TCW History - October 2021


TCW History

GRAPHICS: Then & Now!

As we all know that Halloween is just around the corner and then the next thing you know, it's Christmas!

So, for October we are talking about graphics and how security is involved in every aspect of computing, including those graphics we love to ‘grab’ off the web!

As far as the history of Graphics, back in 1988, it was pretty ‘sketchy’. We were coming out of the era when graphic artists were changing from drawing on paper or film to artists drawing using computer programs such as Paint, Illustrator, and Corel Draw.

One of the early students was a fabulous artist who was being squeezed out of the industry because of younger talent who were drawing on the computer. He needed to learn Corel Draw, Aldus PageMaker, and other graphic courses to stay relevant. The good news is he not only succeeded in learning these new programs but ended up teaching them at a local college. I love success stories, especially when we get to be part of them! 

Corel Draw 1.0 came out in January 1989 and was the first graphics software for Windows. Of course, Illustrator’s debut was in January 1987 but was only available for the Mac. It took a lot of skill to master either of these programs. The first version of Photoshop was in February 1990. Before that, Apple’s MacPaint came on the scene in January 1984, and Paint for Windows followed in November 1985. So, when you see some of our early graphics, you will understand and not laugh quite so hard. They aren’t even close to what we have today – might be closer to the Hieroglyphics on the walls in Egypt.

The first graphic project I did was a crocodile I drew in Paint for Children’s Hospital’s coloring book and our first logo. But in today’s world we not only want great graphics, but we want great graphics along with video! Whether it is an ad or instructional material, we are incorporating videos where we can. Has anyone noticed that sometimes the news will be reporting a crime and off to the side, someone is videotaping the crime instead of helping the victim? Really – that is taking the whole video craze way too far! If you are looking for a place to create your video, check with us to see what the cost is to use our Green Room. Better yet, come in and take our Adobe Premiere Pro and see how the Green Room works!

Yes, it is time to think about creating cards, ads, and videos for the holidays! We can teach you how to use all the graphics programs – we have classes in free software such as GIMP and lower-cost software such as Publisher. Of course, if you want the most professional outcome, you can’t beat Adobe products! And remember, when you are ‘grabbing’ those pictures from the web, check the copyright on them!


Has The Computer Workshop Inc. come a long way in the past 33 years, sure has – that is one of the great things about TCW – we have the latest versions to teach and if someone wants one of the older versions, we can help with that also. Make sure you go to our YouTube channel to view Brian’s graphics videos this month (https://www.youtube.com/c/TheComputerWorkshop/featured)!


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