Publishing and Designing with the Macintosh

When Apple Computer introduced the Macintosh in 1984, many personal computer users were enthralled with its nifty mouse-driven graphical user interface and efficient pull-down menus. Many more, though, were derisive of the Mac's pitifully small worki ng memory, not to mention its lack of such basic necessities as a hard disk and second floppy drive. So, while thousands of individuals with minimum needs and miles of patience bought Macintoshes, most businesses dismissed them as cute toys and kept right on buying IBM and compatible PCs by the millions Macs got better, of course. There was the so-called Fat Mac, which came with a workable 512 kilobytes of RAM, followed by the more useful Mac Plus in the mid-1980s. But by that time, the IBM PC-AT had also arrived, and business users were firmly set in th eir purchasing ways. Macintosh "the computer for the rest of us" - found itself locked out of the most important market segment of all.

The DTP Trojan horse

While the corporate front gate remained closed, Apple discovered a way in through the back door, via a new use for personal computers: desktop publishing (DTP). Apple used DTP as the Trojan Horse to break into the world of business.

The concept of desktop publishing came together when a number of new and closely related technologies were announced more-or-less simultaneously, in January 1985. Adobe Systems unveiled its PostScript graphics language that enabled the Mac to talk wit h high-quality printers. Apple then announced just such a printer, its LaserWriter, which produced text and graphics at a respectable 300 dots per inch (dpi), or "near typeset quality" in Applespeak. And, Aldus Corporation launched its PageMaker software for the Mac; this gave users the basic publishing tools with which to compose a page layout on the screen, rather than having to do it physically with scissors and paste-up boards.

Most corporations at this time were spending sizeable chunks of their budgets on having outside printing companies turn out everything from single-page business forms to inches-thick maintenance manuals. DTP meant that the company could take care of m uch of its needs in-house and save a bundle over the long term. As Macintosh DTP systems moved into corporations for this purpose, they would often spread from their in-house publishing niches to other departments via word-of-mouth recommendations based o n their ease-of-use and their neat way with graphics. Thus, Apple gained a foothold in the business world.

A pioneer publisher During this same period, a sister industry of newsletter writers and publishers also blossomed. Newsletter publishers seized the opportunity to control their own output and production. Some adventurous souls aimed even higher, endeavoring to produce magaz ines from their desktops.

One early DTP pioneer in magazine production was none other than The Tokyo Journal. In 1986, the then editor-in-chief, Glenn Davis - who happened to be a Mac user - approached Apple Japan and proposed turning The Tokyo Journal into a DTP guinea pig if Apple supplied a system. Apple, gambling that the publicity would boost its marketing efforts in Japan, agreed. But after a netwt,rk of Macs was set up and the early euphoria died down, Davis and his staff, like the true pioneers that they were, quickly amassed a collective back-full of arrows.

"At first, we didn't know what we doing," Davis admits. "We had the first version of PageMaker, and sometimes entire pages would suddenly disappear. We had to call Aldus in the States frequently. Sometimes they couldn't help. It was a nightmare."

All nightmares eventually come to an end, though, and today at The Tokyo Journal present editor Gregory Starr summarizes the current Apple setup in one word: "Brilliant!" In fact, Starr (who confesses to not knowing any other computer publishing syste m) automatically had a second network of Macintoshes installed when both the magazine's puhlisher and its workplace changed not so long ago. "The Mac just seems perfect for our listings; it's ideal for DTP," he explains.

Nevertheless, Starr notes that they still go through one level too many for his liking in putting out the monthly magazine. It's a step he's planning to eliminate. "We get all our pages ready on PageMaker. But because we don't have a Linotype printer, we send a disk containing the PageMaker data out to a service bureau." What they get back are the completed pages on photographic paper. They then physically paste these down, write in the specifications of any color work to be used, and send it off to b e printed.

"A lot of the big printers have set up smaller subsidiaries to make the film directly from the disk," says Starr. "But they're not as smooth or as quick as we'd like, and they don't always under stand [about putting out a monthly magazine]; I'm not wi lling to go through mistakes to get there just yet."

Producing a monthly magazine

Glenn Davis is now editor-in-chief of the ACCJ Journal. This monthly magazine of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan is published by Paradigm, based in Shibuya, Tokyo. Paradigm also publishes Tokyo Time Out, and they use Macintoshes to get both magazines ready for printing.

President of Paradigm, Vickie Paradise Green, worked with Davis when the Macs were introduced at The Tokyo Journal. "When we established Paradigm two-and-a-half years ago, we were already very much Mac people. I also have a Mac at home." It was only n atural, then, she notes, that they stayed with the Mac in the new venture.

At the beginning of a publishing cycle for the ACCJ Journal, Davis assigns articles to various freelance writers. Those writers send in their stories either by electronic mail to Paradigm's own online system, Paradigm Online, or on a Mac floppy disk. Davis badgers even the computer-phobic into following one of these methods.

"I create a file for the stories on my hard disk," says Davis. "Then I print them out, edit with red pen, and input the changes on the Mac." Although this adds an extra step to the process, he says it's still easier to use pen and paper for the editin g than to look at the screen for hours on end. "You miss things, and your eyes get tired."

All the Macs at Paradigm, ranging from SEs to Quadras, are hooked together via a backbone running Apple's LocalTalk. Davis sends edited stories over the network to a server in the design room, where a typesetter takes them and uses QuarkXPress to "dum p" the contents into the magazine's layout format.

