The dot trade used to be pretty down to earth.
When Charles J. Sherman set out 16 years ago to start his own graphic arts business, turning color pictures and text into the dots that make up printing, he made his own equipment in a garage workshop.
He and a partner each saved $5 a week until they had enough to get started. They converted a garage, spent $100 for materials for 10 light boxes and began jury-rigging sinks and other basics.
This year Sherman, now sole owner of ASG Sherman Graphics Inc., at 3365 N. Drake Ave., just plunked down $60,000 for a machine, a RIP 60, the size of a large suitcase. It can take a customer`s computer disk and translate it into film for a printer.
That bypasses about $800,000 worth of other equipment at ASG, which means the customer gets a smaller bill.
But if the information on the disk is so rudimentary that ASG has to build pages, retouch images and perform other such tasks, the disk information is fed through another machine, a Scriptmaster ($75,000), which translates it for yet another computer system called a ChromaCom ($700,000), which allows the information to be manipulated. The ChromaCom system is contained in a bank of large computers that require air conditioning, air cleaning and other special care.
Sherman, 44, said ChromaCom eventually will be replaced by smaller, less- expensive equipment that can do more and requires less care.
Sherman used to figure on it taking seven years for equipment to pay for itself; with ever-faster technological advances, it now takes only two years. Sherman figures he must spend $150,000 each year on new equipment to keep up in the graphic arts business, which is undergoing a kind of rolling revolution as computers take over more and more tasks that used to be performed by hand or by other, less-capable machines.
The Chicago area has more than 100 graphic arts shops, ranging from small desktop operations to firms with their own printing facilities and a full spectrum of prepress operations. Sherman`s company, with about $6 million in revenues, falls in the middle: Customers say it does quality work at reasonable prices. Sherman said he is considering adding printing presses next year.
The graphics revolution leaves no part of the business untouched, from the role played by the customer who wants a printing job done to that played by the printing press. Eventually, the trend will be toward what Sherman calls ”seamless technology,” transmitting work by computer disk to the press without film or plates. It`s happening a step at a time.
”It began really when you started having personal computers in offices and software became available to build pages and color composition,” said John Gagliano, executive vice president. ”Putting the information on a disk, you can create your own ad or brochure or whatever.”
Part of ASG Sherman`s job, and that of other graphics shops, now is teaching clients how to use their computers. The computers have to speak a compatible language, and operators have to realize the possibilities that lie before them.
”A lot of people feel threatened by electronic work,” said Ranena Beck, who works in ASG`s desktop-publishing operation and sometimes visits customers, spending a half day or more helping with the transition. ”But it`s actually easier for them; they can come up with a lot more images than if they`re working with an art board.
”It`s faster and they have more control, which saves money. But as soon as you find yourself at the top of the curve, there`s something new to learn. You have to be adaptable.”
Basically, instead of sending ASG Sherman an art board with text and illustration paste-ups, which then are turned into a more finished product by craftspeople called ”strippers,” customers can deliver a disk containing the same information. A computer operator manipulates the customer`s work as necessary to make it suitable for a printer.
It generally takes longer to put together a disk file than an art board, but once completed the work can be changed in minutes, giving firms such as mail-order houses much more flexibility in changing prices and order information. It ultimately saves time-and that means money.
”A catalog customer can slash prices in response to a competitor and get the material out in 24 hours,” said Gagliano. ”You can meet shorter deadlines. You can have an ad sitting on the computer and move quickly to get a cheaper ad rate.”
Not all customers have rushed to the new technology. Grace Zmuda, desktop marketing manager, said many grapple with the switchover.
”There is an extremely tedious learning curve during the first year,”
Zmuda said. ”It`s hard to start thinking electronically instead of conventionally. There are lots of glitches at the beginning.
”But once you get it, it`s wonderful. In two years, I expect to see desktop being 90 percent of our business.”
Randy Methling, executive vice president of Visual Marketing Inc., which creates in-store and other advertising, says his company has been changing over to desktop publishing and has seen many positive results. He has been a customer of ASG for many years.
”Upfront there`s a lot more time required, but it`s saving a ton of time when it comes to changes and revisions,” Methling concurred. ”If you have modifications, you don`t have to redraw the whole job. It`s becoming almost a norm for the industry. About 80 percent of our designers now have desktop
(computers).”
Revolutions have their casualties.
A skilled stripper has been essential in graphic arts, and will be in some form for quite a while to come. The number isn`t growing, however-at least not at ASG.
Strippers take the hand work from agencies and turn what can be chaos into a coherent job. They do their work by hand on light tables in darkened rooms, making them appear a bit like aquarium keepers peering down into lighted depths where unusual forms swirl around.
”Take a look at this job I`m doing,” said Daniel J. Helminiak, 52, who knows he must learn desktop publishing but also knows that when a botched job comes in, he`s the one chosen to straighten it out.
Helminiak is not entranced with the computer age.
He holds out a succession of art boards and film transparencies, noting exactly how the designer screwed up the job. Colors will bleed into each other: They must be trapped. Text doesn`t fit: It must be altered. And so on, gritty point after point.
ASG has a 24-hour deadline on this job. If a computer team tried to handle it, there would be no place to start. You can`t put this job onto a computer. Helminiak will meet the deadline, staying a little late, coming in a little early. He has figured it to the half-hour.
”There`ll always be a need for a stripper,” Helminiak said. ”There are size limitations-we can stretch a job out over several tables. Two or three of us can gang up on a job. And this is an art-the art would be the sense of clear outlining, what colors should be blended together, thinking ahead and knowing what you`re going to do before you do it.”
Helminiak and several other ASG strippers are planning to attend desktop school at Kennedy-King College on Chicago`s South Side, said to have the best practical desktop course in the area. They have been urged to do so by Sherman, who likes to hold on to employees-Helminiak was the company`s first hire 16 years ago. Of 50 employees, a dozen have more than 10 years with the young firm and a Rolex watch to prove it.
Helminiak is resigned to learning the new technology, figuring that with his experience he is more capable than someone who knows only computers. It takes a five-year apprenticeship to become a journeyman stripper.
Everett ”Butch” England, 30, just finished his apprenticeship under Helminiak, and now realizes he must begin learning a new way of operating.
”ASG could just hire somebody for less,” England said. ”We`re lucky our employer wants us to get into this. I`m looking forward to it.”
In the end, said the managers, Gagliano and Sherman, it doesn`t matter how you accomplish the job. It matters that you do the job well.
”It`s dots,” said Gagliano. ”We know dots.”
