Low-Tech Tech

My love/hate relationship with tech

I have recently realised that the simple bits of tech that I use (and I’m including the humble pencil here) profoundly affect my work.

For many years, I used the vector program Macromedia Freehand: an easy-to-use competitor to the unintuitive Adobe Illustrator. I was at one with it; it did everything I needed. Things that, at the time, Illustrator couldn’t easily do (like Paste Inside). Freehand simply worked and I had no need for the bloated world of Illustrator for my simple visual approach. The problem came earlier when Adobe bought Freehand in 2005 and killed it through neglect. The version I used was the last version, updated in 2003, 21 years ago. I was still using it up until about four years ago.

The Last Freehand Logo – I wonder if anyone has a tattoo of it

I had one computer, using the Snow Leopard OS, that it worked on. Even now there are complicated workarounds to use Freehand, but, after my last computer started limping towards its planned obsolescence, I decided I had to make the break and move to Illustrator, which had, by this time, at least caught up with some of the best parts of Freehand (like Paste Inside).

I found Illustrator hard to use. Freehand had become, like any good tool, something I didn’t have to think about, I could use it in the same way I could use a pencil; it didn’t get in the way of the creative process. I found (still find) Illustrator to be clunky in comparison; things which would take one click in Freehand took two or three in Illustrator.

For a while, it put me off using the computer. It became a battle rather than something to enjoy. Each time I sat down, I knew there would be an element of frustration in the fact that I had to use Illustrator whether I liked it or not.

This wasn’t meant to be about Freehand vs Illustrator (I’m going to write about a dip pen in a little while), but it is an emotive subject. Mention Freehand to designers of a certain age, and you often are greeted with a watery-eyed look of recognition: You miss it too. I wish I wasn’t sentimental about, of all things, a computer program, but it had a big effect on my work when I couldn’t use it anymore. Now, I can use Illustrator to do everything I need to, but it’s not the same. It doesn’t feel like it is on my side, in the way Freehand did. It feels like it knows I’m using a tiny bit of its capabilities and would love me to be throwing gradient fills around – something that I have nothing against, but I have no wish to use.

I realise there is a whiff of the Ludite in not wanting to move with the times; with progress. But I think it should be my choice if I want to move on, not something that is forced upon me. There is a depressing inevitability to constant technological change, that seems to forget that humans are making decisions about whether to change things or not. I keep hearing people say, especially in reference to AI ‘It’s coming whether we like it or not’. Why? Why do we not have a choice in the matter?

Most of the tech I use, and love, doesn’t feel like tech at all: the clutch pencil, many different templates (circle, square, oval), a compass, a safety compass... I could go on. The latest thing I have bought is a Japanese dip pen, something that wouldn’t shock an Elizabethan poet. It is a simple device and feels like I am connected to history when using it. This one, however, has an extra bit of tech that makes it more practical: a small clip-in reservoir that means you can write, or in my case draw, for extended periods. The drawings I am making use flourishes (something else that wouldn’t shock an Elizabethan: Queen Elizabeth I finished her signature with a flourish) that are taken to an extreme level of repetition. Using a traditional dip pen to make these drawings would mean going back and forth to the inkpot, breaking the flow that is needed for the flourishes to work. The pen is made by a Japanese brand called Sailor and is called the Hocoro. The packaging is written only in Japanese and the, all important, reservoir is sold separately. I’m yet to know the effect the pen will have on my work, but it means I can use more colours and varieties of inks; ones that will not work in a traditional fountain pen – which is what I have been using up until now. I’m still getting used to using it so I get an even line and no splodges – although, I am trying to embrace the slodge.

The first drawings made with the Sailor Horoco Dip Pen

The only worry when you find something you love is that it might not always be around. It could be discontinued (which happened recently with the perfect shade of grey paper), or changed in an unwelcome way, or the company could go bust. I know I need to accept this uncertainty; as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus (probably) said: “The only constant in life is change”, but I don’t think he was talking about pens.

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You can buy the last few of my first flourish screen prints here.

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PS: I bought my pen (along with many other lovely things) from Cult Pens – they include a mini packet of Love Heart sweets with the order, too. (This is not an ad by the way, I just like them).

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