Jacqueline van der Venne graduated from the Academy of Applied Arts in Maastricht in 1987 with a degree in graphic-illustrative and publicity design. At the time, all design work had to be done by hand as computers were not yet used. This involved tedious processes like drawing characters with technical pens, working in darkrooms to print materials, and creating work drawings to provide to printers. The introduction of computers revolutionized the design process by allowing for digital fonts, filters, presentations and easy editing and resizing of work. While Jacqueline misses some aspects of traditional design methods, computers made the work much more efficient and opened up greater creative possibilities.

1. Jacqueline van der Venne

3. Today I design great logos, corporate
identities, business cards, websites, fly-
ers, books, brochures, annual reports,
posters, websites, advertisements and a
Power Point presentation.

4. Books
You name it I’ll design it for you! Clarity and
quality I find important in the design and typography plays a crucial role.
Together with the client (both large and small and both the cultural and the
commercial sector) I design its own identity in a clear style. Good contacts
and communication with clients are very important to get the best results
ever.
In 1987 I graduated at the Academy of Applied Arts in Maastricht as a
graphic-illustrative and publicity designer. The direction I did was called
publicity and graphic design. The education was a study of 5 years. Pho-
tography was an important part of the training like graphic techniques.
At that time there were of course no computers and everything had to be
drawn by hand. The work drawings which you had to make for the printer
was a hell of a job and there was a lot of darkroom work involved.
If you wanted to have a special character or a typeface was extremely
large you had to draw it with the Rothring (technical writing and drawing
instruments) and bending ruler. It took ages to draw just a few characters.
You were all day in the darkroom printing copy proof and photographs. For
each print you have to make a work drawing. Full color print work includes
cyan, magenta, yellow and black and that means you have to make four
work drawings.
You had to go to the printing office for the text. The text had to be correct-
ed again and be brought back to the printing office. We received a photo-
copier at one point and that was already a great improvement. Instead of
red – we got yellow light in the darkroom and that was also a huge change
for the better. That yellow light was much nicer fore your eyes and you
could see so much more. Of course it was very time consuming and mak-
ing work drawings was a craft and sometimes very complicated.

7. Posters

8. Logo
Once in a while your design was so dif-
ficult and than you had to print it for the
presentation. For the customer or for the
teacher in art school you had to make al-
ways a dummy and that was quit expen-
sive and it cost a lot of time. For example
when you design a serial box or a label
for a perfume, your dummy was needed
for presentation and if the design works
really well.
So many thinks could go wrong when
you have to present your design. Like
my cat once jumped on my table and my
coffee went all over my dummy. Halle-
lujah for the Apple computer and huge
changes came when the the comput-
er came on the market! Although in the
beginning the Apple screen was so tiny,
these first computers where already a
huge improvement. It is still magic to me
what a computer can do and how many
fonts and filters are available. The pos-
sibilities are endless and to me the com-
puter is still like a little paradise.

10. No more expensive portfolio presentations. Small and large
sizes, letters, sans-serif, italic, bold letters or letters written
in all colors is now death easy. Designing and making a work
drawing is today just a peace of cake. No more cutting with a
scalpel, printing expensive copy proof paper, endless drawing
with the Rothring, cutting with a scissor and glue everything
together. But sometimes I must admit I miss the dark room
where you could print by hand your black and white photo’s in
all kind of sizes and glossy or mat photo paper.
But it took a long time before I got to work with the computer
properly. A number of courses I followed and there are a few
computer friends that I could ask for help. But all in all I’ve
learned through self-study to work and design with the com-
puter really well.