Since 1989
TBGraphics
& Design

"For graphics that matter"

Bellingham
Washington


Email:
Thom Barrie

tbgraphics.net
web site

NEW! tbgraphics.net is up!
The TBGraphics online portfolio is now available at www.tbgraphics.net.


I'd have to say the two Steves were instrumental in the development of TBGraphics & Design. Having been in the printing industry since the late 70s, it was the Apple Macintosh that liberated me from mechanical paste-up and relieved my hands from ink on paper - running a printing press.

I remember the first time I sat down and drew a complex rendering of a hard drive mechanism - just for fun, of course - using Adobe Illustrator (just Illustrator, not '88, or 5.0 or 7.0 [the version that really ticked me off]). Suddenly you could draw a line or a perfect arc and if you didn't like it, delete it and keep going. No erasing or white-out. Try that with a t-square and compass! And the complexity of projects I would willingly attempt were magnitudes above anything I'd try by hand. There was this really great magazine ad that I think may have been plugging Apple (now there's an oxymoron - great Apple ad), though probably not, that portrayed a 50s-looking t-square and drawing board morphing/merging into a 90s-looking computer monitor with a mouse. The caption was "From hand to mouse!" I loved it. It summed up perfectly the paradigm shift started by the two Steves. (note the IIci picture below - the upper left edge shows the bottom of the ad. I had it cut out and taped up.)

You can argue and complain all you want. Ask anyone back in the beginning and the revolution was started with Aldus PageMaker, the Apple Macintosh, and the crazy little thing called Postscript. Aldus was swallowed by Adobe and PageMaker has been allowed to die in favor of their own InDesign - but mark my words: PageMaker will never die! I will not use InDesign. And I hate Quark, using it only for projects that must be done in it (I have one marginal client and a couple oddball printers around the country that require it).

TBGraphics started, I believe, in March 1989 when I bought my first mac: Macintosh SE and an ImageWriter II. Luckily I was working at a print shop at the time, so I had access to a LaserWriter IINTX - I never really cared too much for the dot matrix printer. One really cool thing I had for the ImageWriter, however, was the "ThunderScan" scanner attachment. It made fairly decent scans of line art and marginal grayscales. And for around $100 or so it was a great deal considering scanners were in the thousands of dollars at the time. Anyway, I got a business license and set up shop at home part-time. Really part-time. Had one client: Lynden Christian School, laying out their newsletter. Still do it. The first thing I did upon firing up the SE was to realize it was no Macintosh II, which was my work machine. So, I beefed up the RAM to 4MB (max), put in an accelerator card (68020 - same as MacII) and gave it a second larger monitor. Now I had a workstation rivaling my office machine! I ultimately did a lot of work with that setup, made at least as much as I paid for it (well, maybe) and still have it in the "Obsolete Apple Museum," sitting right next to the Mac Plus and the Apple IIC, all three of which still work. A recent addition to the museum is a Macintosh Classic II that a friend had no use for. Of course, neither do I.

TBGraphic's next quantum leap was in March 1993 when I started freelancing full time. Now I had a Mac IIci and a 19" grayscale monitor with a 14" color on the side. It was '93 that I also developed my two best and favorite clients (in addition to Lynden Christian School): Markets 2000, publisher of The Great Western Coupon Gazette, and Dream On Futon Company, futon manufacturer and retail furniture store. They have been great clients and good friends over the years.

So, what do I do?

I produce "Graphics that matter." If it needs to go to press, whether newspaper and web printing or commercial offset printing - can do. From nursery catalogs to monthly/quarterly newsletters to annual reports; from full-color booklets, brochures and posters to full-color advertising - magazines and newspapers; from web pages to full web sites: no problem. I've made a 200+ page trade paperback and even a couple billboards. If you need it done or just want to chat, give drop me a line.


Speaking of Adobe Systems. Founded by John Warnack, formerly of Xerox Palo Alto Researh Center (PARC), who brought Postscript with him because Xerox wasn't interested. What an incredibly interesting story: PARC. How virtually everything we touch concerning personal computers today was developed at PARC and ignored by Xerox. Talk about your faux paux. Opps!

I've always been a fan of Adobe. I cut my digital teeth on Illustrator and progressed faithfully with each subsequent version upgrade. It has always been an excellent program. However, when version 7.0 came out I started cursing the boyz at Adobe for completely changing the interface. Aside from Illustrator (their baby) and PageMaker (their adopted teenager), Adobe's signature, flagship, virtually unquestioned industry-standard program was Photoshop: everyone in graphics and printing, Mac or PC, used Photoshop.

