Old School in the New World

Robert J. Sherrard
Jul 23, 2016
3 min read

Being a part of Gen X, I came of age at a very unique time in modern history. As the promise of digital technology began to influence both business and society in general, I watched the techniques in my profession change. Some of this evolution was dramatic ($10,000 stat cameras turned into scrap metal), but most of the changes I witnessed were slow & subtle.

Fortunately I readily embrace what I perceive to be inevitable change. If I get any sense of where the future is headed, I want to be there first. This attitude served me well when my company began introducing computers into my drafting & design department. At one point during the early 90's, l literally had a drafting table in front of me and a PC behind me. That was until the expensive drafting table and all of its familiar tools were gone and all I was left with was a powerful (if unfamiliar) tool and some rudimentary training.

I loved it instantly. I reveled in the freedom to draw & change images with a click. No ink stains, paint drips or ammonia fumes from the blue line machine (Remember those? Google it.), just perfect lines & infinite do-overs. I'm a bit sad now, but when offered the chance to take home my big vellum pencil drawings of signs & architecture, I declined. I wasn't interested in what was, only in what will be. The future was here at last and I was more than happy to meet, greet and raise a toast.

However, that wasn't the case with all of my coworkers, especially the older guys. They'd spent years perfecting their lettering and spinning their pencils down T-bars & angles to get the lines a perfect, consistent weight. They rejected computers as soulless & cold. Completely unfit for art. They were among the last to forcibly have PC's wedged into their professional world. Always behind the curve and complaining the loudest about every technical issue. They made it clear that the future as they saw it, sucks.

The truth is we were both right. The folks that loved their computers and found a way to personalize their work with a unique style were almost blissful in their attitudes toward work. The people that resisted & resented this new tool were in a personal hell, forced to cast aside decades of training and stare at 16" of glowing, rectangular misery for 9 to 10 hours a day.

To this day, I'm so grateful that my learning process continues. No field stays closer to the bleeding edge of both hardware & software than professional art. If you're not on the very latest versions of Abode's product line, you're viewed as either unprofessional or cheap (probably both) and its not really fair. Illustrator & Photoshop are incredibly deep platforms and even the top artists only scratch the surface of what they're capable of. But if your client needs artwork, you don't want to be a speedbump in their process by requesting a file in a legacy format.

These days I have several computers, tablets and even a phone that have image editing software. I have to be able to transition from Macs to PCs with ease. However I still like to draw with a pencil, paint with a brush and sculpt with clay. I study techniques that are hundreds of years old to produce hand drawn illustrations. This is becoming a less common, but more rewarding skill with each passing year.

My point is that you don't have to discard the past to embrace the future. The very nature of art demands that we keep an open mind when it comes to the tools of our trade. Being able to scan in my drawings & manipulate them digitally continues to be a revelation. My imagination is my only limitation and my self-training is seemingly eternal. There's a saying that you should always ride the horse in the direction its running and its become my motto. You owe it to yourself regardless of your profession to broaden your skill set and learn something every single day. Meet the future with a smile. Cheers!