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I've got typewriters on the brain! Really old ones, like from the 1920s. Really gorgeous old ones, like this one.

It is for a work project. Yes, I know this blog is supposed to be for non work stuff, but I am really fascinated with these typewriters.

You see, I learned to type on an antique, manual Royal typewriter that my mother had. I would say it was circa 1940s. (Hey, I'm not that old! It was old when I started using it.) I took typing in high school, and they had us using manual typewriters. There is just something about having to hit those keys to create the mechanical process of striking an inky ribbon and imprinting it on paper. That's when you really feel like a wordsmith--like hammering words into sentences over an anvil and a bed of stoked coals...

Okay, so it wasn't quite that romantic. I remember being very excited when my mom finally got an electric. I think it was a surplus model; like one of the first generation of electrics. She bought it cheap from work when they upgraded to newer, lighter models. (She worked in accounting for the State of California, at the Department of Transportation...what would eventually become CalTrans.) This baby weighed a ton! But it sure seemed like luxury to be able to type without having to pound the keyboard into submission.

Later on she bought a very small, electronic typewriter. But by that time I was already typing on computer keyboards. Amazing how much things have changed in the way of typing.

So anyway, I need to create some graphics that show words being typed on a page, and there needs to be an old typewriter from the 20's as the instrument of choice. So I am now faced with the dilemma that I often find myself faced with--whether to go 3D or 2D. If I go 3D, that means I spend the next day with my 3D software building an antique typewriter. If I go 2D, that means I make a bunch of flat pieces and try to build a typewriter in After Effects.

I am a big After Effects (AE) fiend. It's what I use for 90% of the motion graphics I create for clients. I love it, and I love it's "3D" capabilities. But one must acknowledge the limitations therein. You see, AE does 3D, but it is kind of a 2D cheat. I sometimes call it 2.5D. You can put things together in 3D, but without the benefit of curved surfaces. It is like playing around with postcards. You can rotate your artwork all over the place, but it has no thickness--it is always completely flat. So if you want to have a cylindrical object (say, as in, a typewriter platen), you would have to construct it out of a bunch of flat strips arranged in a circular manner. Can be quite tedious, as you might imagine.

I think I am leaning towards doing it in AE anyway. As much as I would love to spend a day building a really cool model of an old typewriter, I don't think I can spare the time. Also, the look I want is kind of sketchy, so that the whole scene looks like a part of a painting or drawing. Imagery coming out of 3D software tends to look too clean and crisp. (There are some 3D packages that create the more sketchy look, or "Non Photorealistic Rendering, or NPR". I have long been looking at the different outputs that the different programs can achieve, and it looks promising. Unfortunately, the purchase of a $2,000 software license is not something I can take on just now.) So I think AE is the way to go.

Okay...enough shop talk. I've got a typewriter to build!