“The biggest risk of all is not taking one.” Mellody hobson
In 2023 dollars, it might be closer to $500,000+.
In July 1973, my friend Ken and I bought $50's worth of materials and built two drafting tables. We had a grand scheme to start our own graphic design studio, and although our business only lasted a few months, the tables lasted until 2001, when both were disassembled and discarded—mine in Oklahoma City and Ken’s in Atlanta.
The table wasn’t fancy, but it worked. On the left is a collection of tools of the trade – pre-computer.
For 20 years, it was my primary platform for drawing logos and illustrations and laying out brochures, ads, magazines, books, posters and more. First as a student; then as a part-time designer; and finally full-time in 1978. First with a T-square and triangles; and eventually with a drafting machine. By 1994, I’d moved the majority of my work to the first generations of desktop computers and design software, but I still returned to the table from time to time when a project required a human touch.
At the table in 1994 in the waning days of its usefulness.
Its final assignment was helping me draw the floor plans for the house we began building in 2000 to replace the one destroyed by a tornado in 1999. When we moved into the new house in 2001, the table didn’t make the move.
I realize I couldn’t do what I do today without a computer, but there are some days I dearly miss “the table.”