Basic Knowledge for Illustrators 02: “DTP Software and Fonts”

(I am writing based on the circumstances of the Japanese illustrator industry. )

■ What Is DTP?

The first company I joined after graduating from university was a small printing company.

At the time, I had absolutely no intention of becoming an illustrator. I joined that printing company simply because, after applying to dozens of different companies, it was the only one that accepted me.I had been rejected by almost every company I applied to, and I entered that job reluctantly, still feeling the shock of all those rejections.

However, that printing company would later lead me toward becoming an illustrator. If I had been accepted by another company, I probably would never have become one.

Looking back now, I feel that the obstacles, setbacks, and failures in life may have been a kind of guidance by an invisible hand. It is what Steve Jobs called “connecting the dots.”

At that time, printing required special equipment, complex processes, and the work of many skilled craftspeople.

First—

A designer would specify the typeface, font size, and other details, then send those instructions by fax to a phototypesetting company.

At the phototypesetting company, a skilled operator would use a computerized phototypesetting machine to input the text and expose it onto photographic paper.

The exposed text on photographic paper was called a kami-yaki, or “paper proof.”

Once the paper proofs were ready, the phototypesetting company would deliver them to the design office. They usually delivered them in batches once or twice a day. If something was urgent, someone from the design office would sometimes run over to the phototypesetting company to pick it up.

At the design office, the text would be cut and pasted onto thick paper. Lines such as crop marks would be drawn with a Rotting pen, creating what was called the hanshita, or camera-ready artwork.

Reference page about hanshita : https://karafuneya.com/blog/words/hanshita

That camera-ready artwork would then be taken to a prepress company.

At the prepress company, the camera-ready artwork would be photographed with a process camera to create prepress films.

From that prepress film, printing plates—something like stamps used for printing—would be made.

Only after the plates were completed could the actual printing finally begin on the printing press.

Today, however—

It has become possible to create print-ready data easily on a single desktop computer.

If you also have a printer, you can even print it yourself.

This is DTP, or Desktop Publishing.

DTP means creating print-ready data on a desktop computer.

DTP gradually spread from the 1990s onward.

By the 2000s, most commercial printing—from flyers and posters to books and magazines—had shifted to DTP.

■ Two Reasons Illustrators Should Have DTP Software

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