made through work over the years – but mostly over the phone, emails and text messages. We still commiserate and gripe about steep learning curves, taxes, politics, client expectations, technical support, software costs, the lack of time, and so forth. But, it’s still the best work I know.

 

This reflection, originally posted some 25 years ago, is dedicated to my mentor and dear friend Jim Swan.