Miami, FLDesign Background
When we started in graphic design, more than 35 years ago, we used hot wax and X-Acto knives to literally cut and paste headlines in place. Copy had to be typed up, run across town for approval/revisions, run back across town to the typesetter, output the next day and glued into place. We had a stat camera that took up a whole room and required weekly chemical changes and cleaning. Back then, color separations for a full-page, full-color magazine ad could run into the thousands of dollars. And they had to be shipped by Federal Express. It cost tewnty-five bucks to print out a high-resolution black & white ad slick for the newspaper. The courier company kept a driver stationed in our parking lot for urgent delivers to the newspaper. When we purchased one of the first Fax machines in town, (we also put one in a large client’s office) it was like adding another day to the week.
We have not see the FedEx guy for years and the Fax machine is getting pretty dusty. Photoshop packs more power than that stat camera ever did. And those service bureaus who charged so much for separations, they’re gone. Full color magazine ads and print layouts are emailed or delivered by FTP. We log in to the Miami Herald or South Florida Sun-Sentinel or Chicago Tribune FTP site and upload ads in digital form. In fact, we helped the Miami Herald develop their file delivery protocol way back in the late 1990s after an ad vanished from their system. (Car dealers get really, really mad when their ads don’t run!)
Over the past five years we’ve created graphics, website, emails and digital print files for the Printing Association of Florida. When the state’s largest printing trade association hires you to do their graphics, you must be doing something right. After all, nobody knows graphics better than printers. Put us to work on your project.
Comments or questions are welcome.