Pre-digital artists/creators: What have we lost?

[MrCheeto]

I made a similar thread before wherein I asked members to tell us about their experience in early computing and what each major product or shift in the industry was like first-hand. It became a rather large thread and everybody, no matter how small the contribution, had some interesting input.

One of my coworkers shared some interesting information to me about his days working for a printing press in the 80's and 90's as well as some trade "secrets". This reminded me of how much information is lost to time because we don't document things which are considered pedestrian or standards.

I found a video where a guy describes what it was like to use Photoshop professionally in the 90's and was pretty astounded at the information. It's great to peer into the average day in somebody's past and see how much has changed from then to now.

Besides the obvious fact that all writing is now no more developed than a sixth-grade level (even from the largest media outlets) and modern photography is just catching an image to "trace over" in Adobe CC, what have we lost to dying trades and what are some of the clever ways you did your job without the digital crutch? I'm referring to basically ANY trade that has been supplanted by computers or automation in general.

 

[KaliYoni]

what have we lost

Knowledge of the difference between typeface and font.

Ligatures.

How to make halftones.

Mixing developer, fixer, and stop bath.

----------
ETA:
Dolby B vs. Dolby C vs. dbx

Maxell vs. TDK.

High bias vs. metal.

 

[MrCheeto]

Knowledge of the difference between typeface and font.

LOL. That is one of the trends that was propagated with computers. Systems displayed the word “font” to select a typeface so everybody came to learn it as meaning the same. Shame.

Care to share some of that knowledge?

 

[eyoungren]

IDK. I came in around 1993. At that time the industry was shifting. I got traditional instruction in mechanicals, stippling, french curves, thumbs, roughs, mockups, proofs, etc, etc. Totally hate amberlyth and laying out mechanicals.

The other part was what I do now - learning the computer and the software. By the time I actually finished school and got my first job (1999) the industry had already moved on and I was in a niche area of it, which was newspaper ads. That first job was working for Gannett at their one prototype digital press (three stories). So I was sending my ads to RIP each night and the layout people were using software to layout the paper. It automatically distributed all the ads around the expected word count of all the articles.

Insertion Orders for ads to be inserted was all randomly generated as well. I got a printout of the size, run dates, etc and any art they wanted included (we scanned in usually). All inside a plastic sleeve.

We even had our own IT department.

Then all my jobs after that were small shops and I realized just how incredibly lucky I'd been in my first job!

But between 1993 and 1999 I was still working for UPS so I missed the end of all the traditional stuff.

I will say that I learned a few rules from one old hand at my first job. Never use more than two fonts, one serif and one sans serif. And the sans serif font should be for information, while serif is for heads and body copy. Never use a Photoshop effect just to use it. And if you do use a PS effect, do it properly. If it's done properly, people will notice the work and not the effect. If it's the effect that's being noticed, you did it wrong.

I did learn from one of my instructors though what is important. He asked me once in regards to a phonebook ad, "What is the most important information that you need to call attention to?" That has always stuck with me. You can have the most awesomely designed work, but if the message is lost, you failed!

 

[MrCheeto]

If it's the effect that's being noticed, you did it wrong.

When I was a kid, I always noticed that images in print looked weird. I never could tell what it was, as I'd never heard of photo editing software, but I knew something seemed unnatural. Now that I look back at the same prints, I can see that most of the weirdness was due to the touch-ups and compositions done in software. Always stuck with me as a "90's look".

 

[Boyd01]

I got a BA and MFA degree in scenic design in the 1970's and worked in that field (and related areas) until retirement in 2011. We learned about color theory, painting techniques, measured perspective, drafting and other things using traditional tools and media of the day.

Drafting was done on in pencil on vellum using T-squares, triangles and architect's scales. When I began working professionally, I got a big drafting table with a mechanical drafting machine. These were big contraptions like an arm with an elbow that had a right-angle square on the end that always stayed registered to the drawing as you moved it. These were a big productivity gain over clunky T-squares and triangles.

