Before digital desktop publishing
Category: graphic design
Guess the typeface
Based on the publication date of this old book on how to build a log cabin, the typesetting of these pages was likely a Linotype machine.1
Typeface test.
1) Is the subtitle, Floor Joists, the typeface Future Bold?
2) Is the main body text Bodoni? Or Caslon?
NOTES:
1) For those interested in additional information on the history of printing and the Linotype machine…
Frank Romano, “Help Save the Linotype”, Museum of Printing (Haverhill, Massachusetts), accessed May 11, 2026, https://www.museumofprinting.org/news-and-events/help-save-the-linotype/
Magazine page layout mockups on tracing paper
Graphic designer’s library
Always learning. Always growing. A glimpse at a graphic designer’s library. Graphis Annual 84/85 The International Annual of Advertising and Editorial Graphics, Graphic Design Cookbook, Designer’s Guide to Color 5, and Best Practices for Graphic Designers, Grids and Page Layouts.
Ray Gun magazine
Stormy night reading
It was not the thunder or lightening that distracted me. It was the typeface. Was it the letter “s” or the letter “g” that offered a clue as to the typeface? Most likely Baskerville. But it could also be Caslon.
The wind and rain battered the window. The game’s afoot. The evidence was in a line across the page. Something about the letter “e” made me think I was wrong. The anatomy of the letter “e” features the eye on the top half of the oval. The finial is the tail and the open space between the top half of the letter and finial is the aperture.
The thunder faded as the rain slowed to a steady drizzle. It was the space of the aperture that made me consider that it was neither Baskerville or Caslon. For Baskerville, the eye should be higher and finial lower with a greater space in the aperture. But since this book was printed before the 1970s, maybe the original Baskerville typeface for Linotype looked different when printed. Computer typesetting replaced photo typesetting. And photo typesetting replaced Linotype. Maybe the form of the letters changed from Linotype Baskerville to digital Baskerville. The lights flickered but remained on.
The storm moved east. The downspout outside the window burbled from the rain. And I forgot what I had been reading. A mystery? Something about heroes.
What do you do with old notebooks?
Graphic designers solve problems. They educate clients as much as they create products for clients.
In an old Action Book journal, I sketched the details and differences between two options for a picture book. Most people see picture books all the time, but may not be aware of how they are put together. This sketch helped illustrate for the client and author how best to plan for their project.
That client meeting was years and years ago. Now I have stacks and boxes of these design journals. From time to time, I open these journals to reference an idea or sketch. But maybe it is time to start recycling them.
Veer stock photo catalogs
Veer Image Showcase #3, Home Room
Veer Image Showcase #2, Blogger
Veer Image Showcase #2
Stock photo CDs catalog page
MAC-based production
Retro Photoshop user interface
“Does starting a design on the computer… make designers conceptually lazy?”
Legacy design software package
Adobe Photoshop 6.0 print ad
Graphis magazine
Dry transfer lettering pages
Typeface catalogs
Interlibrary loan system
The interlibrary loan system provides access to books. Books that are not available at the local rural public library. Books requested using the library system’s web site arrive as they are available. Sometimes the combinations of titles display a curious serendipity. Slow Productivity. And History of Graphic Design Volume 1 1890 – 1959.
The principles featured in Slow Productivity appear to contrast with the other book. At least at first glance.
Graphic design projects and tasks were once defined by art and drafting skills. Tactile skills of cutting an oval with an X-Acto knife for a Rubylith overlay sheet. Or drafting skills of using a T-square ruler and triangle to layout the ad copy for an advertisement. Or the skill of painting a headline with gouache paints or pigment inks. Or the photographic skills of loading, shooting, processing, and printing 35mm film. Graphic design work prior to the 1990s required more physical activity. Often, a design shop featured multiple creative talents. A photographer. An illustrator. A copywriter. A director and assistant. A typographer and designer. A videographer and film and audio editors. That is a team of ten creatives. Now graphic design projects and tasks encompass project management and problem solving. And a single designer needs to do the work of ten creatives.
Can graphic designers do their projects and tasks without burnout? That is the question. And, maybe, that is where the interlibrary loan library books compliment each other. Can the past inform the present? And future? And, more uregently, can I read these books before they are due back to the library?
The visible and invisible nature of graphic design
To be asked to design a logo is part of the job. It is what I do. Among other daily and weekly design projects and tasks.
To design a logo that will be attached to the coverage of local and national news about the 2020 Democratic National Convention coming to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, . . . well, that is still part of the job. And to get it done in time to make the weekly print edition. That is also what I do.
So, I worked fast. Logo needed to be ready for print and digital in two days. I threw some digital sketches together in Adobe Illustrator. Drank more coffee.
