Design and Technology

Is technology driving design today? Do designers limit their creativity based on what their apps can do? Are the tools stamping an identity on their work? Is Photoshop's ability to simplify the complicated affecting their decisions on the creative process?

These are real questions designers often never give a second thought to. That's probably because there are other pressing worries. Like deadlines, cost restrictions, production limitations or worst yet, client's preference.

This is a far cry from how I started in the graphic industry. I never started as an Advertising man. My early discipline was design. We call it communications design, but in a nutshell it was just graphic design that works.

Back then, graphic designers had different tools, other worries and computers were only for scientists. The closest thing we had to a computer was the LED calculator or digital watch (a rave in the late seventies). Instead, we designers struggled with technical pens, NT Cutters, cow-gum, steel rule, set squares, T-squares, ruling pen, poster colours, acrylic, felt pens, french curves, tracing papers and later, the expensive air-brush and it's noisy compressor.

Then, there were those dry transfers, the famous Letraset and for any kind of text apart from large headlines, we turned to typesetters and their bromides.

I am sure all my graphic designers are scratching their heads reading all these foreign names. But these were our Photoshops and InDesigns back then. And we needed our hands. Skilled hands to use them. It took me 6 months in art school to learn how to skillfully use the NT Cutter, not to cut but to shape our typography, technical pen drawings and diecuts.

We knew exactly how our 0.1, 0.2, 0.35, 0.5 Rotrings would draw, and when they needed cleaning. We knew how to angle them so that the lines would be the correct thickness. We knew how to glide them over our art paper so that they don't scratch the paper and we could clean them out with our cutters without leaving a mark. Skills that took years.

Then there's our cow-gum. We pride ourselves on who has the biggest chunk of dirty cow-gum balls. And some may not admit it, are addicted to gum-sniffing. On leave and they go through withdrawals. And how can I go back in time and not mention the light tables. Every graphic designer must have one. And we needed them to see all those positive slides. There were no such thing as digital photos. Instead of Megapixels, we had 35mm or 120mm.

What am I driving at? Designers back then had to work with tools and their limitations. The work we produce had "a look" because of these tools. But creativity were never limited by them, only the expressions of creativity were.

Today, designers work on their Macs and Adobe's suite of software. They are still tools, like our technical pens and set squares. But they are much more efficient. The only difference apart from the speed of execution is that mistakes are very forgiving. There are the "undos" and "save as". We don't have that back then. Mistakes often mean starting all over from scratch.

When we take photos, we don't get to see what we took until it was developed. We needed to be sure of our exposures and depth-of-field. Our composition and focus. The one thing technology did for us was to allow cheap experiments. We can afford to "try and see". That actually allow designers today to explore possibilities better. And it's a positive.

I guess at the end of the day, when you have acquired competent skills in using your tools, the techniques and the methods no longer get in the way of your creativity. And that's what every designer should strive towards. Always remember, these are tools for you to create. The focus is in your creativity and the tools should deliver your ideas and not limit it.

That is why I admire young designers who still take out their pads and scamp, sketch and scribble before they launch their programme. They are exploring and looking at ideas and not allowing the process of creating affect their creativity. Ideas are intangible, and they must never loose that.