30 Years Surviving the Transition Through the Digital Age of Graphic Design
By Daniel Gallant
From Self-Starter to Branding Professional, I look back at my history and trace the evolution (or is it revolution?) of this dawning era often called the “Digital Age,”and the ground level impact technology has on Advertising and Marketing.
In 1988 when I wandered into an apprenticeship and a small print design & production firm called Bleu Aura, I had barely ever seen a computer, let alone worked on one. I am embarrassed by my lack of foresight. As in high school I didn’t even bother to take typing. I was thinking I was going to be an artist, so why should I bother? Ah youth.
My Simple Origins
I didn’t really wander into the apprenticeship. There was a connection. There always is.
I started drawing at a very early age. Then upon reading my first comic book, I began transitioning towards telling stories through comic art. Later that would translate as a core approach to graphic design. My interest in storytelling went into overdrive when I went to stay with my Grandparents and Uncle back in Canada for 7th grade. My Uncle Greg, who was only 5 years older, and was also a huge comic fan and burgeoning comic artist. We bonded like I was the kid brother he never had. And sometimes didn’t want. His stewardship was incredible. Not surprising, later he took on the moniker of “Seth” and went on to become one of the most celebrated artist/comic creator/designers in Canadian history as well as US and international fame.
Fast forward a few years and the Hardcore Punk scene of the early 1980s came into full swing. While most of my friends joined bands, instead I started drawing comics and artwork for the scene. In no time I got my first publishing break with Scream Magazine, a literary art magazine with comix. I contribute illustrations and comics for a few issues when suddenly Bleu Aura began producing Scream. So the connection.
Bleu Aura had the screwball notion that they could create an ad/marketing agency that could sell comics as ads for the advertising world. I now know that such models did exist, but the only successful ones were created by famous comic creators.
First Days of Desktop Publishing
One day I stood there facing a brand-new Mac II computer with a 21 inch Raster Ops monitor. A 20K set-up back in 1988. Despite knowing nothing, they asked several of us if we wanted to do some work? With some guidance from my art director Rick Koobs, I was up and running quickly with some basic design & production skills and the beginnings of understanding typography. Fortunately, Bleu Aura’s management realized their comic book advertising scheme was a bust and quickly began picking up production work.
In the late 80s, Adobe Illustrator and PageMaker were in their first years and Photoshop was still a few years away. Anyone remember Laser Paint? To my surprise, I took to understanding the applications very quickly. The money was terrible, but I had found a few mentors. And they found an employee with strong work ethic.
Up until then I survived waited tables. My only job remotely related to graphic design was as a camera operator at a silkscreen sign company. I would camera shoot B&W 5-foot designs onto stats or film and the paste-up department did the rest. Through osmosis I did gain a little experience doing paste-up when people vacationed. It was a slow and precise process. I didn’t dislike the work but didn’t feel driven towards it either. That era was almost over anyway, so it didn’t really matter. Once that job ended, I finally found my way to college.
When I began working for Bleu Aura, I was also still going to East Carolina University. It was THE art school in North Carolina. I believe it still is. We were on summer break, so the timing to try something new was exactly what I needed. I knew instinctively that if there was an opportunity to get into a creative profession in any capacity, I was going to take it.
One thing that I quickly observed was that few Agencies around us were using computers. Those that did, were just using them for type galleys so they didn’t have the grueling task of camera shooting movable type galleys anymore. Otherwise they were still pasting up everything by hand. “Desktop Publishing” as it was called at the time was quite a dirty word among my peers. That was the first time I realized was doing something in front of the curve.
Agencies soon began coming to Bleu Aura, as they also had inhouse film and stat printers. Though they weren’t formally a “Service Bureau,” they had the beginnings. Historically, the age of the Service Bureau was still a year or 2 away. I began meeting people in the industry and next thing I know I didn’t return to school.
As is typical, work became feast or famine, and a few agencies later, suddenly it’s 1993. I am faced with another transition. My current boss was shifting to more of a Service Bureau production model. I already had plenty of computer production skills, and really wanted to continue grow towards creative directions. A friend, Electric Bill, suggested I take an office next to him and armed with some new clients, Gallant Studios was born.
By this time, design and production was primarily being created or merged on computers, but most everything else still belonged in the traditional world. Even other creative fields like photography and most types of illustration were still done much like they had been for the last half century.
THE PROCESS WAS ALSO MUCH MORE HANDS ON THAN TODAY.
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You took info and edits over the phone or via fax. Or you went to meetings on site.
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It was very simple and primitive. Files had to be super tiny or split into multiple archives to transmit.
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When you needed film separations, high resolution proofs and color prints for presentations, they were done at a Service Bureaus where you brought the files on disk(s).
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Typically, the Service Bureau sent film and proofs wherever the ad was being inserted or couriered to the client to handle. Other standalone projects were sent directly to a printer to be stripped into the format that worked for traditional printing.
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You charged an impressive amount of money for media & shipping and all the run around time. Some designers marked up the physical costs, but I always thought it was more honest just charging for the time.
Then the Internet Happened
Most of my older clients were still just barely using email and suddenly there it was. It was also dial-up and it was highly decentralized by today’s standards, but it felt real and connected in its elusive way.
Within a year even my biggest client, CP&L, the regional electric utility wanted to create a website. It all happened that fast. All I can say is I am glad they replaced that website quickly with something more professional. But I was proud of the achievement. Then another client wanted one. And another. And then digital advertising followed. There was apprehension by companies at first as legal and marketing best practices were vague at best. Most advertising was placed on early portal websites whose activity was based on linking websites for specific industries and areas of expertise.
