TODAY IN 1954
Do conditions today give the ambitious young designer and printer the same opportunities I enjoyed back in the late Victorian period? Not the same, of course, but even greater.
While it is true that the Nineties were literally made to order for a boy who had acquired only such training as was to be had in the sparsely equipped print-ship of a weekly newspaper in a pioneer iron-mining town, today is made to order for the ambitious young designer and printer who is availing himself of the training to be had by even the small-town beginner.
Back in my boyhood days a study of such examples of design and printing as now reach even the most remote out-posts of the printing industry, would have taught me more than I learned during a year in the art department, so-called, of the publishing house of Rand McNally in Chicago.
The inspiration to be derived from the text and advertising pages of our standard magazines, together with the creative art of school children and the art magazines, quite unknown at the turn of the century, supplies a liberal education teaching the beginner how to appreciate and use the printing and designing advantages of today.
What are these advantages, and why do they open a door to exceptional opportunities not known in the Nineties? First, and perhaps of greatest importance, is the typographic consciousness now prevalent, especially in the advertising and business world, where it is universally recognized that effective typography and design increase sales.