18 Dec 2013

Andy Warhol & Digital Art

You probably already know that I love Andy Warhol. It is not a love at first site, but it is a love at old age - low, hot flame, no smoke and smolder for years....

I must share this find, this is Andy working in 1985 on a Commodore Amiga, taking a digital snapshot of his model and creating a digital portrait. (below)

Reminiscing: our first PC didn't arrive probably for another 3-4 years, it had a drive with a swapping size of about 80 MB, upgraded to 120! Wow, soon a scanner followed, a miraculously slow but sure early flatbed Microtek.
Boy, I love remembering the excitement digital technology brought to the creative - art and graphic community.
The Aldus PhotoStyler was just such a GREAT thing.
PhotoStyler was developed by the Taiwanese Ulead Corp and then bought by Aldous Corp.
This and soon marketed PageMaker became the pillars of digital publishing. Soon afterwards Adobe took over.
Unforgettable Aldus logo

Aldus Magnutius
gave us printed Italic type, established modern semicolon and a comma.
I remember wearing the Aldous engraved metal pin in the lapel of my gray jacket (yup, we all wore jackets with rolled sleeves then...)

It was the Aldus logo, with an exquisite image of the 15th century Venetian printer, publisher and typographer - Aldus Magnutius.

I couldn't get over loosing this object.
Adobe did a beautiful, really community building things. Like calling the graphic working space ART and actively working towards proud, distinct, excited graphic art community.
I am so happy to have been a part of that.

The loss of impetus and minimal activity in the area of graphic design and print nowadays is very sad.
The new media are great and exciting by their sheer speed and proliferation, but still - there is nothing more tantalizing than the sight of beautifully designed and type set printed page.

Here is the vid that led to the out-pour of my fond memories:

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