Scanning Around With Gene: When Letraset Was King

[mikey-Oh]

Before vinyl, there was letraset. Used this only twice in my life, both times for 7th grade tech-ed projects. Kinda fun and inspiring to look at the type and clipart. Thought y'all might getta kick out of it.

http://www.creativepro.com/blog/scanning-around-gene-when-letraset-was-king

 

[d fleming]

I used to have a massive stack of half used sheets of different types and sizes. How nice is it to do it off of a keyboard these days. I don't miss hand cutting screen positives either.

 

[The Equipment Guy]

I remember selling the stuff...we had drawers and drawers of it...was kind of glad to see it go.

Craig

 

[SignosaurusRex]

I still have hundreds of sheets of it left over from way back when. Funny, I actually had to use some of it a couple years back for a job because the typeface with alts was not yet available as a font. Pretty sure it can all go away now......i just hate to pitch it out yet.

 

[Robert M]

Kroy machine

Anyone ever have one of these? It pressed dry toner on to adhesive back tape, it was the next big thing in 1980. Each font was a 12 inch wheel you had to buy for $45.00

 

[OldPaint]

anyone remember these?????? i was so good at freehanding..........i rarely used one of these, but i know others who couldnt live with out it.

 

[Steve C.]

I found some old Letraset pages last week going through some old stuff.
Also found my old percentage wheel. Not even sure I remember how to use it.

 

[SignosaurusRex]

Anyone ever have one of these? It pressed dry toner on to adhesive back tape, it was the next big thing in 1980. Each font was a 12 inch wheel you had to buy for $45.00

Oh man.....the old Kroy 80......
We had one at a company I worked for back around '79 or '80. Owner of the company brought it in one day with a stack of discs to the art department all excited and proud of his new found gold. The "Art Director" immediately raised an eyebrow...played with it for a bit and sent it away to the front office where it got some use for a very short spell before it was retired to the basement where I'm sure it still sits with all of the other fools gold.

 

[mikey-Oh]

i'd love to get some sheets of halftones or any others for that matter. swear i'll put it to good use

 

[Bigdawg]

I cut my teeth on that stuff in my paste-up and stripping days (not that kind of stripping ). Laying down the base art... spec colors by laying in the halftone sheets at the right angles and cutting them with my handy exacto... at the right percentages... cutting rubylith or amber masks... stripping in the negatives for color pictures... overlays for everything.

Wow. I just realllly dated myself.

 

[Colin]

Ha! I remember buying Letraset when I first got into signs in '88 - '89. I would apply them to a clear sheet, then project that up to a 4x8 using an overhead projector. *face palm*

How far we've come eh? It makes me wonder what things will be like in 20 years.

 

[Pat Whatley]

Damn Colin, you were rich. We had to project them a letter at a time off the sheet....couldn't waste them by rubbing them down.

Then we got real cheap and just started projecting them out of the catalog.

 

[phototec]

Verityper

Man, you guys are taking me back in a Time Machine, I use to use the LeRoy letting guide back in the Army at Ft, Hood in 1968. Then later I used the Verityper at Texas Instruments in 1985, it used large plastic disk with a negative image of each letter, and you work rotate the type wheel to the desired letter and push the expose button, and a light would expose the letter onto clear film or paper, which ever you had loaded in the machine. You would turn the wheel to the next letter and repeat the process. After setting a line of type, you would remove the cartridge and insert it into the photographic developer, then out came your typeset, black text on the paper or clear film.

We used the clear file for making silkscreen positives and the paper was run thru a waxer to coat the back with wax for the cut-n-pate build up of camera ready artwork. In the photo of me working at the drafting table, you can see the word "WANTED" above the art-board I'm working on, which was typeset withthe Varityper.

Also, a photo of the Verityper typesetter, as I remember we had about 20 different fonts, and a few like Helvetica, we had different faces, bold, Italic, etc.

 

[Colin]

Damn Colin, you were rich. We had to project them a letter at a time off the sheet....couldn't waste them by rubbing them down.

Hahahahahaha......yes, when rubbing the letters down in place, I recall thinking: "Man, I'm using up all these letters; I'm gonna have to buy another sheet soon - dang!"

OMG

 

[Jillbeans]

Somewhere I still have a few sheets of Letraset from when I was in art school.
I remember using pieces of letters to make the letters I'd run out of.
Thought I was such hot sh!t.
I still have my Letraset catalogs, I used them daily when I did everything by hand.
Love....Jill

 

[Cross Signs]

Somewhere I still have a few sheets of Letraset from when I was in art school.
I remember using pieces of letters to make the letters I'd run out of.
Thought I was such hot sh!t.
I still have my Letraset catalogs, I used them daily when I did everything by hand.
Love....Jill

Yup, I've still got one of those catalogs too. I think I could find an old burnisher with a little looking.

 

[Rodi]

I used to make "Chromatecs" which were customized Letraset. We'd set the type, the client would then sometimes make a pasteboard and we would create whatever color (color match PITA!) the customer wanted. They were very much like Letraset, but you could have any spot colors you wanted. It was a good money maker.

 

[Rooster]

We had racks and racks and racks of the stuff. Comping markers too. Every color under the sun it seemed.

The oldest tool in my shop that sees continual daily usage is the little roller wheel I used to used to burnish down waxed galley type and letraset from back in the day. I'm not when my dad bought it initially, but I'm pretty sure it paid for itself back in about 1974.

We still have a few boxes of old design magazines and letraset catalogues from the 70's and 80's stashed away somewhere. It sure is fun to peek back in time through those things from time to time.

 

[anotherdog]

Letraset Catalogues, a photocopier and spray mount (or mounting wax), then on the camera to make a negative. Paint or mask with rubylith then make a contact print back to positive.
120 degrees in the darkroom for hours on end shooting artwork.

Then I saw a linotype machine with 12 different fonts!!!

 

[Baz]

I loved it back when i started ('88). Working with projectors, handcutting stencils, actually DRAWING!, airbrushing, roller blending, hand lettering. Those were fun times. Now it just seems like how fast can i knock this out so i can get paid and get on to the next "rush" orders.