602 - Beers with some old designers

Rob invited me to go with him to meet a group of old-school, traditional, retired graphic designers for a beer or two and to chat about the past, present and future direction of design in general.

- Was very valuable sharing ideas and comparing approaches and opinions of our practise with the them, to see how we could potentially take advice or inspiration from their contrasting experience of graphic design.

I was most intrigued by Phil Monroe, an ex-graphic design professional with over 55 years of experience, who specialised in publication / brochure design, and early comic-strips / illustrations. 

Our meet up really stressed to me the vast differences between design then and now and how much technology has played such a pivotal role in the evolution of design styles. Making me almost appreciate the traditional techniques and roots that design has developed from that little bit more.

We discussed production techniques and progression as a graphic designer as well as how technology has influenced their own practice. We talked for a solid 4 hours, beneath you can find some of the main points of discussion:

- They weren't very familiar with actually carrying out research (other than statistics and figures about the market), as when they approached new briefs they always started from scratch and were essentially the first people to do it (or atleast to what they locally had access to) - only occasionally used reference from books. 

- The influence of social media - there were a lot of mixed opinions on its uses for advertising and effectivity engaging with younger audiences. Some of the guys could see how it can be used positively, but some could only see how its poisoning and de-sensitising our youths.

- All editorial layouts were produced by hand. They were actually kind enough to bring their old mockups for publications with them to highlight to us how differently they planned out and envisioned their designs before final print back in the day. Quite literally cutting and sticking, with the odd use of letraset!

- The technologies and processes used were constantly adapting as they progressed through their career.

- Some of them had to get used to using the computer when it was introduced however some didn't and decided to retire.

I thoroughly enjoyed this time of reflection with the old guys and the helped me to view my practise from a different and more