My first “real” job … 1954

21 years old and I’m ready to take on the world ! I had just received my degree in journalism from Boston University and although this was pretty far from my dream of being a roving reporter I still felt pretty lucky to get this job at a Boston Ad Agency. My dad was a production manager in a competing agency and I’m sure he cleared the way for me.

Here I am at the drawing table with the Art Manager. He was teaching me how to set type for the ad that our agency was working on. We would peruse thick books with examples of type faces and choose the type that we wanted to use and then we would manually set a page to our specifications. It was tedious and exacting work but it felt wonderful to be the one who brought it all together.

Of course the computer has changed all that but I wonder if Id have had that same sense of accomplishment if I’d just followed instructions and punched in a bunch of numbers.

My oldest son ran into something similar to that after he got his Masters in Architecture in the 1990‘s. Architectural drawings were still hand drawn then and, although it was meticulous work, he enjoyed it immensely and even won some prizes with his designs. Now there are very sophisticated computer programs that have taken all the guesswork out of architecture and it has changed that whole industry. It’s called “progress” and there’s no doubt that it’s quicker and more proficient but I often wonder if we haven’t lost something along the way.