It seems like a million years ago now, but I remember how exciting the field that I fell into was when I first started.
Flashback to 1986 or so, I had just gotten out of what was to be my second enlistment in the Marines. I say ‘was to be’ because I never finished my second enlistment… hell, I had barely had a year in on my second tour. To keep it brief I had received a medical/honorable discharge after being hit by a car.
But this is not a story about my time in service, that I will tell you another time. This is a story about the career that chose me for close to 25 years. You might be thinking that I’m talking about music, or porn for that matter… not this time. This is talking about my career as a Graphic Designer, or whatever label you wish to call it now. It started out as Desktop Publisher which is just as foreign and confusing a name as ‘stripper’ is.
It started out as most careers start. I needed a job. I had dabbled in building houses for a short time until it got too cold (Cape Cod winters are pretty frigid). Then I worked as a line cook at a deli, Piccadilly Deli, to be exact. I was a Disc Jockey on a Classic Rock radio station (PIXY 103), and I was going to College. It’s amazing how much stamina we have in our youth. Sleep? Pffft. Over-rated.
By no means did I understand this statement when a college friend presented it to me…
“Hey Dave, we need help at Gnomon Copy.”
I looked at my friend with the most puzzling look and replied, “Copy? Do people make copies? Of what?”
That was the beginning. It was more out of curiosity than anything, but mostly it was because I needed cash. From copies, it went into paste-up, to computer design, labels, business cards… stuff like that. I won’t bore you with the details of my work life so I will narrow it down to just the highlights because I know in the back of your mind you are asking yourself…
“Who is Arthur the Stripper?”
One of my last jobs in Massachusetts was managing a copy shop on Main Street in Greenfield. As luck would have it I got fired (It wouldn’t be the last time either). Let’s just say that I have learned through all of my mistakes. Because Necessity is the Mother of Invention I decided to start my own design business. It was actually picking up traction when my partner decided that we were moving to Florida and because I wanted to honor my partners’ decision (we had only been married a month) and again that curiosity thing that I had mentioned above, had its grasp on me. We headed to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida where I was hired almost immediately at a print shop. I’m talking big Heidelberg 4-6 color printing presses. I was hired to help make the transition from paper to computer. For those of you that don’t know about the ‘olden days’, customers used to create their designs by pasting their pictures, text, etc. together on this blue-lined paper (the blue wouldn’t be picked up by the stat cameras when shot). You’re going to have to Google what that means. Ha!
My job, as I stated was to get the client to supply, on floppy discs, their documents, or I would sit with them to design their ads on the computer. Not an easy task. It’s like asking a baby to write out the formula for Newtons’ Law of Thermodynamics. Once I convinced these toddlers that I would make magic for them, they would eventually conform to this theory, which, as we see today… it worked. I would then print their design to film.
The old Linotronic 300, I believe that is what it was. When they first came out the film would stretch and the crop marks wouldn’t line up. You see we had to print out Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black or K as they called it (CMYK). I hope I’m not losing you here… I’m really trying to make a point of all of this nonsense.
Remember Arthur? The Stripper?
In the other room, we had these HUGE light tables with people hunched over them with little magnifying glass things called ‘loops’. Their job was to ‘strip’ the film together. They would do it by lining up the crop marks, shooting the film and then getting it ready for the big old printing presses.
Remember I said that the crop marks wouldn’t line up when I printed out the film from the computer? That is where Arthur steps in.
“You damned kids and your computers!”
It was on a daily basis that this old film stripper, Arthur, would come into the computer room yelling and screaming at me because the crop marks wouldn’t line up and he would have to spend extra time cutting the film apart to make it work. Arthur was ‘old school’. He was a stripper for the New York Times back in the ’50s and ’60s. Back when massive rooms were filled with these light tables and people hunched over them. A dead art now, long gone. Most of these people ended up embracing the computer world and leaving their loops behind.
I feel like Arthur now. I’m the ‘old school’ Graphic Designer and ‘those damned kids’ are now my competition. Most of my design friends are still plugging away, and some have faded away.
Arthur never embraced the computer world. He went into retirement and probably never looked at a computer nor a cellphone for that matter. As much as I feel like Arthur now I don’t have the option of retirement. Long gone are the long-lasting jobs. There is no more loyalty in the job market. We’ve turned our loyalty to the almighty dollar. Conform or die.
I don’t want to leave this on a sour note, I want to inspire. So, that being said, as you conform yourself throughout the years to come, ask yourself…
Is what you are doing serving humanity? Because if it is not, you are wasting your time. Maybe Arthur had it right after all.