I used multiple artboards for easy of digital workspace. Played with ideas including an outline of the state of Wisconsin and then settled on the skyline of Milwaukee. Inspired by Robert Lenz’s The People’s Flag of Milwaukee design, I built the color palette in that direction. Chose a typeface. Presented the logo design.
Once the logo design was approved, I applied the logo to various formats and platforms including mobile, print, web and animated video.
I had big expectations that this logo would receive a lot of local and national attention. People would see this logo in print, online and at events. And then something happened between February and March.
Things began to slide sideways. By April, all events that featured this logo were cancelled. Print and digital ads were pulled. And those 50,00 visitors expected to materialize in Milwaukee this week. Well friends, let’s just say things didn’t go as planned.
The animated logo I designed was part of a presentation to an intimate crowd of business leaders at Miller High Life Theatre in February. And that is the last time it really sparkled and shined.
Disappointed? Yes. A little. But there are plenty of other design projects to work on.
Graphic design is funny that way. It is the most visible and the most invisible of trades.
Something in front of you right now was designed by some unseen modern peasant who worked long hours with short deadlines to launch a web site, create mobile app interface or digital user experience, design a slideshow presentation, pull together a single slate screen or lower thirds graphic for video and so on. Graphic design has multiple disciplines. Maybe even interdisciplinary.
Well-crafted graphic design may only get a glance. But that is all it needs to complete its function.
Unbound sketchbook
What do you do when you find a 15-year old sketchbook with at least two dozen blank pages at the end of it? This sketchbook was something used many years ago to compose page layouts ideas.
It may be that as a young graphic designer I required the use of pen, ink, and paper to organize thoughts and ideas before turning to the digital tool of computer and software to complete a magazine page layout. Or a book layout. Or whatever design project it was that I was working on at the time.
Even back then, a lot of creatives were skipping the hand-drawn phase of graphic design and moving to digital sketches. I was one of those designers too. It did not take long to adapt to digital sketches using Quark Xpress or PageMaker. External and internal clients did not understand these hand-drawn sketches. I quickly understood that these initial sketches were best served between fellow creatives. A form of pictorial shorthand.
Sketches using human figures engaged clients. A point of connection. Composing advertisements and editorial layouts was enjoyable. Even when it was poorly drawn it was pleasurable. It was exciting to explore and play out ideas on pages. To balance text and image. To push the elements toward asymmetrical tension.
Sometimes referred to as “mock ups” or “work ups,” these comps (jargon for compositions) often featured ad copy or editorial headlines that I wrote. I preferred writing my own copy rather than using dummy copy, greeking, or some other form of gibberish used to represent where text was to be placed in design compositions.
These sketches bring back a lot of memories. Projects completed. Projects that never were approved. Abandoned. Like the craft of sketching designs and ideas.
I needed something to prop up the office laptop computer in order to avoid a kink in my neck as I work on print and web design tasks. MacBook Pros are not ergonomically designed. An old keyboard was located. And then a Kensington trackball mouse. And an old, unbound sketchbook. That did the trick.
This work-from-home solution is not ideal. There are days when my children see that I spend most of the time reading and replying to emails, joining video conferences, and moving file icons across the desktop to various folders synched to cloud-based servers. Graphic design looks so different from the point at which I joined the trade. It is less tactile.
The national safe-at-home quarantine allowed me to build a wood desktop and a wood stand-up-desk solution for the laptop, keyboard, trackball workplace arrangement. And the 15-year old sketchbook? Well, paging through the collection of ideas and designs. . . after a long hiatus, I began sketching and drawing on the empty pages at the end of the book.
Flood Fine Arts Gallery poster design
Back in February, I came across an event poster I designed. Shot all the photos. Including the white elephant. It was a child’s toy. Laid out the type and and composed the image for the event.
The poster was almost almost tossed into the trash. Early spring cleaning. But that morning I heard Garrison Keillor read “Admiring Audubon’s Carolina Parakeets” by Rose McLarney on the February 6th podcast of The Writer’s Almanac. She was a featured poet at that Asheville event.
Memories of Asheville poetry readings returned to me. The night I heard Thomas Rain Crowe and Coleman Barks reading Hafiz and Rumi poems. Rose McLarney was a rising poet. The Flood Fine Arts Gallery provided the space and community for poets young and old to share and grow.
That summer grew me as well. June 16th, there were two poetry readings I did in Durham. Later that summer I enrolled in a 5-week writing course. And received a scholarship to attend a writers residency in Queen City.
Those were different times. All good memories. But what to do with this poetry event poster I designed?
Coffeehouse Junkie 