Tools
Artwork
Parallel Motion drawing board
…a large drawing board - either on legs or a desk stand - that has a movable bar - usually transparent - attached at each side by vertical wires going around pulleys that slides up & down exactly horizontally…
T Square
…a simpler version of parallel motion, consisting of a (traditionally) wooden straight edge - approx 60cms/24” long - with a much shorter piece at one end attached at a 90 degree right angle - in a capital ’T’ shape - so that it can slide up & down the left edge of the drawing board soasto draw parallel horizontal lines - much less accurately than a ‘parallel motion’ version…
Set Square - adjustable
…a set square is right angle triangle - traditionally wooden but usually transparent acrylic by the 70s - with either two 45 or 60 degree sides that, when placed on a T-square or parallel motion bar, enables vertical lines to be drawn - or 45 & 60 degree angled lines…
…the much more useful ‘adjustable’ version has the long edge of the right angle triangle hinged at one end so it can be accurately positioned & locked at any angle from its resting 45 to a vertical 90 degrees…
French Curves
…originally for 18th century artists & craftsmen and also traditionally wooden but usually transparent acrylic by the 70s these were beautifully & accurately crafted set of (3 at least or as many a couple of dozen…) seemingly randomly curved templates who’s shape consisted of a combination of as many different elliptical curves as possible - they’re actually composed of segments of the mathematically-inspired Euler or Clothoid Spiral…
…the nearest digital equivalent is the Vector-based Bezier Curves for making non-circular radii…
Ellipse Stencil set
…a set of 10 (about A5-sized) see-thru’ templates; each with a couple of dozen cut-out ellipses - ranging from 8 to 60mm wide - that are from a narrow, squidged 15 degrees to a plump 60 degree oval…
Also, for art working you’d have a set of small circular templates - to save the time & trouble of using small ruling pen compasses…
Flexible curve rulers
…the then modern but very basic alternative to French Curves - a flexible ruler made from a metal spring enclosed in a square cross section plastic cover that came in a few different sizes & lengths…
Cow Gum
…a brand name for the glue for sticking all your artwork’s text & image B&W photographic prints to the base artboard or overlays - a gloriously smelling latex rubber solution that’s mixed with a volatile solvent that dissolves it and keeps it relatively fluid - when the Cow Gum is spread, like butter, on the artboard the solvent quickly evaporates leaving it as strong & flexible adhesive bond…
Cow Gum Rubber & Spreader
…a small ball of used Cow Gum that gets bigger and bigger like a rolling snowball that can be easily - & amusingly - used to remove any excess ‘bits’ left around the edges of the prints stuck down…
The Spreader is a small plastic spatula with a circular ‘hilt’ to stop your fingers going too deep into the can of Cow Gum…
Pointy Stabby Thing - vital..!
…a 2”/5cm metal sharp point held in a pen-like handle with a small adjustable chuck (like gripping a drill bit…) that has many vital functions delicately adjusting, moving & repositioning the small prints being stuck onto the artwork…
Lighter Fluid
…usually a can of Ronsonol (high grade petrol) used for cleaning artwork surfaces - especially of sticky label’s & tapes’ glue residue…
Burnishers - various
…a variety of differently shaped pen-sized tools for rubbing down & burnishing stuff like rub-down transfers, Letraset & Letratone, adhesive, masking & registration tapes etc…
Masking tape
…low tack & easily removable tape mainly used to ‘mask out’ a small area of an artwork or illustration that you don’t want to be affected by painting, drawing, smudging or spraying etc…
Tippex Correction Fluid
…a thick white, opaque fluid painted on - with a little brush in its screw top - to cover over black marks or ink pen lines on the artwork…
..it dries very quickly and is hard enough to then be drawn or inked on again - originally used for correcting typewriter errors…
Registration Mark tape
…registration marks are probably the most important aspect of any artwork that involves more than one colour - consisting of fine outline circle & plus sign-shaped cross combined (like a simplified map compass…) about 10mm x 10mm in size - they are very accurately drawn just outside the area you want to print at each corner of the artwork - traditionally done on the artwork’s base level - usually on artboard and the part of the design that’ll print black…
…every subsequent artwork overlay (think ‘layers’ digitally…) above this - of which there were often many - absolutely must have their register marks drawn to match up in exactly the same position - otherwise the colours or items on that overlay would not match up with whatever’s below or above when it’s printed - the cardinal graphic designer’s error…
…so, having them on a roll of transparent sticky tape was dead posh (and very time saving - all you had to do was rub them down with your burnisher of choice..!)
