My son’s boyfriend, Kyle, recently graduated with a 3D modeling and design degree. Curiously, I asked him why he chose that degree. Kyle replied he wanted his profession to reflect his skills in technology and creativity. I understood that desire: Forty-plus years ago, I made the same attempt to connect my writing and art skills and ended up with a BS in graphic design. I asked him about his background. It included graphic design and website design. Woo-hoo! I could talk to him about graphic design. His eyes glazed over when I mentioned how I started in my profession with typesetting galleys, photostats, and paste-ups. Seeing this, I went for my sure-fire joke: I was also a stripper.
The joke fell flat, and I realized then I am a graphic design dinosaur, a dying breed that remembers the world of print before computers when comps had to be drawn out before any idea was approved. Once approved, a project cycled through the complete process. The artwork had to be sized and broken down by color. Written content had to be specced and typeset. Galleys and for-position-only art had to be pasted up. Negatives had to be made and stripped for printing plates.
When computers, like the Macintosh SE, first came out, Martha, my co-worker, returned from a trade show raving about the possibilities on the horizon. My boss, an older, former ad agency owner in the 1950s, swore computers would never replace the traditional way of doing graphic design. “The quality isn’t there.”
I progressed through my professional life and assimilated the new way of designing. I did catalogs, brochures, and all manner of print, and I was a satisfied professional, confidently navigating new computers and software until the advent of the website. I’m not alluding to the essential, informational website; I’ve done those. Spreadsheet and code-based websites were my asteroids, signaling my extinction and my hurried exit from the profession.
I was happy to see Kyle excited for his future, and I congratulated him on his anticipated future.
This morning, on the web, I saw an item about the progress made in robotics, and I wondered if the combination of mass-produced robots, with dexterity in their hands not seen before, coupled with AI, would make the field of graphic design something scientists in the future would unearth as part of an ancient era.
Maura Morgan joins the rest of us graphic designers waiting for AI to initiate our professional demise.
