A piece of graphic design history

Up until the early 90s, before digital design software exploded amongst creatives, artists used to cut up these prints in various shapes, layers. They then layered, glued and rubbed on type and logos to create mock-ups and compositions for various print pieces.

That was then, this is now, here's a bit of history to collect. With the digital design software of today, these posters have become a thing of the past. Today, these out-of-print PANTONE by Letraset posters can now be purchased! Frame them to showcase not only the beauty of their pure colors but to preserve the graphic design history they carry from the old cut-and-paste days.

Find a color that speaks to you, and custom frame it in your creative space or take yourself back in time for a fun print workshop using any kind of art media you desire. Don't forget to check the helpful grid guide on the back of each print!

Quotes

"My first job out of art school was doing paste-up at a company that mostly made Catholic greeting cards. Computers hadn't quite taken hold as useful production tools, so mechanicals and comping were accomplished with rubber cement, ruling pens, stat cameras, rubylith and many other forgotten tools and materials. In the studio there were drawers and drawers of Pantone sheets, of any color that would go with the nature of the product. They were mostly cut up to comp cards, either as a full bleed background with tipped on art of religious paintings, or cut bigger than the art to make a frame with added gold or black rules drawn by ruling pen. By and by computers were introduced in the studio (the state of the art was the Mac IIx) for typesetting and mechanicals. But in-house color printing was far in the future, so I'm sure the use of Pantone sheets persisted for many years. I remember they used lots of 187 U."

"We typically used the Pantone papers for mood boards and comps. I especially liked using the papers with opaque colored rubdowns. It was the most precise way to see how specific color graphics would react and work on specific color backgrounds. We would cut the sheets up and save the remnants in flat files for future projects. They were expensive. I felt special working at a firm with the resources to use them in my work."