From Drawing Boards to Digital Screens

A personal history of graphic design and illustration

I come from an artistic family. Both my sisters and brother are accomplished, colourful artists. Ironically, I am colour blind, which is probably why I always preferred to work in black & white.

I began working as a graphic designer in a small print shop in Hammersmith, West London in 1981. This was right at the start of the ‘Digital Revolution’, but it would take a while to take over the entire industry. Back in those days everything was still 'analogue' and done by hand. Preparing artwork for print was a long, laborious process involving hand-drawn visuals, phototypesetting, Letraset, photo-mechanical transfers (a bit like a downward-facing camera the size of a small car), and the original version of ‘cut and paste’.

I used a draftsman’s drawing board to create layouts for what would eventually become business stationery, leaflets, and posters. Text was printed separately on typesetting machines (which then had to be processed like camera film used to be), then trimmed with scalpels, and glued (or coated with hot wax) onto boards before being photographed for printing plates. A simple letterhead could take days. Leaflets and advertisements, weeks.

The Digital Revolution kicks in

Desktop Publishing entered my professional life around the start of the 1990s. Equipped with an Apple Mac and an inkjet printer, what had previously taken hours could be achieved in minutes. Software such as QuarkXPress, Photoshop, and Illustrator gradually took over. 

Fortunately, I had always been able to make the most of new opportunities, so I quickly became proficient with these new tools.

Not everyone was so lucky, and a lot of skilled trades people left the industry. Fleet Street was one of the most visible casualties.

 

Back to the drawing board

My love affair with illustrating began when I was working for a small print firm in Chichester, West Sussex around 1993. My boss knew I liked drawing and asked if I could do an illustration of a customer’s house for a letterhead. The chap was so pleased with the result he began showing off to all his friends, who then wanted their own drawings done. Fortunately, I was able to arrange these privately, rather than my boss reaping all the financial rewards! (I hope he doesn’t read this. Sorry Dave.)

I did very little advertising as virtually all my work came via word-of-mouth. Hand-delivered leaflets to potential customers had little success. Although this was providing a much-needed income stream, the business model was a little limited, in that you could only sell an illustration of someone’s home once.  After being commissioned to draw a local pub as an anniversary gift for a lady’s husband, I realised I could make money by selling prints of public buildings.

 

The World Wide Web

By 1995 the internet was hatching. Thanks to Tim Berners-Lee it became more than simply an intellectual experiment, but something that everyone could use. Albeit v-e-r-y, v-e-r-y slowly, with dial-up modems that were positively neolithic compared to today’s super-fast broadband connections. These days you can download a high-res image in seconds, rather than over a lunch break.

Businesses were desperate to have a ‘website’ – although in the very early days this might just be a single page, with a company logo and a bit of text. I was already a bit of a ‘nerd’, having taught myself programming in ‘basic’ on my brother’s Apple IIE, so it was fairly easy to get to grips with HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and start building websites for customers.

The growth was exponential, and pretty soon I had to learn Cascading Style Sheets, JavaScript, and Flash. Then came the web-authoring tools that removed the need to write code and brought the concept of Desktop Publishing to webpage creation for the masses.

By the turn of the century the print industry was completely digital and virtually print-on-demand (before that became a thing).

 

Mid-life Crisis

In 2001 I left the print industry. By then I was a studio manager in Eastleigh, overseeing a team of designers who got to do all the fun stuff, while I sat in meetings and discussed budgets. I had drifted a long way from the creative work I loved. A change of direction was needed.

So, I went to university and eventually became a Social Worker. I still did the occasional illustration, but this definitely took a back seat to my new career in social care for the next 25 years.

 

Techno and me

Technology has moved on a bit from when I started. I now use a digital drawing board – a large touch-sensitive screen which reproduces the experience of drawing in ‘real’ pen & ink and provides the option to undo mistakes and try out ideas without destroying hours of work. It also allows me to zoom-in and produce much finer detail than was ever possible using traditional methods.