GRAPHIC design and the computer may enjoy a cosy relationship but it hasn't always been this way. When the Macintosh first began to appear in design studios, many felt alarmed by its very presence. After all, the vast majority of graphic designers had graduated from college without any hands on computer training, and even those in college when the Macs hit the lecture halls had faced an uphill struggle.
Brian Williams of Dynamo Design recalls being told that he would not be marked on his final year college portfolio because he was using "this gimmick". That was five years ago. "People thought that it would go away, that it would fizzle out. A lot of the industry here and especially the lecturers at college thought it was going to threaten the fundamental status of design, so there was quite a backlash against the Mac."
Now, most of them are using Macs themselves and there are few design agencies where Photoshop, Illustrator and Quark XPress are not in daily use. They have become the tools of the trade. But just as the old school technique provoked debates about the whole concept of design, the Mac school is equally as contentious. We spoke to three Irish graphic designers about the role the computer plays in their work, how certain programs have changed how they approach design, the diche's which inevitably pop up when everyone is using the same tools and what part the Net has to play in their work.
Brian Williams
CV: Worked on U2's Zooropa album and Zoo TV designs at Works Associates. Moved to Dynamo Design and has designed sleeves for Boyzone ("making their eyes bluer") and Blink
. ILLUSTRATOR, Photoshop and Quark are the core programs I use I dabble in all sorts of things like Premier or Infinidi. At the moment, I'm using KTP Bryce, a landscape terrain generating program, developed by an American guy who worked on filters for Photoshop. It's based on the same technology but on wire frame, you can create landscapes with clouds and water in a 3-D space.
"I'm lucky in that I can spot new applications before other people do. Some things like KTP, I'm not so sure if it will go every where, it's not as instantaneous as, say, the plug ins for Photoshop. I keep loads and loads of programs on file I still keep things like Pixel Paint from a couple of years ago it might be crap but it can still do things you can't do now. Plus I really like the idea of having one program which does a job and does it well rather than a mega program which integrates a whole lot of jobs.
"When Zooropa was happening, there were press quotes saying it was heavily influenced by William Gibson, cyberspace and all of that. If the truth be known, not at all it was just what I did that night. The front cover is actually made up of song titles which never made the album. After the fact, I read William Gibson and got into the Net shortly after that. I love the whole concept of it but I'm still not convinced. For me, the natural interaction in reading a book or changing the channel on a TV is way above and beyond what the Net can do for me.
Steve Averill
CV: Director of ABA/Works Associates, best known for designing U2 album covers but also does a vast range of corporate identity work.
. "IT'S A lot easier to do a CD sleeve on computer than a 12 inch sleeve, just in terms of the very size of a file. Sometimes, a file for an album cover can be four or five times as big as the file for a CD cover. Obviously, with a 12 inch square cover, you could put in a lot of detail which would be noticed later. With a CD, you tend to rethink your layout so that the information which would have fitted on an album cover would now be accommodated over the 12 pages of a CD booklet.
No, you couldn't work without Freehand. Photoshop. Illustrator or Quark XPress because they are now the meat and potatoes of computer applications for design. If you talk to individual designers about them, they'll tell you about annoying things the software should or should not do but doesn't.
"You learn to work with those limitations, just as you learned to work with any limitations you had in the old days when you were working on a full colour album cover. But with upgrades and new applications, these faults are overcome.
"In the old days, one out of every 10 or 12 graphic students would be potentially outstanding. Now, because everyone is working with the same packages and same tricks, the overall standard of exceptional work has gone down. It is quite easy to make someone feel that a design is very different just by using 3-D type or drop shadows. That's just automatic programming, not particularly skillful design.
Niall Sweeney
CV: Clients have included Makullas, the Gag club night, d'Side magazine and Irish band Bird. Produced CD-Roms for the London Underground, National Gallery and European Union. Guest lecturer on design and multimedia at the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology in Boston we were a bit out there compared to what they were expecting
. "I WAS trained back in the days when it was all hand drawn type and not a computer in sight. It was only after I left college that I started on computers. I suppose that says a lot, because all my training was reasonably traditional so I don't rely on computers for ideas which can happen so easily. Just sit down in front of the screen, doodle away and end up working within the confines of the machine rather than the other way around.
"The programs I use really depend on the job at hand. Of course, you find yourself getting hooked on them and thinking you can't function without them but there are some things you can't do on a machine that you can only do on paper would manage reasonably as well without them. I hate all those software packages which emulate crayon or an airbrush effect why don't you just go out and use crayon or airbrush? You do get designers where the software dictates their design. It's terrible when you get a new package and you see everyone using it all over the gaff and using it to death.
"I hope the Net will calm down! In one way, I've no time for it, literally no time because it takes so long. But in another way, even if you've nothing to say, you can say something in a funny kind of way. It's a bit like the photocopier because when it came along, everyone could suddenly be a publisher.
"A lot of the CD-Roms which people are shelling out 40 or 50 quid for have less to do with multimedia than the RTE proms. There have been so few designers working in what is essentially another media it has all been software designers, programmers and analysts, so it has been approached from a software point of view. But design is just as important there as it is in a magazine, and a lot of the software that is being developed is aimed at designers. There should be the same relationship between the designer and the programmer as you have traditionally between a designer and the printer. Yeah, right down to one moaning on about the other!"