The Graphic Designer's Guide to Portfolio Design, 3rd Edition

Preface

Computers? In art? I remember telling my boyfriend (later to become my husband) Glenn that computers would never be used in art. As I watched him carry those long boxes of computer punch cards to class each week, I chuckled, secure in the knowledge that artists had no need for computers. How wrong I was!

Back when I studied graphic design and art in college, you learned how to prepare art for printing with materials such as Rubylith and stat cameras. Rubylith was a thin, semitransparent acetate material that was used to block out areas of color. I remember spending hours cutting CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and key) color separations with an X-ACTO knife. Type involved an even crazier process. You would go to a gigantic drawer filled with type of various sizes and styles and pick the sheets of type that were closest to the sizes you needed, because, unlike today, type came in only a few sizes. Then you would use Popsicle sticks to laboriously rub (or set) the type in place on the page. Stat cameras gave you the ability to “resize” your type through the photographic reproduction method. You would first photograph the type, then enlarge it and paste it down on the final boards. My tools of choice in those days were the T square, the triangle, and my trusty non-photo blue pencil, which I used to draw lines and grids for the type. Naturally, it took forever to build a layout. Who knew that only ten years later, I would be teaching computerized page layout to a whole new generation ...