IDEA N^o 16

DESKTOP PUBLISHING

For 1,500 years, paper and ink dominated written communication. The printing press ruled for another 500 years. In the mid-80s, Adobe, Apple and Aldus created a new paradigm – desktop publishing (DTP).

Aldus PageMaker was the first desktop publishing software, introduced in 1985 for the Apple Macintosh.

The home-publishing revolution began at Xerox PARC. Like many other PARC employees, John Warnock became frustrated at Xerox’s refusal to market his innovation, so he left to form his own company. The product he had created was PostScript, a programming language to control the laser printer. The company he created was called Adobe Systems.

The same year, during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII, Apple aired its famous ‘1984’ ad for the Macintosh. The Mac came bundled with two applications – MacWrite and MacPaint. Dismissed by many as a toy, the Apple Macintosh changed computing forever.

The following year, Aldus launched PageMaker for the Mac, the world’s first DTP software. The Mac’s monochrome screen was only 512 pixels wide by 342 high, but the seeds of the home-publishing revolution had been planted.

In 1987 came the release of the Macintosh II, with its larger colour screen, and QuarkXPress, which incorporated sophisticated typographic control and, crucially, image handling. This combination of hardware and software proved pivotal. It was not long before all publishing was desktop publishing.

At first, untrained amateurs polluted the world with poorly designed pamphlets, posters and logos. However, over time, enlightened graphic designers saw the potential of these new tools to create highly polished designs.

History repeated itself with the emergence of the Web. Slow connection speeds, limited fonts and a restricted colour palette put off most graphic designers from working on webpage design. Spoiled by a decade of sophisticated digital design tools, they were unwilling to compromise their craft. Another bunch of untrained amateurs were more than happy to fill the void.

In the same way that PageMaker had opened up graphic design to the masses in the mid-80s, WYSIWYG web-design software, such as Dreamweaver and GoLive, allowed anybody with a PC and modem to create webpages ten years later. The results were often horrific (anyone remember GeoCities?) but a generation had been empowered to self-publish. Now all publishing is self-publishing■

A selection of icons created by Susan Kare for the Apple Macintosh.