Rotring Rapidograph pens
…technically a ‘ruling pen’ and my ink pen of choice - whether for marking up artwork, doing hand lettering, drawing line illustrations or pointillist clouds of tiny dots - they had a hollow needle point that came in various exact line width increments from 0.1mm up to a couple of millimetres - the size ‘nibs’ I mostly used were 0.1, 0.3 & 0.5mm’s…
…they had cartridges which you filled with Rotring’s carefully formulated (not too runny, not too viscous…) lightfast inks - the only downside was they were a bugger to clean if they blocked up & dried out - mercifully this didn’t happened if you used them on a daily basis…
Ruling pens
…the ‘old fashioned’ (by the early 70s..!) graphic designer’s pen for doing artwork that worked, incredulously I thought at the time, like a quill ‘dip in ink’ pen - it had two, small narrow pointed spade-shaped ‘pincers’ as a ‘nib’ that held between them a drop of ink by meniscus-like gravity..!
…they were tricky to used as the needed constant careful ‘reloading’ and near impossible to master as the slightest unintended touch or nudge on your T-square, set square, french curves or ruler would spill the ink all over your supposedly pristine artwork…
…hence my love for Rotring pens and their marvellously modern Rapidographs - that did exactly what the name said and rapidly drew all the clean neat blot-free lines your heart desired..!
Compass - Rotring screw thread
…another ‘modern’ life saver - a well made & precise stainless steel compass that you could screw your Rapdographs into - oh joy - especially given the alternative was the fiddly rulling pen version of a compass..?!
Scalpel Handles & blades - Swann Morton
…probably the most important artwork tool - for accurately & precisely cutting up the sometimes tiny bits of B&W photographic prints needed to make or ‘paste up’ every artwork…
..they were genuinely medical - disarmingly for surgeons - and came with a variety of handles and sterilised blade shapes & sizes - for artwork I used a medium size & pointed 10a blade and a short wide-edged 12 blade for scrapping away ink - either from artwork or off tracing paper for illustrating…
..the Morton in the name wasn’t a relative just a fun happenstance…
Rulers - metal edged
…metal ones were vital for cutting prints with the scalpel - so you didn’t unintentionally cut little nicks in the edge…
Rulers - Transparent
…the see-thru ones were vital for ruling lines with Rapidographs on the artwork - partly as you could see what you were doing underneath on the artwork and importantly as they had a cut-out groove (or rebate) along the edge’s underside - like an inverted kerb - that meant the ink from the pens wouldn’t get smudged as you drew the lines - as happened with normal rulers pressed down on paper…
Blue [Berol Verithin] pencil
…another vital item - a light blue pencil: my favourite (not too hard, not too soft..!) were Berol’s Verithin ones - you would use it to accurately mark up all the lines & position guides needed on your artwork before inking them in - as light blue disappears when the B&W artwork is photographed by the printers during the process of making the printing press ‘plates’ - consequently you didn’t need to rub them out and more importantly you could write the detailed printing instructions on the artwork right next to the item concerned…
…they were kept constantly sharpened by thanks to my 10a scalpel blade’s other main task..!
Photographic
Agfa-Gaevert Repromaster
…easily the most important creative & practical ‘tool’ I had at my disposal and the first thing I bought when I left Stiff and started c-more-tone studios - there’s a chapter about it in the Revealed: ‘How to Make an Album Cover - Before Photoshop…’ feature in the ‘The Process Camera’ section…
…using a Process Camera was how you made all the B&W prints you needed for making every artwork - as well as it having an extremely handy enlarging & reducing projector facility..!
