Thread: Convincing SWMBO so I can buy stuff

G'day BrisBen,

Ahh, those were the days! I made it into the Queensland College of Art studying Commercial Art, 1990-91.

I progressed from Finished Artist, freelance designer, Art Director and finally Creative Director at a place down here but eneded up starting on my own and will continue just to stay as a one man shop - my clients love the personal approach and I keep them happy so they continue to feed me.

Cow gum, talcum powder to keep the Crescent board clean, .25 Rotring pens - I still have all my rotrings and I have .25 in my cofffee mug of pens to remind me of the 'craft', not that todays bunch would know anything about them. I still even have a full set of Pantone grey markers that works - even thought they're about 9-10 years old. Counting copy to fit to lines, sending it out, comes back two days later then you cut, paste and often cut individual letters for better kerning. Mockups were mockups with Letraset type, coloured paper from Edwards Dunlop. Sweating it out in darkrooms making bromides.

Computers scared me when they came out - how could you do finished art on one we all thought. Agreat story is one night me and the other designer called a file the " F!@#$% up client copy" or something like that and forgot that the client would see the name of the file on the bromide, but they were still making changes at 6:00 on Christmas eve, they missed the deadline at the Courier Mail so we went home and couldn't give a hoot about it - they weren't happy with the file name.

Nowadays a layout is finished art, still do the thumbnails but it's a dying craft. Often I meet with a client for lunch but that's just a reason for a few ales and we reminis about the days of old. Like you say - nothing is better than a blank bit of paper and depending on the mood at the time determines how the layout turns out, the joy of seeing it printed and knowing that thousands of people will see it and them not knowing that you did it.

A copwriter was a good copywriter if he could do long copy that oozed passion and sold the product - nowadays it's a 5 liner with a picture.

And the rest of you lot are reading this are thinking whatthe! But it's the same as you lot get with taking a stick and making something into it. It seems BrisBen and I also share the passion of a blank bit of paper and smoking typography.

What ever shakes your tree.

Originally Posted by Waldo

And the rest of you lot are reading this are thinking whatthe! But it's the same as you lot get with taking a stick and making something into it. It seems BrisBen and I also share the passion of a blank bit of paper and smoking typography.

What ever shakes your tree.

I'm the 'rest of you' but I'm also a copywriter. On top of that, I get called upon to adapt German advertising texts for English-speaking markets. I too know the thrill of provoking a response with the wonderful weapons that are words. Still rather be in my workshop though....


Damien

Jeez Waldo

You used the thick tech pens, .15 was my fave!!

Besides, you could spend an hour on friday afternoon cleaning it

How many times have you had a "computer kid" come back to you and say "...what are all these sqiggles all over my design?" when you have marked up their type?

My ususal response was "that means you can drive a truck through that gap in the kerning!"

Back to the rotrings - my grandfather gave me a rotring biro and pencil set (600 series) for my 21st, the pencil sits next to my mac and the biro has spent most of the last 14 years either on my desk or in my top pocket. (the pencil has 2H lead in it now instead of non-repro blue)

Damien

I still appreciate the copywriters craft today as I did the first time I saw a great line (read as a great Idea) My first real CD was a writer.

What I appreciate even more is that clients can't attribute a great line/paragraph/idea to technology!

Far too many times did I see the $ value of a creative visual/graphic design debated by a client on the basis that "I could have come up with that..." but not one of them could ever write the headline.

Anyone can make a fancy picture, writers come up with the ideas., art directors make the pictures ...

Typographers make it look tidy

And designers drink coffee and talk about the existential feel of what we are trying to achieve...

Originally Posted by BrisBen

Jeez Waldo

You used the thick tech pens, .15 was my fave!!

My favorite was a .7, with that I could ink up logos etc nice and fast. One day I'll try and clean them and get them going again.

One thing I've always told others in agencies or under me, is to never let the client sit next to you on a Mac and find out how easy it is to make a change, for good reason.

Squiggles? Would the kids graduating today know what they mean?

It's a craft I never want to lose my passion for, the power to instill a desire to have - even though the consumer may not want it, but to convince them that they do, or to turn the mundane into something beautiful by design, colour and typography.

How often do I quote on a job for x hours but sometimes take more than x hours to work it and perfect it. Other times and often I do overquote because there is a value to what I do and can hopefully achieve for my clients. The best example is bread and butter p/ads - simple to do and take 1/6th of the time that I charge for.

So who else comes from this background? We've got Damien and BrisBen.

Originally Posted by Waldo

Cow gum, talcum powder to keep the Crescent board clean, .25 Rotring pens - I still have all my rotrings and I have .25 in my cofffee mug of pens to remind me of the 'craft', not that todays bunch would know anything about them. I still even have a full set of Pantone grey markers that works - even thought they're about 9-10 years old. Counting copy to fit to lines, sending it out, comes back two days later then you cut, paste and often cut individual letters for better kerning. Mockups were mockups with Letraset type, coloured paper from Edwards Dunlop. Sweating it out in darkrooms making bromides.

Sigh.

Believe it or not fellas, all that is just one small part of what was once the architectural process too... so I get the same nostalgic flashbacks. To make matters worse I worked for a couple of years as assistant to a bloke who shared space with a two-man agency, so I got plenty of late-night experience on your side of the fence too.

Only thing is, I predate Rotring pens, but not by much!:eek: :eek: My first pens were made by Pelikan, and weren't much evolved from those drafting pens that had two bits of steel adjusted with a thumb screw.

Ink was India Ink which we made from powder, and hand lettering was the norm.

And that was less than 40 years ago!

I wonder what will become of so many of those skills though, will they be resurrected by enthusiasts in the same way that the use of hand tools is?
Cheers,

P (feeling positively ancient)