Why did it have to change?
Setting up a business in 1990 was such a stupid idea. We were in another recession, but one we thought was ending when we started the business, not just beginning! But we did and had to equip our business with latest technology!
Our first mobile phone (well not so mobile), referred to as First Generation or 1G, was from the Motorola Company. Not particularly reliable, it weighed about the same as a small bag of cement and had a battery life of a few moments. When that baby was perched on the front seat of my second hand Ford Sierra 1.6GL (in metallic gold) I felt like I had really arrived. Ironically, driving that old Sierra around often meant that I didn’t.
Our studio was equipped with the latest Agfa Repromaster darkroom camera, our first capital purchase at £9500. It was a beast. It even had an integrated densitometer, which we never really understood. Weighing in at around 3 baby elephants, installing it in our 2nd floor studio was a mission in itself.
You could have been forgiven for thinking we were a paper stockist, with all the CS10 art board, trace overlay paper, and of course the obligatory bleed proof paper for colour marking up, all crammed into a series of plan chests that filled up half the floor space in our little offices.
But it was all necessary to produce the large artwork boards we needed for client sign off. Typesetting was ordered in by the van load and with surgical precision, the studio would cut it all in with a scalpel, in an attempt to make it look like something similar to Phil’s concepts. We were good.
A slip of the scalpel at 3.00am and there was always Letraset!
Visits to client were always a challenge, as anything larger than a 12-page brochure would require a packing case to transport the artwork boards for client approval. PDFs, e-mails, copy in word documents, jpeg images? Oh no! We are talking about large boards, transparencies, and documents typed on a small Olivetti one-line green screen computer. It was a physical business back then. Sinead used to love doing the estimates, printing them out on our new dot matrix printer.
I can vividly remember saying to everyone, we will never invest in typesetters and computers, as were craftsmen and designers, and our skills are about the thinking process; something that a computer will never replace. Well I was right on one thing; we are still designers…and hopefully still craftsmen, but in a completely different world. Big changes were afoot.
Our first Apple Macintosh LC 111 Color Classic arrived in 1992, but a classic it was not. Though quicker than before, everything still seemed to take an age. Finally in 1998 our world changed and iMacs arrived, all in different, exciting colours. They had to be the right tool for the job as they looked like they had been designed. We owed Steve Jobs a great debt, in both senses of the word.
I was a Luddite and exclaimed that I did not need to use technology even if our studio did. Too late. Netscape, DNS, Windows, Java and surfing the internet was all well under way. In a tidal wave of technology I had to either surf or drown.
21 years have passed in the blink of eye.
A technology revolution occurred quicker than we could ever have imagined, making the industrial revolution look like a turgid process. It changed the whole world. Is it for the better? Absolutely.
I am still excited about the journey we are on; what it can deliver, not just to our business but also to everyone. We are a connected society and able to communicate in so many more ways than I ever imagined. These are exciting times and we continue to embrace the change, though sometimes it feels more like wrestling.
Yes it’s tough out there. Global markets are in melt down, business has suffered and the banking institutions do what they do best in hard times; nothing. We have to continue to find new ways to be creative and remain as passionate about what we do for our clients. It’s about engagement, getting closer to everything and everyone. Ever the optimist, I see a brighter future for everyone who wants a brighter future.
Can I do it for another 21 years? Probably not, but I work with a great bunch of youngsters who can.
Onwards and upwards.
Paul Carter, Managing Director
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