Anyone currently working as a creative or designer has at their disposal a remarkable range of software that provide amazing tools for generating graphics. Over time, we’ve seen the Adobe family of products ascend through sequential numbers (e.g. Adobe® Photoshop® 6.0; Adobe Illustrator® 9.0) to finally reach the Suite spot (see CS1, 2, 3 or 4). I’ve used Adobe products for years. I still marvel at the ease, precision and immediacy in which creative tasks are achieved. One such task is spinning type in an arc or along a path.
Back when dinosaurs roamed, type was ordered from a typesetter in the size that you determined you needed. Within a day, or maybe overnight for those special “rush” jobs, you’d get back your galley of proofed b/w type. Then the fun began. With a brush of rubber cement or a pass of hot wax, your type galley was prepared with adhesive on its back side. This was necessary for securing it to the production board of your created art work (ad, brochure, package label, etc.).
However, before you could position your type in an arced or spun fashion, you’d use your X-Acto® blade and cut out the line of type from the galley. Then, your steady hand would cut between words, even individual characters if necessary, without cutting completely through the piece of set type. The purpose of this was so you could take your “straight” section of type and be able to bend it to fit the desired arc. Usually, as a guide, you’d have the arc drawn on a piece of tracing tissue that was affixed to the production board.
Using this guide, and tweezers, you’d position the cut type under the tissue and “spin” it into the desired arc shape. Piece of cake. And don’t forget to burnish it securely to the board, so you don’t need to go through the whole process again. Lose type off a final production board and you’d learn the true meaning of the word “anguish.”
Today, with mouse in hand, we simply reach within the InDesign® or Illustrator toolbox and create a path or shape. Then, within a nanosecond, we place text along it with little thought given to how beautifully easy this function was done. Certainly this serves as an example of how the good ol’ days truly aren’t as gratifying as the present.
Jim Malik
Art Director