Linen Tester & Lupe
…a linen tester is a small metal-frame fold-out magnifyer with two lenses which magnifies x4 - originally for checking the quality weave as in 100 thread linen…
…a Lupe - as supplied by Agfa-Gaevert with their process cameras is a powerful magnifying glass - like an upturned tea cup with no handle with its lens in the cup’s base - that you used to check the size & quality of halftone dots you did when making your artwork prints…
…there’s an explanation of Halftone Dots and their crucial importance in the Revealed’s ‘Printing Methods’ section…
Film Opaquer
…a dark red, viscous, paint-on solution used to mask areas of artwork you want to be black or to ‘spot out’ any unwanted white dots on your prints…
…it’s the reason why it goes all red when you do masking in Photoshop…
Drawing & Illustrating
Mechanical pencils
…the kind with barrels made of hollow metal or plastic where you click down the top to make a couple of millimeters of pencil lead incrementally appear out of a thin metal tube at the bottom - the replaceable leads vary in thickness from 0.35mm for technical drawing up to 4 or 5mm for sketching & illustrating…
Schwan Stabilo 3in1 pencils
…a waxy, oily coloured pencil that also has brushable & water-soluble abilities - hence the 3in1 - it famously works on most surfaces and they have intense, vivid colour that can be thickly applied -
…they’re ideal for strong, coarse textured areas and I used to use them for ‘frottage’ techniques (like doing a brass rubbing…) especially over home made textures & surfaces and then make photographic prints of that to cut up & collage for use on my artworks…
…incidentally, the company kick started the cosmetics industry when inventing the first eye liner & eyebrow make-up pencil - originally used early on Hollywood film sets - these were developed from their ‘Dermatograph’ pencils used by surgeons to mark the skin before operations - the origins of their pencil’s ‘marks on any surface’ abilities…
Magic Markers - various
…classic felt tip markers with a tip cut at an oblique angle and a short bottle-shaped ink holder as a handle - extensively used in 60s & 70s design studios by illustrators for colouring visuals & mock-ups for advert & poster designs to show how the final photographed image would look - they came in a huge range of tones & colours that were quite translucent and could be overlaid multiple times and were very visually effective…
Normacolor pens - warm & cool greys
…a double set of 10 oblique-cut felt tip pens that were graduated shades of grey - warm & cold - from a very light 10% up to a dark 90% (the 10th one being a ‘warm’ or ‘cold’ black…)
…they were French and, as far as I knew then, were the first graduated greys you could get - I used them a lot for drawing monochrome illustrations that I could then reproduce via my process camera for my artwork’ prints…
Liquitex acrylic paints & Medium
..these also came in a graduated range of grays - as their American-spelt label put it - as well as a huge range of colours & tones…
…I also used them a lot - usually applied with a spatula rather than a brush - initially because there wasn’t enough time in an album cover design & artwork schedule for oil paints to dry..!
…the clincher for me was the Medium - a colourless & viscous liquid that the colour pigment is suspended in - it meant you could mix & make an unlimited range of translucent subtly coloured tints that could be overlaid to your heart’s content - happy daze indeed..!
Paint Brushes & Spatulas
…my preference was/is for flat cut coarse bristle brushes and small flexible metal spatulas like tiny bricks’ trowels…
Ink/Paint Diffuser - hand blown
…a wonderful old analogue tool - albeit somewhat messy - that spatters ink or paint - rather than the fine mist of the airbrush it precedes…
…it’s a small, hollow metal tube that’s hinged at 1/3 to 2/3rds into an upside-down ‘L’ shape - you stick the longer end vertically into a little bottle of ink/paint and blow into the shorter horizontal end which you aim at a vertical surface (ie paper or card) and hopefully ink/paint splatters in an irregular & thick aerosol mist out of the open joint - always fun & usually inaccurate..?!
