{"id":313,"date":"2024-10-08T16:15:10","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T16:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lumefind.com\/?p=313"},"modified":"2022-07-01T15:38:52","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T15:38:52","slug":"from-paper-to-ipad-a-look-at-how-media-has-changed-since-the-1990s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lumefind.com\/?p=313","title":{"rendered":"From Paper to Ipad \u2013 A Look at how Media has changed Since"},"content":{"rendered":"
Today\u2019s creative have immense technological advantages with software capable of taking images and text, turning them into everything from magazine pages to animated video.\u00a0To appreciate these technologies and skills, it makes sense to take a trip back in time to the 1990s, where desktop publishing software, graphic design, and new media was in its infancy.<\/p>\n
The dawn of the digital age<\/em>\u2026<\/h4>\n
In the early 1990s, most magazines, newspapers and creative design firms used a combination of computer design systems and old-fashioned hand craftsmanship.\u00a0 The notion of \u201chand crafted\u201d which is so much the marketing buzzword was the general rule of thumb back then.\u00a0 Lithography (offset printing has always had a \u201chand craft\u201d element to it until late 1980s and early 1990s, when automated plate developing machines took much of the hazardous chemical exposure by encapsulating the process to these machines.\u00a0When digital offset plates \u2013 predominantly vinyl plates run through laser printers and copiers \u2013 came into vogue in the 1990s, the world of hand-crafted printing entered a new era, and many short-run printers and home-office creatives took advantage of this technology.<\/p>\n
Content Management:\u00a0Editors and Publishers<\/h4>\n
Two decades ago, Editors had two primary jobs \u2013 approve content, and drive writers, photographers and contributors to come up with content which would sell and satisfy their Publishers, who ran the overall business.\u00a0 When content wasn\u2019t selling, Publishers made moves, much the same way professional sports owners fire General Managers and Coaches who don\u2019t win.\u00a0 Very little has changed with Publishers, but Editors have taken on far more responsibility, even having to work as foot soldiers when there was a time they could enjoy being behind a desk.\u00a0 Some Editors relish being \u201con the ground floor\u201d while others would rather go back to being behind the desk.\u00a0 These decision makers also had the final say on who could use the darkrooms to develop photographs. In a time sensitive deadline driven environment, this power was difference between career advancement and looking for a new job.<\/p>\n
One significant difference \u2013 content mills and hungry artists and writers are more prevalent than ever, and Hollywood presents these folks as the trendy \u201cstarving artists,\u201d when the reality is that many work day jobs, work part time for very little, and find themselves competing against countless others willing to work for next-to and something actually nothing.\u00a0 Gatekeepers, typically administrative and editorial assistants, take great pleasure in being the judges, juries, and executioners of what they perceive to be pay-worthy material.<\/p>\n
A bad paste-up resulted in a lot of man hours lost to editing, correction, re-typing and paper use.\u00a0 It was not uncommon for a paste-up artist to be fired on the first day for making catastrophic blunders.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Today\u2019s budding creatives see \u201ccut\u201d and \u201cpaste\u201d as shortcuts in their programs, but these commands found their roots in the slow, tedious, and meticulous world of Paste-Up, the dirty side of graphic design and printing.\u00a0 In the mid 1990s, a significant number of shops and professionals still did things the old fashioned way.\u00a0 Many small publications, magazines and firms were using drafting tables, dummy sheets, and light boards to precisely align text, art and line tape to create copy for reproduction.\u00a0 Sticky pasting wax, razor-sharp pen knives and markup pencils were the old-school tools. It was not uncommon for employees and creatives to end the night wearing band-aids due to being sliced and burned by equipment. Paste-up was, indeed, a dirty job and bloody profession.<\/p>\n
Terms such as \u201cchroma blue\u201d (a color which was so light it could not be reproduced by plate cameras and early scanners), \u201c4-up\u201d (putting four images onto a single dummy sheet to maximize usable space on a sheet and reduce paper costs), \u201cemulsion\u201d (the light-sensitive chemical coatings on plates and film, of which silver was an essential ingredient, along with other toxic chemicals) and \u201cfixer\u201d (a compound used in both the photographic and printing world which stopped the developing chemicals from reacting with the aforementioned emulsion) were what all graphic designers, photographers and other creative had drilled into them in class, and learned the importance of how they were used.\u00a0 A bad paste-up resulted in a lot of man hours lost to editing, correction, re-typing and paper use.\u00a0 It was not uncommon for a paste-up artist to be fired on the first day for making catastrophic blunders.\u00a0 Today\u2019s paste-up consists almost exclusively of artists and professionals using computer terminals, tablets and even smartphones to design layouts and upload them to servers for both web browsing and printing.<\/p>\n
Production \u2013 The \u201cdirty job\u201d\u2026<\/h4>\n
This is the most stark change to the creative world has been in the realm of production and the output media used.\u00a0 Gone are the days when print was king; most magazines and other periodicals have seen their print sales drop by over half in the last decade, while online views have jumped by leaps and bounds.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t uncommon for stores to order thousands of copies of periodicals with amazing images for sale.\u00a0 Events such as the Moon Landing, the Challenger Disaster, and the September 11th<\/sup> attacks generated imagery and print media which evoke emotion to this day.<\/p>\n
