If there is one thing the article on April Greiman that has stuck with me it’s this: technology is advancing faster than we actually realize. This article was written around the late 80s and it has been 20 years since then, that’s almost a quarter of a century. In almost one quarter of a century ago digital art was just emerging (pioneered by artists such as April Greiman who continues to experiment in the digital field). By today’s standards the digital tools used to make this art are primitive to say the least. The program Greiman uses is not familiar to me (it’s called Graphic Paintbox) but they do mention the application of Photoshop in her work. One of the most surprising things to me was the cost of this program: $400,000! That is at least 40 times the price of similar software today, something that I integrate so much in my work used to cost the price of a small mansion.
The reason I find this leap in technological advance so surprising is because (as I have just stated) digital art is my forte. Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and all the others; these are the tools I use most often in my work. Therefore I find this article amusing in it’s excitement over a digital design that could be made (all processes of layout and printing included) in minuets with today’s technologies. It’s worth mentioning that the article actually does emphasize the fact that the emerging digital tools sped up the design process. However, this only pertains to the process of layering the design and later on Todd Hays (the author of the article) mentions that the printing aspect is still complicated and time consuming.
At the same time this was still faster than any other design method and was actually revolutionary. Although Greiman sounds like she doesn’t know exactly how Graphic Paintbox works she nevertheless used the relatively new tools she had and experimented. I myself work in that way, playing around with the program before actually learning how it works, and for Greiman it was a step into new territory. Although I don’t quite agree with the poster she designed, which feels so much like early 90s graphics (something I have come to dislike over the years), it’s worth some merit that this was a style not seen before.
Even as I discuss this article and marvel at the gap between technological advancements I realize that in another 20 years I’ll look back on today and find the CS5 set amusing. “Photoshop and Illustrator?” I’ll say with a nostalgic grin, “wow that was back in the day when we actually worked on a computer. It’s so much better working from a brain chip computer implant.” There will always be something new to replace the old with new technologies that outstrip the previous models. The best I can do as a designer is keep an open mind and experiment with the tools I’ve got.
Museum Piece:
· Computers have made design faster and more fluid.
· Greiman was one of the first designers to experiment with this new digital field.
· Such technologies at the time were rather expensive but limited in the commands they included.
· Greiman pioneered the use of hybrid imagery (whatever that means).
· The emerging digital process (although faster in the layout process) still required time and effort when it came time to print.
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