please empty your brain below

Letraset wasn't just for typing, either. Thery had sets/sheets for things like building plans or street scenes (and "artist's impressions").

In fact, if you look at a "room design" item like MS Visio or some of the others, their "clipart" bears an extremely close resemblance to the Letraset ones...

I started working at an Ad Agency in Soho in '91. They had a couple of Macs which they were using Pagemaker for Word Processing on - saving each page as a separate file. They couldn't work out how to page number nor how to draw lines/arrows/tables etc. They were using letraset to put arrows and other devices into their reports and also to page number. And yes, they were still also using electric type writers.

My mind boggles as to how they arrived at this way of doing things. I was feted as a hero for showing them the command for auto page numbering.

Art class at school doing graphics projects. What a throwback! Always very pleased with the results, even when you had to patchwork a broken letter together (from not rubbing enough in the right place) or when the top of the T was at a slightly incorrect angle cos the paper had moved!

when are you gonna get a column in the idler or the oldie? i would subscribe.

Heh heh - Elsie's comment takes me back - pretty well exactly the same situation and date.

The single mac would be used to set a paragraph of type. Which would then be pasted onto a board, and letraset artwork applied round it.

Also used a mark-up language which I think was called 'Typeshare'. Instructions went down a modem then some typography would arrive on a courier. Except you always forgot to turn the italics off at a crucial moment.

I started work for a publishing company in 1999. The main office had one computer. Reference books were updated on cut pages of the previous edition, onto which 'wings' were stuck (odd-sized sheets of thick, slightly-creamy paper, not-quite A4 or US-letter format, with envelope-style glue down one edge). Then it was a case of making your changes with a biro (in one of four different colours) or, if it was a big change, typing out the new copy on the computer (after waiting half the morning to get onto the thing), printing it out, and quite literally cutting and pasting it onto the wing, then marking where to insert it and what, if anything, to delete to make room for it with the good old biro. If you were adding something really substantial, you'd type it up, print it out, staple the pages together and attach them to the wing with a pin.

However, I worked in a smaller office round the corner. We were cutting edge and had a computer each (which meant we earnt slightly more). We used an arcane system of typesetting symbols understood only by ourselves and one printing firm that used to own us. Most nonalphabetical characters were rendered using 'splat codes'. The only one I can remember now is the one that caused the most grief. Splat-ca was the code for @. Unfortunately, the splat in a splat code was also @. (The name was coined by someone who didn't know what @ was called.) I suppose this was fine when email was still a rarity, but by the time I joined we were inserting email addresses by the hundreds into our books. Imagine having to type @ca when all you wanted was @! I also remember spending lots of time removing 'ca' after the @ in email addresses in proofs. What joy.

We use SGML editors now and publish online. How things have changed.

I loved Letraset so much, that as a cash-strapped teenager, I stole a sheet of rub-down lettering from WH Smiths in Bracknell.

35p.

I still feel guilty about it after all these years.

My gravestone will be Letrasetted as I burn in hell.

It was horrible stuff. I used to work for a picture framing shop when I left university and if some office wanted a photograph framed with a caption underneath I used to have to sit there rubbing those plastic sheets for ages. I used to love the calligraphy pens, though, and got quite good at it. I don't suppose many people do that anymore either, they just pick a fancy font and type it. Can't say I'm nostalgic about letraset.

Just wonderful - you are really excelling at the moment with these posts.
Not so much Letraset (which I loved), but a quote from the recently departed Anthony Buckeridge, of Jennings fame. Darbishire (the specky one) has been sent a printing kit for his birthday, but unfortunately he's dropped the E (not in that sense!!), so he meticulously composes a letter to Pater & Mater, to wit 'Plxasx sxnd mx somx morx of thosx lxttxrs that comx bxtwxxn D and F'

Desktop publishing in the late 1950s

1. Clean the typewriter type with solvent to remove all traces of ink.

2. Set ribbon to 'No ribbon'.

3. Insert Gestetner master page into typewriter. I've no idea what the master page was made of.

4. Type page without any errors, proof-reading as you went. As the type simply cut the white page, it was not that easy to read. If you made an error you had to brush it with pink correcting fluid (similar to nail varnish), let it dry, then re-type.

5. Affix master page to Gestetner copying machine by slotting holes at top of page over matching sticky-up bits - an excellent feature that ensured the page was placed correctly. Smooth master page down over roller without any creases, quite tricky.

6. Unscrew large tube of ink, similar in consistency to toothpaste, and squeeze along ink thingy.

7. Turn machine on. The machine in my Westminster office was quite up-to-date - just set the number counter and push the ON button, lovely, like magic. But it was still best to stand and watch it in case it fouled up, and also to add more ink when necessary.

8. Remove master page from machine, ughh, what a messy job! Have newspaper handy to drop it on, roll it up and deposit in waste-basket.

9. Page 2 was more challenging because it had to be printed on the back of Page 1 (a separate sheet for each page was unheard of - what a shocking waste of paper!). It was all too easy to put the Page 1s into the paper tray the wrong way round, and the paper didn't always take kindly to going through the machine a second time.

Never in my wildest dreams could I have foreseen myself sitting in my own home playing with the features on Windows XP.

Ah, the old days of staying up all night pasting up the old college magazine. I used to go around the place with bits of common words like "the", "at" or "be" stuck on my fingers just in case they might be needed (they usually were). Plus, if you played in a poxy band and you wanted to design a badge (bands ALWAYS had badges back then) you could always pilfer some of the Letraset for yourself.

Plus, you could still get a buzz off Tipp-Ex back then...

Oh happy days. I had a job after I left school as a paste-up artist in a small office printers in Portsmouth. Used to spend my days with the stuff, laying out invoices and memo pads which I then photographed using an enormous plate camera. In fact still have my clear typesetter's ruler that I used to line up the letters. Immensely satisfying when you got it right.

And it's still available although a far cry from the old days.

Enjoy:

http://rob.annable.co.uk/
journal...traset1966.html


http://rob.annable.co.uk/
journal...traset1982.html


Thank you for your article: i was looking for giant LETRASET letters (don't know if that really exists...) to customize posters for our town.. I have not yet found anything but your little nostalgic (?)text reminds me of my young years... if you know something about big letraset letters please let me know.I am French living in France.

I remember about 28 years ago using a PC to print giant banners, which took forever because they were printed on dot matrix printers.










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