How Technology Changed Everything—
and Nothing—for Walsh Design

By Miriam Walsh Lisco, Principal,
Walsh Design

Walsh Design, a Pacific Northwest graphic design and visual branding firm founded by the late and legendary designer Frederick Walsh, opened its doors in 1962. As we look to celebrate our 50th year in 2012, we often get asked how we have stayed in business so long, followed by the more provocative question, “How has technology changed the way you do business?”

In a sense, technology changed everything, and it changed nothing.
Hard as it is to imagine today, from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s, we used the same tools to produce art that designers used in the 18th and 19th centuries. I have fond memories of watching my dad take out his antique drawing pens and drafting tools and getting to work on a project. For those who think typography comes from a list of computer fonts, consider this scene, as I often do, with Frederick Walsh meticulously cutting a sable brush, hair by hair, so he could hand-draw beautiful typography and logos that have become the hallmark of our firm.
Technology, indeed, changed everything—from the tools of the trade that included India ink, paintbrushes, rubber cement, thinner, drafting tools, T-squares, pica rules and slide rules, to the extensive and expensive logistics of getting a project to the client for approval.
In the 1970s and ‘80s, our largest client was in Los Angeles, which meant countless trips to the airport. We either “escorted” the artwork, if we needed to discuss it with the client, or we sent finished art on the plane by itself. Artwork, in those days, was something like an Unaccompanied Minor, needing to have someone make sure that it got from Point A to Point B safely. Today, of course, we routinely send artwork to clients all over the globe, just with the push of a button.
Technology, indeed, changed everything and by 1984, after my dad had passed away and I took over the helm of Walsh Design, Apple introduced the Macintosh in a memorable Super Bowl ad titled “1984.” Two days later, the “Mac” was for sale and… the rest is history. When Apple introduced a laser printer, and PageMaker was introduced, technology had changed the entire industry.  Typesetting houses went out of business, as did color separation firms and the multitude of graphic supply stores.
Technology, particularly computer “design” programs such as PageMaker, gave us the notion that “anyone can create,” even though nothing could be further from the truth! I used to cringe when I gave a new employee a project to start and he or she would immediately sit down at the computer and start working. There seems to be this belief that “the computer is going to get me there.” What we have learned and what we see every day is that technology enhances the skills of great designers, but it has also built a massive marketplace of mediocrity.
Yes, in many ways the design world changed completely with the introduction of technology, but it has been a mixed blessing. Technology allows us to market ourselves worldwide, and that is a good thing. No more flying ourselves or our artwork to places like L.A. Technology enables us to work for clients in Brooklyn, New York, as easily as we take on client work in Bellevue, Washington, or any country across the globe—and we do.
The fact that we have kept up with technology is why we are successful. The way we interact with our clients has changed because of technology, in very specific ways:
• The Web is where they find us and evaluate us, and sometimes make a purchasing decision before they ever speak to us.
• E-mail gives us the opportunity to be attached to our clients 24/7, although this is also a mixed blessing. Clients assume we are always looking at our e-mail. They expect an immediate response.
But, as we suggested earlier, technology is just a tool—and it has changed nothing about the creative process for us. While technology has definitely revolutionized the way we conduct our business, we have not departed from some of the core principles established by our founder, Frederick Walsh. We can move faster, act smarter, and shorten the time it takes to get materials into production. But at the same time, we still believe in the kind of meticulous attention to detail that was our hallmark from the 1960s to 1984, and we still thrive on personal interaction—the original social networking.

Miriam Walsh Lisco is principal at Walsh Design in Seattle. Visit www.walshdesign.com.