Volume 2–3.pdf

truly important promise of the new
technology for creative people, in
fact, is that it will clear away
mechanical impediments to their
thought processes and enhance
their efforts, not replace them.
Evidence of the reality of this
promise already can be found in
existing technological developments
that go well beyond present-day
word processing operations.
Word processing at its present
early age is still barely in its first
generation of development. As a
general office technology; it has so
far been used primarily for production
of routine office-style documents
ranging from letters and memos to
reports and manuals normally
reproduced by typewriter strike-on
composition and offset duplicating.
Only tentatively has word processing
technology ventured into more
extensive publishing-style operations
in which finished manuscript
is specifically styled for typesetting
of much higher qiiality.
Word processing's basic technological
forms — the dictating machine
and the so-called "editing typewriter"
— are outgrowths of "correspondence-typing"
applications. In
publishing-style operations, how-
ever, a different and more sophisticated
technology for handling both
text and graphics is developing
rapidly. And word processing will
eventually adopt many of these technological
principles and techniques.
In such systems, encoded copy is
not stored on magnetic tape in
cassettes; it is stored in randomaccess
computer memories. Copy is
not encoded on "editing typewriters";
it is optically scanned and
read at incredibly high speeds
directly into the computer system,
or it is typed directly into the system
through keyboards wired to the
rest of the equipment. When changes
are made, the text is not retyped
onto a new sheet of paper and a new
magnetic tape; it is projected onto a
television-like screen attached to a
keyboard, and each change is shown
on the screen the instant it is made.
And when type is finally to be set, no
tape is produced; the electronic
signals are sent instead to the type-
setting machine over wires. In many
instances, the writers and editors
themselves work directly at the keyboards
andvideo screens, manipulating
their own material in the system.
These systems also now provide
for entry of typographical instruc-
tions by means of these same videoscreen
keyboard-equipped devices,
and certain of these "video display
terminals" can even show type on
the screen in different sizes, shapes,
and positions just as it will appear in
the finished typeset job. With such a
device, the operator can make up a
complete advertisement or page on
the screen, adjusting it to suit his
aesthetic eye prior to committing the
work to phototypesetting. And if the
operator wants to rearrange things
after seeing the typeset job, it is a
simple matter to bring the work back
on the screen from storage, rearrange
it in any way desired, and
send it through the typesetter again
all in a matter of minutes and at
little extra cost.
With systems like these, future
typographers will most likely work
directly on the equipment as writers
and editors are now doing. Because
the machines are extremely reliable
when finally set up and operating
properly, fewer errors will result
between the creative idea and its
final execution. Because of the tremendous
operating speeds of the
machines, creative commands will
be executed virtually instantaneously.
Because of the ability of the
43
machines to hold material indefinitely
in easily changeable form, ideas will
be revised and developed far more
freely and easily.
But because machines cannot
think creatively about type and typography,
they will be capable of proclueing
the same range of quality—
from beautiful typography to equally
distasteful typesetting—as the people
who work in convertive operations
do today. Like these convertive people,
the machines will require instructions
based on disciplined,
expert creative typographic thought
in order to fulfill their potential to
produce beautiful typography. For
beautiful typography, like beautiful
writing or art, originates in the
creative mind, not the machine.
This, then, is the typographer's
responsibility in the new technological
age — to take charge of the
new technology, to use it effectively
and imaginatively, to demand that
the ends of graphic excellence be
well served by it. If the typographer
does not, if others without typographic
knowledge and skills are
left to operate these systems in
typographic ignorance, then the
gigo age of typography will be
upon us. — PAUL D. DOEBLER
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