Stat camera? Me too. I worked my way through school on one.

Gotta add this to the list though—a real favorite for obvious reasons.

You should send that in. If I find the time I’m going to paw through the stuff in my art cabinet that I haven’t quite been able to throw away either. I know I have a burnisher somewhere...

I’m only 34, and remember many of those. So, I just made the cut-off, I think. ;o)

The museum needs some keyline paper, a wax machine and border tape.

I think I left a dry cleaning pad on a bookshelf at my parents place.

They do have a waxer and border tape on there. Argh, beveling the corners of the scotch rules! Glad I don’t still have to do that.

I have used everything in that picture Patty linked to except the green visor. The Lucie and fixative spray-by-mouth applicator bring back chuckles. Of course I am much closer to twice 35 than I am to 35 :-)

ChrisL

We used to line up print mechanical overlay sheets using registration marks from press-on sheets or from tape rolls.

Hey... we didn’t need no stikin’ software for color separation!

A lot of that stuff smelled real good, eh?

It’s sad that Pantone swatches are on there, but so many young designers I know don’t bother to spec color properly that it makes sense.

Ah memories. I did some work myself with these and also grew up watching my dad’s employees work with them. Late at night, with lack of sleep, some things became weapons too.

Norbert, We used to draw our own stinkin register targets with a drop-bow ruling pen! Wimp!!! :-)

ChrisL

T-squares at dawn, the duelling cry of the day :-)

ChrisL

ChrisL

http://www.drawger.com/show.php?show_id=32&image_id=715

How do you measure type size with one of these?

Nice, I own(ed) almost all of these items, plus some more. European brands of course. Takes one back…

BTW The handiest targets were those on a roll that had a stick-on counterpart included that would stick to the overlay’s back. Using that must have saved me days of my life.

I (partly) graduated on illustration work, printed in cmyk, with all seps done by hand (with ben day rub downs and so). Weeks of work. But I do know what a fles tone is made of (and that’s something I still profit from).

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

Haley - those were used to gauge leading and do quick line counts. Not for point size. There was another annoying tool for that, a glassine you put on top of the type. It had the standard fonts but wasn’t all that reliable.

The thing was, you really needed all that stuff. Now you just need a laptop.

This one - not sure it belongs here... http://www.drawger.com/show.php?show_id=32&image_id=790

Patty, my dad had an employee that didn’t quite understand that you could “layout” the work on the computer at that time. He only used the computer to “set the type” and then would proceed to wax it and play with line (word) spacing and everything. I got him in a little trouble when I showed my dad that it could all be done on the computer. ... Maybe that is why this little guy is listed.

This one - not sure it belongs here..

I’m curling up in a ball thinking about that screen. My second job out of school was writing and editing a 2000 page, two-volume catalog using a SE. I still think that probably shaved a few years off my life.

Yes Tiffany, I included that cleaning pad partly because it leaves such a nice mark on the back of a black sweater.

I do remember that transition period, though. I remember setting type on the mac as galleys, then a bit later composing pages on the Mac but still having to leave boxes for the FPOs, before we got a scanner. And the early Mac layout programs (eek remember Pagemaker) were pretty limited, not to mention the font selection.

But still, that little Mac doesn’t qualify as “forgotten” in the same way as the rubber cement pick-up or transfer type.

cool site but i must be an old fart ’cause i still use a few of these !

when i draw (yes, by hand) storyboards i use ellipse templates, markers, pencils, erasers... am i the only one left ? will smith will play me in the movie.

and what’s the pantone chip fan doing on there... these are still totally useful.

I used to teach a course years ago which included a section on copyfitting. One ofthe assignments I gave was to take a given typewriter written manuscript and specify the amount of space it would occupy after being set in type of a certain specification.

You had to be able to count and do arithmetic in those days to be a designer :-)

ChrisL

The “little guy” I was referring to was the computer.

They need a Varityper headliner there, or at least one of the big circular type wheels that came with it. Like a Typositor, but without the hassles of worrying about kerning and such (there was none.)

Geez, I don’t dare open my miscellaneous office drawer — I know I’ve got a set of French curves in there, some really old lettering templates, a small Color-Aid pack, my old Staedler drawing pen set, and one of the plastic label makers that you had to rotate the dial to get every letter and then squeeze real hard.

(OTOH, I just opened it, and found the Linotype slug of my name. In all-caps Helvetica. Wow, I knew it was around somewhere.)

By an odd grace I skipped over all that stuff, even though I’ve been in this racket 40 years. I went from a letterpress composing room and pressroom right to a Macintosh in 1988. I knew all that stuff was out there, but it was never used in any shop I worked in. I have a drawer full of it here, though, for my predecessor was in this office for 30 years, and he left it all behind, even color charts from before the days of the zip code. & a slide rule!

I have made maybe 3 mechanicals in my life. When that necessity arose I took a shirt cardboard, squared it up on the kitchen counter, and attempted to paste things down straight with a carpenter’s square and whatever glue was around the house.