Toothbrush - stiff bristles
…a different, simpler way of getting different size dots of paint onto your illustration - albeit somewhat random - by flicking the bristles of a loaded brush with your thumb…
Art Masking Fluid
…a thick off-white/yellowish fluid that you’d carefully apply by brush on to areas of your work that you didn’t want subsequent spraying or painting to affect and afterwards you’d literally peel it off - very effective technique for combining & overlaying different textures on one layer…
Miscellaneous…
Daylight Bulbs
…such a brilliant idea in those analogue days - a light bulb with a special translucent blue coating that recreated the effect of sunlight - very handy for matching artwork & painted colours to the printer’s colour reference books and particularly useful for doing that in the studio at night - when I was often up very late finishing off (or adding to…) rush artwork that had to be delivered the next morning..!
Visual Reference Library
…a bit obvious really but so important - especially for the kick starting the crucial ideas & initial designs stage - the more varied & eclectic the better..!
…I particularly favoured ads in old National Geographic & foreign (mainly French, Chinese & Japanese)
Materials
Artboard - CS10
…the basis (& base layer) of all artwork -usually (28”x20”) & 3-4mm thick cardboard sheets with a smooth coated surface on one side that’s stable & ‘bleedproof’ for drawing & ruling lines with an ink pen…
…the artwork elements - text & images - stuck to or drawn on the base art are traditionally the ones that prints black…
Illustration board
…similarly-sized boards for illustrating & drawing with a fine crinkly texture that’ll give a ‘key’ hold paint or pastel - like canvas does…
Overlay Film - blue
…the preferred brand of C-Trace - a pale blue semi-transparent film - very stable that doesn’t buckle or crinkle - and comes in long rolls 28-30” wide that you use for the subsequent layers of artwork (on top of the base artboard…) usually for additional colours - it must very accurately aligned using carefully drawn crop & registration marks with the board below and any more layers above so that all the artwork’s elements & colours print exactly where you intend them to..!
…it’s pale blue because that colour disappears when the artwork is being photographed by the printers for the process of making the printing press ‘plates’ - usually up to 4 for ’full colour’ or CMYK printing; one each Cyan (blue) Magenta, Yellow & Black - traditionally known as K…
Tracing Paper
…self explanatory - usually used for going over an initial rough layout or illustration and redrawing to perfect & ‘edit’ the lines drawn…
…I used rolls of extra thick trace so I could scratch away lines & marks with a scalpel as part of the ‘drawing’ process…
Layout Pad
…halfway between regular & tracing paper - so you could just see through it enough see what you’ve previously drawn beneath but was opaque enough to hold the marks & lines of coloured pencils or marker pens - very handy for initial design ideas…
Cover paper
…relatively thick, densely coloured paper as big as the artboards used to make a cover for the artwork - with basic information for the job written on…
…the detailed printing specifications would be carefully added to each layer of the artwork’s layers of drafting film…
Graph Paper pad -blue grid
…essential for laying out & spacing logos & hand-lettering - initially using a light blue pencil - once the design was completed and inked-in with black ink the blue grid, like the pencil lines would disappear when being photographed as a B&W pos.line print - then to be stuck on the artwork…
Halftone Screens
…an expensive, vital & magical piece of equipment - a dark red A3-sized semi-transparent screen with an opaque criss-cross grid within it that you place between the negative paper and the image you’re exposing and it photo-mechanically transforms a continuous tone illustration or photograph - B&W or colour - when used with a process camera - into an image made up of tiny black dots of subtly varying spacing & sizes - like the ones that used to be used in newspapers before the advent of their including pictures printed in colour..
