Some of my experiences of studio tools and processes before the arrival of the Mac.

So the life of designers and artworkers are tough these days? 

I spent 9 years from a junior to a studio manager in a Sheffield agency called Camel (60 staff total with an additional smaller Birmingham office). No longer around but evolved through an agency called The Source into now what is the Uber agency.



In part of the old studio, me with a few of my colleagues. Approx 1987.

Imagine a messy studio full of drawing boards and T-squares, masking tape, rulers, layout pads, burnishers, ruling pens etc (see: http://www.drawger.com/show.php?show_id=32 ). 

        Letraset

The most sophisticated machine in the room being a PMT camera, normally hidden away in some darken closet, with a foul smelling chemical processor that needed cleaning out every week. Apart from the fumes, the intense heat meant you generally emerged with sun stroke. Indeed this was far worse than falling asleep in todays local tanning salon.

    Rotring Pens

All design concepts were produced using Magic Markers on layout pads. Several hundred pounds for a set of markers, however this cost was quickly recouped by the fact you could also sniff them which negated the need to buy drugs!

     Magic Markers

Once client approved, these ideas were transfered into camera ready artwork. A process involving drawing up logos and graphics with a Rotring or Marsmatic pens, dry transfer lettering (Letraset and Letratone) and photographing / scaling all graphic elements and copy on to bromide paper (using the PMT camera).

     Type size guide

Some where in between all this you will have calculated the body copy specifications in relation to designated area provided within the design and commissioned a typesetting company to resupply on photographic paper. Not an easy process, sometimes needing a bit of slicing up of lines to fit the area. Finally all graphics and text created as a black & white imagery representing the design was pasted onto art board to the finished size. Photographic imagery was merely represented with scamped out line drawings, or at best a rough photocopied positional only. This b/w artwork was then sent off to the repro house with all colour specifications marked out on an overlay, plus the original 5" x 4" trannies. The repro house colour separated and photographed artwork into 4 pieces of film to create the four colour process (CYMK). Its no surprise that this process took eons compared to todays methods. 

     Spray mount booth

The above processes included many hazards and experiences. Spray Mount, an aerosol glue you couldn't help but inhale (nice!). Scalpels. The one's surgeons use, razor sharp and great for slicing thru your thumb whilst eyeing up the new blonde Acc Executive. Yep, it did happen to me, managing to spraying the ceiling in blood. 

And then the Mac's arrived in the late 80's. Unfortunately this put the Typesetting companies out of business almost over night. As time has gone on it has also caused the decline of the repro business, with digital print having a bad effect on the print industry.

WHERE WILL IT GO NEXT?

Richard Bridgwater
(Leeds Orchard Manager)

Comments...

• I started as a typesetter on the Berthold Glass Grid System - TPU 3608. We could only set 36 pt type. Then we had the Berthold M Series Laser - now we can do reverse type, italics and the massive 72 pt. See what we had before the mac!
  29/09/2009 22:51:15 by Ian Butler
• My earliest electronic typesetting recollection was the Comugraphic machines. Tuned to a nats hair in the kerning and leading stakes. See http://bit.ly/gcVLD
  30/09/2009 11:20:35 by Richard Bridgwater
• Oh happy days! I wonder how many people out there still retain the old skills? Many the time I emerged from the PMT camera room just in time to avoid my trousers bursting into flame! If you relate these stories to a 20 year old Mac operator, they look at you as if you're from Mars! Great days!
  02/10/2009 00:00:00 by Nick Field (out of work Production Manager)
• I rescued a zinco of a Renault 11 ad from my desk when I left my first agency. As a Boy Scout, I had seen them setting the hot type at the Daily Express print works in Manchester. Those ads really were hot off the press!
  15/10/2009 00:00:00 by John Edwards
• You just described my first job out of school to a tee! Riley / Rex stuart Advertising in Manchester (Old Trafford). The scalpel and Steel Ruler being the worst combination. My Art Director would often be heard screaming across the open plan office at me, "Don't get your blood on the artwork"!
  18/10/2009 00:00:00 by Steve Birbeck
• The Agfa Repromaster, how we had hours of fun in a darkened room in the middle of summer with ridiculous temperatures. See http://www.drawger.com/show.php?what=shows&show_id=32&image_id=1679
  02/11/2009 00:00:00 by Paul Walker, Huddersfield
• Oh My! Talk about blast from the past... Remember grant enlargers... and walking about with masking tape stuck to your heel... or getting home and finding two letters of the text you had been pasting down stuck to your elbow... or the client wanting to see all that hand traced headline text colored - green... Ah, nostalgia!
  04/12/2009 00:00:00 by Carole Davis
• I still miss my cow gum tin and the smell of solvents!
  11/10/2009 00:00:00 by Caroline Smith
• Even with Macs things took ages! We had 1 mac that had photoshop on. We all had to queue up and wait to get on it, don't even get me started on scanning!!
  05/11/2009 00:00:00 by Simon Derbyshire