And I am really glad I did not have to do that, for I am too clumsy. I could work well with small bits of metal type, and I loved it. But all that thin paper, good lord, what a time I had with it.

I still do keep a sandpaper block on my desk to sharpen that red pen when I mark proofs, though.

powers

I just found my haberrule, along with some non-repro blue pens, a burnisher, a brayer, some dot labels, X-acto knife + blades, assorted triangles and circle templates, a proportion wheel, my collection of Rapidographs no doubt clogged plus some ink. My T-square is gathering dust around here somewhere.

To be complete, you’d also need all the various assorted papers: matte board, mechanical board, vellum, acetate, tracing paper for cover sheets, foam core, plus a roll of white artists tape.

And let’s not forget spray mount. And those white cotton pads to remove the wax and rubber cement. And a good cutting board.

And bandaids for all the slips with the X-acto.

> When that necessity arose I took a shirt cardboard, squared it up on the kitchen counter, and attempted to paste things down straight with a carpenter’s square and whatever glue was around the house.

And submitted it to our print shop. You don’t want to know what we said when we saw it. :)

hey, I’m 20 and I got a polaroid camera (much loved)

I love the smell of...paste-up wax...in the morning.

Bestine cocktail anyone?

ChrisL

Ok,
I’m not always smart, I never figured out how to use a percentage scale. However, I learned better that still helps me out today, a calculator and this formula:
desired size / actual size.
Works in every type of measurement too. No round scale for me, no way! I’m modern!

Remember rubboff type, kinda like custom Letraset? I did a lot of that, talk about bestine cocktail X8!

Where is the fat type specimen? You know, the ones with all the funny numbers to spec type with usually 1,500-3,000 fonts? Then the one line specimens? I speced type too, you digital sons of a guns, who never had to do that!

Any Ruby tape? C’mon people! :) It’s cheap now!

I still like E scales.

I use a 54 year old ruler (still the best!) Metal, my last name on it! Set in Eurostile, while it was still new.

Hope people still use Pantone guides, at least in a pressroom?

The Truth shall set you free

Patty, I’ve got all the paper and board stuff, but that’s because I bind my own.... ;-)

uuuuuummmmmmm. Paste-up wax! First one in the office turned it on.

Rodrigue - the proportion wheel was for scaling - if you knew your actual dimensions and desired width you could calculate the height. I figured out how to do it on a calculator too which was much more precise.

I hope people use Pantone books too. It’s the only way to know what you’re getting with print.

I still use my proportion wheel but not for sizing pictures as I used to,

ChrisL

I still have a lot of that old stuff from the Seventies and Eighties—french curves, ellipse templates, eraser guides, dividers...

The little Mac in the museum is appropriate in my case: On my first Mac, before DTP software was invented, I set up a spreadsheet in Microsoft Multiplan (the predecessor to Excel) to calculate run-arounds and mortise cuts for spec’ing type for layouts and other copyfitting tasks at the magazine I worked at. I also did thumbnail layouts and other preliminary design stuff in MacPaint. I had one of those famous Mac bags and lugged the thing back and forth to work every day. The idea of a company putting a computer on an art director’s desk hadn’t come yet, but they didn’t mind if I brought one from home.

I’ll be turning 36 this year. I trained on all that sort of stuff when I was in high school and then BAM, it was al worthless. Well no, not really. I still have most of it though, Even one of those famous Mac bags.

I used to have a “handy” hand operated wax machine. It had a handle with the electric cord coming in the way all the time. Also, once hot, it was essential not to knock it over. In an earlier job we had a table model, which had huge amount of small pieces of paper floating in the wax – all escaped from careless paste-up artists in a rush. In that room we made paste-ups for daily newspaper ads for a department store.

Hi Mili! Sounds like you had a real Wax Museum there :-)

ChrisL

My Opaline is a STAR baby!

(That Linotype book looks nice. Any guesses as to what year approx. it might be from?)

I still use my roller - I find that when making newsletters for local clubs - it gives me the best fold mark!

BTW - just in - Berkley Books still uses their waxer - but wait... it’s for...
“For attaching comps to boards for meetings.”

>My Opaline is a STAR baby!

We’ve got one of those in our office supply cabinet... but is by Koh I nor and is green... Always wondered what it was for :-)

We’ve also go boxes of Lettraset and Geotype, (type, drafting symbols, halftone film and colour overlay film, custom printed logos) and some other cool stuff. WE keep up with the times - just not as they happen.

I’ll be taking photos.

-=®=-

You all cave people!

I was forced to work with some of this “tools” on the first three semesters of graphic design scool altough I started doing some “design” in highschool with word and as a kid with paint.

Héctor

This was, of course, after we slogged the six miles to work in the snow. But a quart of milk in those days was only a nickel. And then after work we’d gather around the wireless and drink soda pop out of the icebox.

…and then we would get up thirty minutes before we went to bed at night and do it again.

