I brought home my last load from the office on Wednesday and am starting to unpack and get things situated here at home. Plastic Jesus is sharing a cubby with Grandpa Tom's wooden ruler.
More treasures from the office -- A ruler from the pre-digital printing days.
Who knows how many years this ruler sat in the office of the Assistant Editor at Alive Now. When I arrived there in the 80's the magazine was still being produced the old fashioned way. We sent the copy to the typesetters (amazing people who could key in strokes faster than anyone). The copy came back to us on really nice paper with the margins already set. These sheets were glued down on large sheets and marked up by the designer. The boards were then photographed and turned into plates that fit onto the printing press.
My job would be to read through the boards before they went to the production department and check the type and the instructions. That's when I might use the ruler to try to imagine whether black words on an 80% screen of a color would be easy or hard to read.
I'm not remembering which was our first digitally-produced issue of the magazine. For a few years, the magazine was produced sometimes in the old way and sometimes in the new way. By the time the magazine was redesigned in the late 90's, it was all digital production.
I loved the hands-on tasks of those early days of printing. And I'm so amazed to have gotten to see how much things have changed in technology since I started working at The Upper Room.
I remain deeply grateful for this wonderful work.
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