As digital media advanced and the internet took a tighter grip, the gritty, dirty and often dangerous world of printing presses, packaging and distribution has been downsized, operations often outsourced of consolidated, and many startups transitioning from print products to online media.\u00a0 One of the most astonishing examples of this was Newsweek, which went from being a print media standard bearer to an exclusively online publication several years ago.\u00a0 Other magazines have reduced their print quantity as paper and ink prices skyrocket.\u00a0 Social media would further transform the business, with \u201con demand\u201d media now the standard as opposed to a novelty.\u00a0 The upside to this was the advent of direct ink printing presses, which eliminated the need for plates and allowed for small-run publications, such as student newspapers, to produce limited copies of their product and become more environmentally friendly thanks to such advances as 100% recycled rag and soy-based inks.<\/p>\n
Metrics \u2013 same numbers, new labels\u2026<\/h4>\n
Perhaps nowhere has seen such a transformation in the creative world as metrics used to measure performance.\u00a0 In the 1990s, success was measured in three general areas:\u00a0 impressions, rights fees and copies.\u00a0 The last two were easy to track thanks to standards and actual monies, while the initial was more abstract and based on statistical analysis.\u00a0 Impressions, the number of times an image of any sort is seen, was the easiest to transition into the world of new media as it didn\u2019t change much.\u00a0 The metrics of CPM were based in impression in that, the more views your content received, the more likely advertisers who associated themselves with it would be patronized.\u00a0 \u201cClickbait,\u201d or misleading headlines used to attract readers and sales, could find their roots in sensationalist headlines of the supermarket tabloids, many of which have fallen by the wayside (Weekly World News, The Sun, etc.)<\/p>\n
Giant volumes of clickbait with subpar content will always be eclipsed in the long run by solid writers, top-notch photographers, and designers who are able to create engaging, eye-catching layouts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Where sensationalism sold copies, clickbait drove views and thus, advertising revenue based on CPM metrics.\u00a0 Finally, rights fees have increasingly become a small stream of revenue as video and content piracy is rampant across the internet.\u00a0 With the exception of celebrity contributions or content protected by corporate lawyers, it is the rare content which actually commands a high price.\u00a0 Most rights fees are now charged by creative who sell the reproduction and re-use rights back to the very clients they worked with in the first place.<\/p>\n
Standardization \u2013 the more things change\u2026<\/h4>\n
\nNewspapers are now mostly chain-owned.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
Media standardization has become a new normal.\u00a0 Years ago, a magazine, newspaper, or TV station was defined by its look.\u00a0 The New York Times<\/em> (aka \u2018The Gray Old Lady\u2019) was the pinnacle of handcrafted newspapers; a creative would be hard pressed to find a mislaid line or misaligned paragraph, while USA Today<\/em> was considered \u201cprocessed,\u201d that moniker owed to its colorful yet boxy, preformatted design.\u00a0 Time Magazine<\/em> was famous for crystal clear photography, and Newsweek<\/em> for compelling, engaging layouts.\u00a0 Conde Nast Traveler<\/em> was reknowned for its brilliant scenes, calling readers to exotic destinations.\u00a0 CNN was the cheap cable network with gritty content, The Weather Channel was famous for whiz-bang graphics, and local TV stations could never compete with the news presentations of New York, Chicago, DC, and LA.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s media has become far more centralized, with largely uniform content and packaging,\u00a0 TV stations in both large markets and small towns look largely the same thanks to advances in digital graphics management. Many newspapers and magazines have streamlined operations, and now have adopted a unified branding strategy to increase recognition and production efficiency.\u00a0 It is, however, not all negative, as this standardization has created a new market for niche publications and sites catering to viewers and readers who long for days of uniqueness in media.<\/p>\n
There is an old saying; the more things change, the more they stay the same.\u00a0 As time goes on, and as media changes rapidly, many things remain the same.\u00a0 The need for quality content, skilled designers, and capable marketers are more important than ever.\u00a0 Giant volumes of clickbait with subpar content will always be eclipsed in the long run by solid writers, top-notch photographers, and designers who are able to create engaging, eye-catching layouts.\u00a0\u00a0 Still, we have come such a long way from the days of sticky wax for paste-up, toxic developing chemicals, and dangerous machine presses, it\u2019s difficult to imagine a time when such things as acid-free paper, paywalls, and soy ink weren\u2019t part of our lexicon.\u00a0 It is a new day in so many ways, but we owe so much to those who blazed these trails.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s creative have immense technological advantages with software capable of taking images…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lumefind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lumefind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lumefind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lumefind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lumefind.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lumefind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":608,"href":"https:\/\/www.lumefind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions\/608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lumefind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lumefind.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lumefind.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lumefind.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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