The summer I fell in love

I 𝗳𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝗻 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗲. 𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘤 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯.

I worked a summer job at a print shop in Wildwood, New Jersey that somehow still had a Compugraphic EditWriter 7500, a phototypesetting machine already obsolete.

I dare anyone to know what that is.

Operating it felt like a strange bridge between worlds. You entered formatting codes manually. Fonts lived on filmstrips inside the machine. Text was projected photographically onto light-sensitive paper using strobes and lenses. Then the paper was run through chemical developer baths in a darkroom to create long strips of finished type called galleys.

Then came the physical production process.

The galleys were run through a waxing machine, cut apart with X-Acto knives, and hand-assembled onto layout boards for printing. Every inch of a page was physically built by hand. Ruler, t-squares, bluelines, tissues, and acetates. It was detailed, exacting work that removed the mystery of how design and production worked. 

𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲. 

I loved the physicality of it. The smell of wax. The precision of the blade. The darkroom. The photo stats. The galleys drying after they came out of the processor. The way your hands were part of the work before the work became something someone else could see.

Design was not something you made on a screen. It was measured, cut, developed, assembled, fixed, and finished by hand.

At the time, I still thought I was headed for a career in radio. But after that summer, everything changed.

When I got back to college, I practically moved into the Mac lab. I taught myself PageMaker and Illustrator through trial, error, experimentation, and sheer obsession. I kept taking jobs in print shops while cater-waiting to pay tuition. I followed the technology wherever I could get near it.

I was completely hooked by the intersection of creativity and technology, and honestly, 𝗜 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱.

That summer gave me something I didn’t understand until later: I knew the physical system desktop publishing was trying to translate. It was an invaluable experience. 

PageMaker did not feel abstract to me. It was the digital version of work I had already learned. Leading. Columns. Type specs. Galleys. Layout boards. Image placement. Production flow.

Because I had experienced the original process hands-on, the move to digital made sense faster.

That was my first real lesson in transformation. New tools are easier to understand when you know what human process they are replacing, preserving, or reinventing.

At the time, though, I was not thinking about transformation. 𝗜 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗸𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴.

Within a few years, entire production workflows disappeared. Paste-up artists vanished. Typesetting systems vanished. Darkrooms vanished. The industry reorganized itself around digital publishing almost overnight.

That pattern would repeat itself over and over across every era of my career:
desktop publishing
networking
internet infrastructure
telecom
SaaS
cybersecurity
online education
AI

𝗟𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗻𝗼𝘄, 𝗜 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝗺𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗿 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘂𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝘄𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.

That’s the thread I’m going to explore in this series.

𝙏𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙏𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙙𝙖𝙮𝙨.

Because this AI moment isn’t the first professional extinction event I’ve lived through. Not even close.