So, Adobe's problem was this: They had three industry-standard major publishing programs, all three being developed by different sources, and hence, with different GUIs (graphic user interfaces - palates, commands, menus, key combinations, etc.). The remedy: make them all based upon the same GUI. Okay, fine. But they chose Photoshop as the model because in reality Photoshop had no competition; so the greatest user base would be familiar with the Photoshop interface. Makes plenty of sense to everyone but me. I use Photoshop for a certain narrow suite of tools: primarily fixing scans and making rollover buttons and icons - basic stuff. I use Illustrator for making all sorts of 2D art: logos, models, graphs, maps - anything with lines and text. I was completely "up-to-speed" with Illustrator's features and keyboard commands and shortcuts. With version 7.0, however, everything changed. I mean just about everything, to the point where working with the program was no longer intuitive and second-nature and I was like a beginner. I'm sorry, but after 10 years of my fingers knowing one thing, having to relearn has been more than just an annoyance. Imaging yourself being forced to change to a Dvorchak [sp?] keyboard layout because, as they say, it is so much more efficient. And all the years you've spent with the regular keyboard layout.

I was so incensed over version 7.0 that I immediately upgraded to 8.0 when it came out, knowing all the abhored changes would still be there, but at least I knew what I was in for.

Tick off #2: PageMaker's being tossed out in favor of Adobe's own, in-house designed In Design page layout program. I have been using PageMaker since probably 1987 or 88, and I love it. It does everything I ask of it with ease of use and excellent results. PageMaker was "IT" when Adobe took it over. There was something called Ready Set Go as well as Multi-Ad Creator giving it only the slightest competition. Then the upstart QuarkExpress came on the scene while Adobe was resting on its PageMaker laurels. Quark had a great marketing team: they convinced the publishing world that Quark was just the new IT. I personally despise it and its "frames-based" format. When Quark started taking the lead, Adobe figured they had to add frames capability to PageMaker to catch up. Didn't really help (I've never used them) because by now the publishing world's collective hysteria/delusion over Quark was firmly entrenched. So the remedy: abandon PageMaker in favor of In Design, which was supposed to be the "Quark Killer" by being so Quark-like that even Quark users would come rushing to Adobe's camp, especially since Quark's customer and tech support have been legendarily horrible. Don't think it's been happening though.

So why am I ticked off? PageMaker still works, doesn't it?

Yes, but soon the operating system is going to change just enough that PageMaker will no longer work right. I thought it had happened when I got the G4 dual processor running OS 9: PageMaker started behaving unprecedently erratic, crashing half a dozen times daily. I was starting to be afraid to use it. And since Adobe is no longer supporting PageMaker (attempting to force us graphics professionals to change camp), I was just about to start thinking about using In Design (falling into their trap) or Quark, which I hate and don't really want to get into. But then, Apple came to the rescue with a patch for the new G4s - and the patch has made everything work just fine! Thank you Apple! Bite me Adobe.

News Flash: Just In!
Adobe has just released PageMaker 7.0! I guess the Quark Killer didn't manage to even kill PageMaker! Haven't gotten it yet, though. 6.5 is working fine.

You know, everyone complains about Microsoft and how it has such a grip on everything PC. Just check the side bar with my hardware and software: the top four programs I used for everything, everyday are Adobe products. And when you throw in Acrobat Distiller and Reader, except for BBEdit (text editor I build web pages with), my entire graphics studio is based upon Adobe products. I'm really at their mercy - just like all you PC people are slaves to Mr. Bill.

Hardware

Apple G4 Macintosh:
500MHz dual processor
Mitsubishi 20" monitor
UMAX Powerlook 1100 scanner
Unity 1800 dpi printer
CDR burner

UMAX: J700 Mac-clone
SuperMac 19" monitor
UMAX Astra 600S scanner
Magnetic-Optical drive

Apple Mac iBook SE
Airport wireless

Olympus D-340L
Digital camera - I love it!

Canon GL1
Digital camcorder - Getting to know it!

Major Software

PageMaker 6.5
Photoshop 6
Illustrator 8.0 & 9.0
Streamline

BBEdit
Filemaker Pro
Digidesign ProTools
Final Cut Pro

QuarkXPress (only if forced)

And so forth!

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