Cowabunga! We used to ride our horses days to get to work, shoed them ourselves, lived in sod huts, and ate pemmican. For fun, we’d play hockey on frozen lakes with hockey sticks held together with duct tape.

You had duct tape? We used string.
And we skiied to work/school across the lake Summers and Winters. Sometimes the snow and ice would melt, and we were forced to eithr swim the 10 km or go around the lake.

Schools? You had Schools! We had torturous pits of vipers and demons with whips beating us bloody until we begged to use rubber cement and a T-squarre :-)

ChrisL

You had whips? Oh, never mind :^D

LOL! :-)

ChrisL

I was forced to work with some of this “tools” on the first three semesters of graphic design scool altough I started doing some “design” in highschool with word and as a kid with paint.

My first exposure to tools like these came from my elementary-school classes in Mechanical Drawing (alternating with Woodshop) back in the 60’s. I developed a chronic obsession with drawing tools, and the years I spent working in a graphic arts house with all the implements we’ve been reminiscing about were among the most intensely satisfying of my adult life — with regard to office supplies, anyway.

I learned a lot from those years, including the trick of using non-repro blue pens to annotate books and photocopies, in case I want to make copies for my students (and don’t want them to know what I thought noteworthy). It’s been years, though, since I talked to an art supplies store clerk who knew what “non-repro blue” means; I have to track down the correct shade from the shelf myself.

> non-repro blue
Blue? When I started work, the color blue wasn’t invented yet!
We marked up our mechanicals with dried plant roots and mastodon chips.

ah, yes: The old days... I once knew a person who cut his finger quite badly with an Exacto knife while doing some paste-up. His boss, thinking on his feet ran to his side, grabbed the art work and took it away before he could get blood on it.

-=®=-

Ah, yes those modern Xacto knives were quite a bit sharper than the stone knives we had to use when I was first working, Rus, and our mastadon chips hadn’t even begun to hardon yet, Norbert :-)

ChrisL

Maybe they should have made non-repro red and azure-lith. Isn’t there a filter for changing the physics of light waves?

I still have a little terror every time I hear a knife rolling. I got a couple in the foot along the way. My table now sits perfectly flat.

and remember those wild reed atomizers ?

James, don’t you have one of those triangular rubber things that slides onto the X-acto to keep it from slipping? Saved a few toes in its day. Mine says SAM FLAX in a nice slab serif.

Of course that doesn’t keep you from dropping it.

Triangular rubber things that slides onto the X-acto to keep it from slipping?

Wow, those obviously never made it to Finland. Our Graphic Designer’s School made a trip to Japan at the end of the studies, and I found in Tokyo a beautiful X-acto Gripster knife with a square bit in the end to stop it from rolling. I still have it (and the more traditional one, too).

Those kinda get in my way and annoy me. I’m livin’ on the edge!

The razor’s edge!

Right along with W. Somerset Maugham and Aerosmith!

I am surprised I am still alive with all the chemicals I have been exposed to. I would suggest the youth of today should look into the biohazards of your working environment today. Radiation, sprays, chemicals!

The youth of today is frying its eyeballs looking at screens, large and small. Then there is the electromagnetic issue - cell phones glued to the ear, eyes glued to the screen. Different type of hazard. Not so hard on the lungs tho.

It really used to creep me out how quickly Bestine dried on my skin, leaving that faint white tint.

i think i had (probably sitll have) all those things in the photo, too, except the gary paper doll (that thing’s weird!)... never wore the visor, though. but a lot of people i know did.

the visor looks great with arm garters & spats !

It’s nice to see a picture of the first Macintosh I had, with 124k of memory and an external hard drive, my friends didn’t understand why I spent so much money on a gadget with no future...
I still use sometimes some of those tools, the metal ruler, exacto, even the rubber cement and the roller, I also love drawing with the sergent-major pen, I still have a boxfull of them.

Remember when Flax had a store in Sunnyvale?
I miss that place.

No mention of Cow gum? You could do your paste-up and get as high as a kite in a badly ventilated room. Then, when it was dry, you could get all the superfluous dry rubber off with an existing giant dirty rubber ball. Kids today? - Don’t know they’re born.

Nick Cooke

I’d quite forgotten about the Cow Gum until you mentioned it Nick. I’m sure I’ve got a tin somewhere, but I can’t find it.

I did find these though…

and last but not least, two stainless steel stencil knives. Originally for hand cutting Autotype Amber and Green, and Rubylith. Still used every day to weed out computer cut Rubylith and self-adhesive vinyl.

What, no Rubber Cement Pick-up square? :-)

ChrisL

Am I too late? Do these count?

Here’s a drawing office classic!

_______________________________________________
Ever since I chose to block pop-ups, my toaster’s stopped working.

-=®=-

Dude those are some of my favorite toys right there.

I don’t know what I’d do without an electric eraser.

I find it easier to make my own transfer paper though. Saral is a little waxy and hard to paint over sometimes, even the graphite flavored one. For other colors I get stuff from the fabric store.