I do, I do, I do feel so old!

I guess it’s a sort of privilege to have fully known graphic design before the advent of the Macintosh. This way, I will be surrounded by adoring youngsters in my dotage, thrilling them with stories of Linotype, Letraset, Bestine, Bernoulli drives and Rubylith! It was a very hands-on, crafty milieu. No wonder I loved it.

Of course, a lot of the training I received translated into the new digital language. Typography, composition, the business side… hours well spent in those crampy little classrooms. I still have my Pantone and Design Art Markers from my Ad Comp class! And I still use my proportion wheel on a regular basis.

The method of getting words and images to printed paper changed so, so fast. With the metal typesetting method, 100+ years worth of people lived their lives without the feeling of becoming dusty dinosaurs overnight. For people in my generation (god, read that! I’m so old), we had to adapt or die. We tried to laugh at those stupid Macs with their awful programs, ones that were incapable of real design, real typography. But the laughs became weaker, and the ghost, she was given up by 1992 (ish).

Lucky, oh so lucky was I to be surrounded by early adopters. From my dad (who had the second Mac model ever made), to several awesome bosses/mentors, I was encouraged to be a geek in the very best way. I distinctly remember playing with the first version of Aldus (Aldus!) FreeHand, completely freaking out over the feeling of drawing with a mouse, thinking that Jeffrey was nuts with this beige Mac II ridiculousness. Jeffrey had more faith than me — he hired me, and eventually, I bought the business he started.

After PCs were around a while, friends started asking me what exactly it was that I did for a living (shades of Chandler Bing). A few more years passed and suddenly everyone with a computer considered themselves a designer. That’s a massive generalization, but there was a certain General Erosion of Design Standards, once the tools were put into everyone’s hands. But that’s for a different diatribe on a different day.

Coming up: I have no idea, it’s time for my slippers and nap.