I was especially interested in creating realistic perspective drawings, and in the mid-seventies I realized that the geometric techniques we learned could be easily modelled with math. I was very excited by scientific handheld calculators at that time and developed simple algorithms for plotting points in a perspective drawing on gridded drafting paper (we called this "fade out paper" because the light blue grid on the vellum did not copy when you made blue-line diazo prints of the originals).

After teaching myself FORTRAN, I wrote a simple program to accomplish the same thing given an input file of coordinates and output a line drawing it to an HP plotter connected to an IBM 360 mainframe. Then I got an Apple ][ in 1978 and was able to do the same thing in BASIC, outputting the image on the screen or printer. Exciting times for me!

Used these techniques for awhile, painting over the printout to create final renderings. Then the Mac came along and finally some "real" CAD and 3d software in the late 1980's. By 1990 I was using MacDraw to do my technical drawings although they were limited to 11"x17" prints. I would print these at 300dpi and take them to Kinko's where they could be enlarged to big prints (18x24 or 24x36 inches) and they would actually look pretty good. A nice thing about this workflow was that we started using the small 11x17 prints for many things instead of the big, full-size draftings we created by hand (those big drawings were awkward to store, transport and mail).

In 1993, I put away my hand-drafting tools and got rid of the big drafting table, going completely digital with CAD using a program called MiniCAD (which later became VectorWorks). Starting in 1996 I began using photorealistic 3d rendering with Strata3d on a PowerMac 8100. By 1998, I put away my watercolors and other traditional media and was completely digital.

"What have we lost?" In my case... nothing. I enjoyed working with traditional media, but digital was much better for me. When you create a drafting or rendering on paper with pencils and paint, you get reluctant to try new things because there's no "undo" function. With digital, I could try all kinds of crazy things and always go back to an old version of the file if I didn't like it. I worked with a director for many years who was all-in on this new workflow, I would create literally hundreds of versions of a design and by the time we settled on the final one, it was quite a journey.

There's just no comparison, digital is superior in so many ways. I have almost 40 years of my work at my fingertips, archived on my computer and can share it with the world on the web. It's all backed up and safe. Quite a difference from physical media that are easily lost or damaged, degrade over time and require lots of room to store. I guess we could argue that people don't learn the old techniques anymore, and they were as cheap as a pencil and sheet of paper. But I still know how to do that if I want. And (I assume) these are still part of an art/design curriculuum at some level.

It was all lots of fun, but not doing any of that these days in retirement. Instead, I got interested in making maps and spend my time processing terabytes of geodata with GIS software and writing code to make it available to everyone in a free web app.

 

[MrCheeto]

People with your experience really could have quite unique and informative series'. Whether reading or watching, I would be very interested to learn more about these lost arts.

With digital, I could try all kinds of crazy things and always go back to an old version of the file if I didn't like it.

This is the reason I can't appreciate modern "art". It's clear that anything produced today is rushed, flippant, trivial and temporary.

When I experienced my first group photo-shoot, I was practically horrified. Using kit-lenses, they fired away without any concern for exposure, lighting, subject, direction, composition or even depth of field. Thousands and thousands of shots combined to maybe three or four final selects, but that was through use of composites, cloning, healing etc. They spent seconds setting up for the shoot and days in Adobe suite. The result is a fever-inducing puddle of pixels as if the product of an AI learning to be more human.

I shoot digital, but I treat it like film. I use the best G lenses from today, but rely heavily on my lenses from the 50's-80's. Once it comes to editing, I simply use dodge/burn, crop, aberration correction, exposure and white balance. I don't know what any of the other tools are and prefer not to know.

I really enjoy shooting film because it feels more purposeful. It takes patience, preparation and skill to make the negative 90% complete. Most of my film shots only require exposure adjustment and cropping. I don't think I've ever dodge/burned a negative and rarely do I crop as I like to compose in-camera. Strangely, my film shots are the best that I have and far superior to any digital shot that I've taken. Go figure.

I've only known one person that wanted to get into film, but it turned out to be for nothing more than the hipster kitsch factor. They took the few negatives and applied more filters and effects than I thought any one program had. What even was the point of the analog phase? Reminds me of J.J. Abrams bragging that he shot Star Wars on film. For what purpose? They just digitized everything and applied the After Effects gang-bang anyway.

