Today at work, I was helping someone design a flyer. Part of it had a conversation "bubble," like the reply bubbles to the left of this voice card. For some reason, the tail part of it wouldn't print (to make a long story short, it was in PageMaker, and the bubble had been imported from SuperPaint). My suggestion, after several minutes of frustration, was to have the user cut out the shape and paste it onto the flyer!!!! From there, he could easily make the photocopies for distribution - who would know but the two of us!

My point is this: The best way to do something isn't always the fastest, and the fastest way isn't necessarily with a computer! I find myself quite often questioning the cost efficiency of computers, not to mention the non-human "feel" of some things (i.e. art, music) done on computer. There is such a mania these days, that EVERYTHING has to be done via computer, it drives me crazy sometimes! I get all sorts of ludicrous requests for scanned images, when a pasted-up photo would reproduce FAR better.

We seem to be at the same stage with computers and the visual arts that the field of music saw with the synthesizer boom. I hear a lot of folks oooh and ahhh at some creation simply because it was done on a Mac, with NO regard as to whether or not it is well-designed or even useful! (I do have to say, in the Mac's defense, I wouldn't trade back to a t-square and triangles for paste up EVER!!)

As Eliott's grandfather always says, "Use the right tool for the job!" Sometimes that's a computer, sometimes that's a mano. Some restaurants DO use computers - the waitperson keys in the order and it's relayed to the kitchen via computer. This certainly avoids a lot of confusion with abbreviations and messy handwriting. And by the way, aren't cows already being milked by computers (or at least by machines!), Drury?