A designer then works with a production artist, who uses a color scanner to scan in any photos, graphics, and illustrations. These are imported into the layout. As the magazine takes shape, a LaserVEiriter is used to print out thumbnail pagination of the layout every couple of days to keep up with the changes in pagination and to display the magazine in its entirety. Paradigm has already taken the step that The Tokyo Journal is making plans for: working directly with color. "We now generate our own four-color work and send the data out on 44-megabyte Syquest disks to the prepress house, which turns them into film for printing," says Anne Bergasse, manag ing and creative director (as well as co-founder) of Paradigm. "The Mac is still the best for this work. IBM is not as user friendly or sophisticated. You'll find Macs in most design houses," she says.

Bergasse stresses that working with color is no easy matter, even on a Macintosh. It can take as long as three years for someone to become versed enough in the various programs to produce a monthly magazine. "Fourcolor work is very complicated; so man y things you must know," she cautions. "And after you learn them, you have to apply them to different situations. Then, they go and update the software every two years."

Paradigm previously used PageMaker for the layout work, but now they use QuarkXPress. "It's the difference between a VW and a Mercedes," says Bergasse. Illustrator, (used for creating illustrations) and Photoshop (used for photo manipulation), both fr om Adobe, are two more key software packages that they rely on. One difficult!; at this level of sophistication, though, is bumping up against the 230-kilobit bandwidth of Apple's LocalTalk network. "We want to move up to Ethernet; LocalTalk is really slo w," says Kenroy Harrison, art director for Tokyo Time Out, and who seconds as systems operator of Paradigm Online, the company's public network. "The Macs also use up to 32MK of RAM [for working memory], but we want to upgrade to 64 megs," he adds. In fac t, rather than literally wait the hours it can take to transfer some of the largest files over the network, Sergasse says they will often simply unplug a Syquest disk drive and move it to the Macintosh that needs the data.

Desktop ad design While designing ads is a growing part of Paradigm's business, over at Grey Daiko Advertising Inc., creating everything from text ads to commercials for television is what they do for a living. Again, the Macintosh is the computer of choice in this off-sho ot of DTP, known as desktop design. "In this computerphobic society, we bet that the Macintosh user interface was the best to get staff integrated into the system," says Nick Johnson, assistant to the president. "It's a fun machine: it sucks people in rat her than scares them awav."

The company is a joint venture between two advertising agencies, US based Grey International Inc., number eight in the world rankings, and Daiko Advertising Inc., Japan's number four ad agency. Grey Daiko was established in 1963, and its clients inclu de Bristol Myers Squibb, Procter & Gamble, Wrigley, Lion, nialog, and Deli Computer.

In its previous location, Grey Daiko used just a handful of Macs tied together by LocalTalk. The company decided to upgrade and completely "Macinize" the entire work process upon their move to a new three-story building in Hiroo, Tokyo, over a year ag o.

The new set-up uses Apple's EtherTalk implementation of Ethernet, operating at 10 Mbits per second. An EtherTalk backbone runs from the basement up to the third floor, with pairs of star hubs coming off the backbone to feed dual clusters of Macs on ea ch floor, for a total of about 90 computers (nearly one per staff member). A router connects a LocalTalk network of smaller and slower Mac Pluses and SEs to the backbone on the second floor; these are used for noncreative work such as general office compu ting and accounting. Another router feeds a modem that provides remote access.

Because of the complexity of this setup, Grey Daiko employs a part-time network manager, Victor Shkawrytko, who comes in two days a week to maintain the system, back up the files, and deal with any problems. Even with a bandwidth of 10 Mbits per secon d, Shkawrytko says, "If two or three people are transferring big files at the same time, the network can slow down. But that's partly due to the overhead in Apple's EtherTalk protocol, so we don't really get the fullblown benefit of the bandwidth."

The basement houses two wellequipped conference-cum-presentation rooms connected to the network. A presenter has the ability to call up video as well as Mac graphics and QuickTime compressed video stored on a server.

The basement is also home to the company's technology crown jewels: a Macintosh-based digital video editor from Avid Technology, based in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. Larry Clenn, video editor for Grey Daiko, explains that editing and adding to ordinary video is a headache. "It's a tape medium, so it takes a lot of time to make changes, just like an audio tape," he says. But with Avid's video editor, he can make a digitized, compressed copy of a tape, then edit it, add to it, or chop it up and add specia l effects - all as he pleases. This is done on a beefed-up Macintosh and 2 gigabytes of disk space, capable of storing about 2 hours of compressed video. "Before, if you had a wacky idea for a commercial," says Glenn, "it could take three hours to put together. Now it takes as little as three minutes, and you just go back to the beginning if it's no good." Because the video is compressed, quality is not up to the highest standard, so data on the finished in-house production, along with the original tapes, is sent to a process studio that produces a tape of the necessary quality.

Nevertheless, instead of the studio spending two or three days with tapes, working to get exactly the right effect that Grey Daiko is after, the process can be cut down to two or three hours if everything goes without a hitch. It's a rare event, thoug h, when hitches don't arise, Glenn admits.

Which seems to sum up the Macintosh DTP experience. The technology invites publishers and designers to take on more sophisticated work: tasks once only entertained by specialist houses. This can eventually lead to substantial savings in time and costs , but only after substantial time and effort has been invested in learning how to use the technology.