The Letter

I've received a really cool letter from the Lowlands yesterday! Awesome! It came from my ex colleague [Gerrit Rietveld Academy] and friend Christiaan. I can't explain what it means to me because some of you out there reading these lines probably won't have a clue what I'm talking about but let me give it a try and let me explain my sentiment... If you still don't understand then leave a comment for me to answer...

I'm a graphic designer [and multimedia designer] for 18 years already. When I started to learn how to produce camera ready artwork at some advertising agency 18 years ago, there was no such thing as a computer for design, print work or digital printing etc. I had to produce each and every brochure, leaflet, business card, poster, annual report-layout [etc.] manually: spending time in the darkroom producing raster images and at the drawing board, waxing and cutting text on paper output, placing all the elements on the layout, using registration and crop marks. Office automation had only just started and I was the first to learn at that advertising agency, on one of the first Apple Macs...

Typesetting [presentation of textual material in graphic form on paper or some other medium] was still a proper profession at print shops. This was all, way before desktop publishing became more popular for publishing than typesetting and the olden days things started to vanish... Anyway, the envelope that I got from Christiaan is one that he printed himself in 1976. 1976! I was still a girl drawing pictures and gazing out of windows catching a glimpse of some bug flying about. Living in my own little world not knowing what I would become later... [I actually wanted to become a nurse *I hear you think*]

So it has value to me because it's old, it's Christiaan's and he designed and printed it himself, typesetting and not using some fancy CPU. Getting his fingers dirty with ink, the real deal! It's only a vague memory to me since I found myself on the edge of transformation back then when I started my career. I have done the manual stuff but for two years or so before agencies slowly started to convert to computers. But the smell of ink and the sound of a Heidelberg is something you'll never forget!

Thanks Christiaan for sending me something truly special!!! What a lovely surprise...