In the meantime, by the end of the 90s, my technological advantage was fading. My early adoption kept me more digitally advanced than many of my peers, but I was at a crossroads as to where I was heading with my business. My design firm had grown, and I was concentrating on logo development and my strong but simple design style focused on the visual side of Branding and its deployment. And during this same period, I had also gained some recognition as a comic artist and publisher in the indie market.
I was suffering from having divided interests. Truth be told, though I stewed on it for months, the comic publishing world was taking a major downturn, making the choice simple. Though I continued to do occasional comics projects and certainly commercial Illustration, Brand Marketing became my studio’s passion and focus.
Embracing the Tech Market
I wasn’t lost, but I knew I needed to get caught up understanding technology trends.
I was doing website Branding, content development and UI work, but the real power lay with service partners: my developer friends and associates. Though I am sure with effort I could have picked up some level of programming skills, it really felt like it went against my creative focus. This time I actively sought out a business partner.
I merged my business with a new friend who was a tech professional and had a small business. Within a year he was wooed away by the only significant customer he brought in our time together. Despite the short-lived loss, it did do the trick to get me strong hands-on experience with the basic application of technological of that time. And it pointed me toward the path to keeping up. And I did pick up new understanding related to wielding CMS and stopped shying away from CSS style sheets.
Downsizing after the partnership disbanded coupled with the tech bubble bursting and one would think that things were looking pretty glum. But that wasn’t the case.
A longtime client, now friend, Karin McNair, from back in my utility days bounced back into a new position and brought me with her. Initially she came to work for a small tech company that within a year got bought by GXS, a bigger tech company. Not too big though, as I quickly began doing much of the design/production work for marketing, which was primarily ad work and a lot of support collateral that needed constant updating. Most were for trade shows and events, which was another big chunk of my marketing work.
I once more became entrenched into corporate culture and used it to leverage my own skills and knowledge of the high-tech industry.
Transitioning Environments Create New Needs
Interestingly, though not a big focus, I made the conscious choice to begin doing more nonprofit work. I knew it was a money loser but appealing for the soul. The events and fundraising activities also complimented my skills for organizing and deploying Brand over a large swath of activity.
My first big break would be meeting PR specialist Scott Misner. We pitched and got the YWCA GT account. There was a slew of exciting new work to experience. And it felt like I was contributing to something really positive.
During all this, life moved forward. I got married and became a homeowner. Things I had avoided, letting my career take precedent. Seven years later my 2 daughters were born.
Quietly and while I was a little distracted, I let my high-tech client become 75% of my business. A critical error I was already aware of, because change always happens. Then they got bought by an even larger company. Sadly for me, one that had internal marketing. It ended after a fortunate transition where I converted 100s of documents of existing collateral into their new Brand, An appreciated piece of action that served as a sort of severance.
It took some time and retooling, but slowly new clients began to trickle in. I began sharing a space and actively partnering with PR buddy, Scott Misner, who had grown and needed a lot of marketing and design support. We cross-pollinated skills and shared clients.
Reinvigorating my network was harder now that many of my early contacts had moved out of the industry and even retired. Being associated with Scott opened new doors to new industries.
The high-tech industry was not done with me either. A past associate, Barbara Lehenbauer, recommended me for a fast turnaround User Conference at Elster. Pleased with the results, more work began to pour in. And just as things were starting to cook, they got bought by Honeywell. Fortunately, this time though they had internal resources, they also relied heavily of external vendors to do most of the work. I was able to continue the conference that was now significantly expanded. Bigger budgets also meant deploying to a wider digital footprint. Worksites and a Cvent app meant increasing my skill set in project management.
Between the nonprofit work and gaining some valued contacts at Honeywell, the mixed expertise of Branding and Event Branding had evolved with technology trends.
Social Media and Apps Simplify Things
My digital design skills expanded with evolving website development and new promotional spaces on the internet and through email marketing. Then Social Media felt like it sprung up overnight as the next big thing.
Reminded of the positive growth of the internet, and urging from PR, I began looking forward to my next frontier. Putting my love for research into play, I quickly realized designing for Social Media culture was a lot less about understanding technology and a lot more about psychology. I signed up for several services like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. It did not take long to get the bug as I began connecting with old friends and became active with showing off my art and seeing what art my friends and heroes were doing. I even started a digital comics publishing website and am promoting it.
In addition, because of the App revolution, the concept of complex UIs to navigate are almost a thing of the past. I had become quite the expert at skinning Brand on UIs used by customers. A valuable skill that melted away with ease of use. And a welcome change as most marketing began integrating with Social Media to inform people of events. Of course the greatest outlier being the relentless Wordpress add ons to keep us on our toes.
In recent years, my long-standing experience for doing marketing for different industries with little need for uptime began to return and play a larger role. Medical, Entertainment, Builder and Legal industries specifically have once again become a larger part of my work. All needing different degrees of Branding, Event Branding, and other digital work.
Websites continue to serve as a kind of calling card and hub for content. And we can see that every year businesses are more dominantly deploying marketing to Social Media. To my benefit, understanding the marketing side of Social Media, first meant to engage, entertain and even sometimes inform, has been a real benefit. Until the next big thing.
Conclusions
Looking back, I don’t see that there is any specific formula for longevity except to adapt and change with the times. Our paths are all different. Knowing when to shift your thinking, when to take an opportunity, when a sea change is upon you and when to climb on board and become a part of something new, are all things you use over time if you let it.
Let’s not forget that surviving 30 years in business is really mostly about getting to know some wonderful people and nurturing those positive relationships.
Now that my kids are in high school, and looking to the future, I don’t have the right words for what it was like to move from a traditional age into the digital age in a way that helps them see that the way they are doing things today will likely be completely different 30 years from now. But I am hoping just saying those words out loud will do the trick. A tidbit of wisdom that literally nobody gave me back when I was younger.