 

[Huntn]

I made a similar thread before wherein I asked members to tell us about their experience in early computing and what each major product or shift in the industry was like first-hand. It became a rather large thread and everybody, no matter how small the contribution, had some interesting input.

One of my coworkers shared some interesting information to me about his days working for a printing press in the 80's and 90's as well as some trade "secrets". This reminded me of how much information is lost to time because we don't document things which are considered pedestrian or standards.

I found a video where a guy describes what it was like to use Photoshop professionally in the 90's and was pretty astounded at the information. It's great to peer into the average day in somebody's past and see how much has changed from then to now.

Besides the obvious fact that all writing is now no more developed than a sixth-grade level (even from the largest media outlets) and modern photography is just catching an image to "trace over" in Adobe CC, what have we lost to dying trades and what are some of the clever ways you did your job without the digital crutch? I'm referring to basically ANY trade that has been supplanted by computers or automation in general.

Many skills from a pre-computer age will be reduced, diminished. Artists will still paint pictures, but not mats for a movie backgrounds. Computer's have a profound impact on our culture as in most cases they reduce basic competence, whether it be a genius mathematician or an aircraft pilot who lets the computer fly the plane most of the time, basic skills are reduced.

For myself I grew up with an interest in architecture and commercial art, have a degree in commercial art, which I never really practiced it (became a pilot instead) but I now find myself (in retirement) toying with Unreal Engine creating digital natural environments not that you hang on the wall and admire, but can virtually walk though and appreciate.

 

[eyoungren]

View attachment 2069530

People with your experience really could have quite unique and informative series'. Whether reading or watching, I would be very interested to learn more about these lost arts.



This is the reason I can't appreciate modern "art". It's clear that anything produced today is rushed, flippant, trivial and temporary.

When I experienced my first group photo-shoot, I was practically horrified. Using kit-lenses, they fired away without any concern for exposure, lighting, subject, direction, composition or even depth of field. Thousands and thousands of shots combined to maybe three or four final selects, but that was through use of composites, cloning, healing etc. They spent seconds setting up for the shoot and days in Adobe suite. The result is a fever-inducing puddle of pixels as if the product of an AI learning to be more human.

I shoot digital, but I treat it like film. I use the best G lenses from today, but rely heavily on my lenses from the 50's-80's. Once it comes to editing, I simply use dodge/burn, crop, aberration correction, exposure and white balance. I don't know what any of the other tools are and prefer not to know.

I really enjoy shooting film because it feels more purposeful. It takes patience, preparation and skill to make the negative 90% complete. Most of my film shots only require exposure adjustment and cropping. I don't think I've ever dodge/burned a negative and rarely do I crop as I like to compose in-camera. Strangely, my film shots are the best that I have and far superior to any digital shot that I've taken. Go figure.

I've only known one person that wanted to get into film, but it turned out to be for nothing more than the hipster kitsch factor. They took the few negatives and applied more filters and effects than I thought any one program had. What even was the point of the analog phase? Reminds me of J.J. Abrams bragging that he shot Star Wars on film. For what purpose? They just digitized everything and applied the After Effects gang-bang anyway.

When I was young, before stumbling into graphic design I loved art (still do). Of particular interest to me was anime art (once Robotech came out in 1985 I was hooked). But I had no drawing skills and I still don't. This is not anything I can draw or do.

So, for me, being able to pull stuff off the internet and use Photoshop to create art/wallpaper backgrounds for my own sole use and getting exactly what I'm looking for is a very big thing for me. My skills at it are nowhere near a pro level but it's good enough for what I use this stuff for and it makes me happy.

With wildly divergent content, eras, subjects and genres I'm able, via the computer, to produce something that never existed or could not logically exist in the real world. My only problem is that I am still not an artist. So I have to find the right art, modify it the way I want and assemble it. Sometimes there just is no art the exists for what I'm looking to do. I envy those who can create their own art.

But if I were stuck still using traditional tools there'd be no way I could achieve my designs.