…the only way you could add images to artwork soasto get them to print…
Mezzotint screen
…like a halftone dot screen but for making tiny scratchy lines instead of dots…
Agfa-Gaevert photographic paper:
…these were the range of boxes of A2 photographic paper available for use with the Process Camera:
- Positive photo paper - A2
…this produced the regular ‘pmt’ or pos. line print - solid black lines or marks on a pure white background…
- Negative photo paper - A2
…this was very handy - the black type or line drawing on a white background you photographed with the process camera came out as white type/lines on a solid black background - known as ‘inverting’ digitally…
- Continuous photo paper - A2
…this paper would produce a traditional B&W photograph of any illustrations or actual objects you photographically exposed…
Photo Developer Fluid
…used, as you’d expect, to photographically ‘develop’ the just-exposed negative & positive paper and create the print - done by placing them together and passing them through a pair of rotating rollers into a small bath of the fluid…
…after that you’d wait 1 minute and peel them apart - all the while praying you’d got the exposure time right and wouldn’t have to do it all again..?!
Pantone Swatch book
…last but not least, page upon page of sheets of a vast range of printable colours and their tones - all internationally matched - each with an individual reference number and perforated into stamp-sized bits and shown separately how the colour or tone would appear wether printed on matt or gloss paper - which made a big difference…
Techniques
The Process Camera
- Pos. Line prints
…the standard print made with a process camera - consisting of only black marks or shapes on white photographic paper - ie high contrast…
- Photo Mechanical Transfers (PMT’s)
…another technical name for a pos. line print made on a process camera…
- Continuous Tone prints
..the technical term for a black & white (B&W) photo - because they visually consist of a huge range of tones of grey - ie monotone…
- Half-tone prints
…a continuous tone illustration or photograph - B&W or colour - that has been photo-mechanically transformed using a process camera into an image made up of tiny black dots of subtly varying sizes & spaces - like the ones that used to be used in newspapers before the advent their including pictures printed in colour..
…it is, technically, also a pos.line print - and also, intriguingly, an optical illusion - there’s a more information about it in the ‘Printing Methods’ chapter in the ‘Revealed…’ section…
Preparing Artwork
- Marking up base artwork
…this also has a chapter explaining it - ‘Artwork Methods’ - as well as a chapter about the tools required - ‘& Artwork Stuff..” - both in the ‘Revealed…’ section…
- Overlay registration
…this also has a chapter explaining it - ‘Artwork Methods’ - as well as a chapter about the tools required - ‘& Artwork Stuff..” - both in the ‘Revealed…’ section…
- Cow Gum spreading
…this is covered in the ‘Tools’ bit above under & along with ‘Cow Gum’…
Typesetting
Specifying Typesetting
…this technical speciality is covered in the ‘Typesetting - Then & Now…’ section in the How To Make An LP Cover Before Photoshop feature…
Casting Off & Type Scaling
…as is this even more technical & arduous speciality also covered in the ‘Typesetting - Then & Now…’
Rub-down transfer Lettering
- Letraset
…the mainstay of DIY Punk & New Wave record cover & fanzine design - a relatively cheap & very cheerful way to use text in artwork instead of relatively expensive & technically demanding professional typesetting services…
- Mecanorma
…the French equivalent of Letraset with lots of exotic & characteristically Gallic typefaces - just what you needed to look a bit different in a very competitive UK new wave design world..!
Photo-Mechanical & Hand-Lettering
- Burnishing Letraset
…you carefully place the sheet over your paper or artwork - onto which you’ve ruled a thin blue guideline for your word or line of type - then line up the single letter of your choice on the line and very carefully rub over it gently with a small, round-tipped implement (bigger & less scratchy than a biro but smaller than a wax crayon) so that it ‘transfers’ off the back of the ‘carrier’ sheet sticks down underneath neatly on your line - repeat ad absurdum..?!
- Scuzzy Battered Type Trick
…for the technique for making Letraset type look ‘scuzzy’ & battered - first you rub down the letters as normal onto white artboard, the carefully colour it all over with a thick black felt pen, then firmly stick masking tape over the lettering and quickly peel it off (like a sticking plaster on hairy legs..!) that would remove most of the Letraset type but leave some little bits and a ragged edge - leaving roughened white type on a black background - then you’d do a photographic reversal print to make it into black type on a white background…