Confessions of a Graphic Artist

Those of us who have been around long enough to experience the transition from the "hands on" era of graphic design to the age of Macintosh and Adobe Creative Suite have a few tales to tell. They aren't all pretty.

Training in the graphic arts used to require all sorts of ugly, hands-on creativity that sometimes even cost you a fingertip or two. Xacto knives were lethal weapons even in the hands of the professionally trained. More than once did one of my colleagues slice off the tip of an index finger, then stand there looking faint until someone grabbed a bandage to seal up our bleeding digit.

Those of us who remember that godawful invention called Press Type remember long nights lining up words letter by letter. Press Type required you to rub the back of a plastic sheet in hopes that the black ink letters would transfer cleanly onto the paper. You typeset words one letter at a time. If you ran out of a particular letter, like an "e" or "a," you had to manufacture letters using parts of less common letters. The whole process was torture on the eyes.

A material called Rubylith was used to position color on the pages of printed pieces. Rubylith consisted of large sheets of clear plastic faced with a red material impervious to the light of a camera. Rubylith was often used to mask out areas intended for spot color in the newspaper and on other print jobs. You had to create tightly measured overlays of Rubylith to indicate to the production crew where you wanted color to print. Often these jobs required multiple plates, all lined up with registration marks. There was a certain satisfaction in doing this work well because when you were finished the layers of plastic would fit over a page of type in what felt like a work of art unto itself.

When electronic typesetting came along it was first performed by specialists called, you guessed it: Typesetters. From approximately 1985 through 1995, copy was keyed-in primarily by groups of women who entered information through keyboards connected to a machine that spit out long, thick paper "galleys." These sheets were then pushed through a gross little machine called a "hot waxer" that coated the paper galleys with a temporarily pliable layer of sticky glue. This you pressed and rolled onto a page often marked with "non-photo blue" guidelines. It was all very labor intensive and prone to slipups, errors and lost galleys. Typesetters often were worked to death. They were seldom in a good mood, tending to crouch behind their machines waiting for more work to come their way. If you valued your life at all you did not lose a galley or ruin one of their precious outputs during the production process.

By the early 1990s Macintosh computers began taking over the graphic arts workplace. My first was a Macintosh Classic with a 9" screen. Macs very quickly put typesetters out of work. There was no more need for people to just sit and input copy. Anyone could do it! The typesetting businesses in our area went from being super busy to being super out of business in less than 2 year's time.

Those of us who wanted to keep working quickly learned how to use computers and the programs that drove them. Now you can't even talk about being a graphic designer without knowing a variety of complex computer software programs. But I say good riddance to the old ways of doing things. There was never anything glamorous or very artful about it. Mostly graphic design was a great struggle to get things done through a host of other people. Half the time you just compromised and let someone else finish a project.

Learning modern graphic design programs has its own pressures, of course. Like most designers, I have had to learn programs "on the fly." Some programs I've learned with a client looking over my shoulder while I worked feverishly to come up with a logo in Illustrator or Photoshop.

There are a great many graphic designers who have never had a day of tutoring on these complex graphics programs. Half the world is flying by the seat of its pants when it comes to graphic design. We muddle our way along learning programs and doing design through experimentation and the occasional desperate search through the program tutorials. It used to be that half the programs on personal computers across the country were pirated software. Those days are dwindling thanks to the Internet, where online registration eliminates illegal software copying. That's only just and fair, but it has reduced some of the adventurous frontier of design, where you make a living using stolen goods.

That is the confession of this graphic designer anyway.