 

[scubachap]

Started in graphics in 89. All drawing boards, PMT cameras etc. A couple of new macs in the corner which initially we started to use as typesetting machines. (Had a imagesetter in the dept upstairs - it was a major UK publishing house.) As we'd used Macs (Aldus Pagemaker? / Freehand?) a tiny bit at college (they bought a mac the year we were leaving) we were officially the 'experts'. Over the next 8 years we went from rotring pens, scapulas and spray mount to computer to plate. Really interesting times.

I actually think we were at our most efficient around 10 - 15 years ago. All the modern stuff and software allied to old school creativity / thinking and scheduling. Since around 5 - 10 years ago (in my world anyway) as that old school attitude has started to leave the building both physically and metaphorically and it's all pretty much started to fall apart. While I'm probably at my most creative and powerful in terms of capabilities I've never known such difficult times in terms of doing client work. Expectations are sky high, budgets are constantly being lowered, there is zero time to do anything and something that really surprises me is how little people commissioning the work understand or more importantly want to understand about the process... (In the old days you had to understand the process.) Even software companies (one in particular) have started to rent seek via subscription models and we're now starting reap the 'benefits' in terms of limited advancements but lots and lots of bugs to keep us on our toes. (Even Photoshop crashes on me these days...)

Agh! I'm off to lie down and take an indigestion tablet 😃

 

[KaliYoni]

I think anybody who wants to try their hand at painting, printing, playing music, photography, and any other form of art should be encouraged. I also strongly feel there are no absolutes in the arts; what is "good", "bad", "a masterpiece", or "degenerate" is a matter of culture, timing, and taste.

 

[MrCheeto]

@scubachap in every art form, I have seen what you're describing. The peak arrives when the old school grabs the reigns on the latest technology. Then, the new school comes in and simply emulates what they've seen with no understanding or respect for how it came to be.

I also strongly feel there are no absolutes in the arts; what is "good", "bad", "a masterpiece", or "degenerate" is a matter of culture, timing, and taste.

I guess it's kind of like parenting. Whether you provide your kids with what they need, encourage playing and exploring, let them learn hard lessons so they don't repeat them when the stakes are higher, or you pray that the iPad you gave them has enough reception that the videos don't freeze so the kid remains focused on Elsa and Spiderman rather than having any chance to make a sound to disturb your coffee date that turns into a coffee and wine binge, it's all just subjective and neither one is good or bad.

 

[eyoungren]

…and something that really surprises me is how little people commissioning the work understand or more importantly want to understand about the process... (In the old days you had to understand the process.)

I put that down to the pressure for sales.

Some amazing stuff has happened over time to either automate things or make them easier. We are at a point where people just think you can push a button and it's done. Likewise, they don't believe it should cost so much just to push a button. And they don't want to understand because that isn't their 'job'. That's YOUR job, is what they think. Push the dang button and make it happen!

Most of my major arguments, hassles and problems have all been to do with sales/ad reps promising a customer "X" and then trying to make me deliver the impossible on the back end. The sale is all important and if I don't deliver the customer could go somewhere else (and the rep loses their commission). So the reps get mad at ME when I don't or can't deliver on the impossible that they promised the customer.

Reps are important, they drive work to the business but I'm firmly of the opinion that misrepresenting what's possible in order to make a sale (and get that all important comission) is bad for all involved.

 

[MrCheeto]

It's only getting worse. Karen's are multiplying. They do not exist in reality. In Karen world, if you don't press the button and deliver magic and unicorns then they're calling the police. Also, you can't turn them away as a customer or else they'll call the police. Karen's now even comes in many forms and are harder to detect. It could even be your own parents!

Our economy is now so cut-throat and price-slash that reason, logic, even ethics are gladly sacrificed. What separates us from China now? The EPA. That's it.

 

[scubachap]

Also, we live in (very) interesting times. I do think they way people actually think is changing under the pressure of smart phones, social media and technology. People talk rightly about being in a second industrial revolution but this revolution isn't just changing our context as the original one did - it's actually starting to change what we are.

 

[ArchEtech]

There is definitely something lost when you lose that connection between the different mediums and your “paper”probably.

I still think the good outweighs the bad. No reason you can’t be skilled at both.