Catching up with my past...

I bumped into my past on the M6 motorway yesterday, not literally I hasten to add. I was driving along in pursuit of yet another straw to cling to when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something that took me back to a time when I didn’t need straws. Back to when my future was an ocean to be sailed upon and not a stagnant pool to flounder upon, maybe even drown in.

At first, I wasn’t sure what I’d seen. In fact I almost didn’t see or remember it at all. But there was something about the line, the slant of the lettering which unlocked a dusty corner of my mind. So speeding up a little to catch up with the van, I drew alongside and glanced across. I'd been right, there it was. On the side of the van was the logo I’d designed for a Midlands based engineering company over thirty-five years ago. My past had caught up with me, or rather I'd caught up with my past.

For a moment as I looked at that logo, I was a long haired young man in jeans and a purple paisley shirt again. Nervously showing my designs to the managing director of Roltech Engineering on a dark November evening in his factory in Smethwick. He’d built the business up himself and was justifiably proud of it. He had strong ideas about his logo and wanted something simple, bold and modern, not fussy, easy to read - solid and workmanlike like himself.

At the time his company was making ducting sections and raised mezzanine flooring. It was doing okay and Mr Roltech (I can’t remember his name) wanted a logo to use on the side of his fleet of two vans and in the catalogue he was planning.

It was my first freelance design job. But Mr Roltech seemed to like my designs and asked me to produce the artwork for his catalogue pages. Back then there were no computers, so each evening for the best part of a week I spent my time pasting together the artwork in my little studio in the converted loft. Sometimes I worked into the early hours with my scalpel, rotring pens, rub-down lettering and cow-gum.

How simple it had all seemed back then. An opportunity arose, you grabbed it, made something happen, and got paid for it – and the work of those few evenings paid well, almost a months salary and I enjoyed it.

I can’t remember how I picked up that freelance job, but it was the first of many. I loved doing freelance, but it was never quite enough to give up the day job - and then one day I became either too busy or too old and didn’t chase the work any more. How I wish I’d carried it on now, if only for the satisfaction it gave me.

Okay, the Roltech logo wasn’t great design and it was never going to get a design award, but Mr Roltech liked it very much. I’m really pleased that the company (which has expanded massively and now makes all manner of gantries for the mining industry and suchlike) is still using it without change over thirty-five years later.

Perhaps I should have charged more.