Brochure: (n) a small book or magazine containing information or pictures about a product or service.

Dino-words.

These are words which are extinct from the lexicon because they’ve been replaced by other terms and inventions, rendering them useless to the common man or woman.

Two that quickly come to my mind are “tri-fold” and “rubber cement.”

Come listen, my children, and you will hear…

Of what it was like to advertise in fear.

What were we afraid of? Putting together a tri-fold brochure that needed to be typed or, God forbid, type-set, and then cut out and rubber cemented in perfect symmetry onto panels, hoping that when it was shot with a printer’s camera, it would look somewhat like what you originally envisioned.

It was so easy to get things crooked.

The rubber cement was so messy.

And once you glued something down twice, to pull it up and glue it again created wrinkles, bumps and missing pieces of black ink from the letters.

Printers would encourage you by saying, “It’s nearly as good as the original…”

The idea of digital, which allows you to duplicate the original in perfection, was decades in the future, as you took your tiny knife and trimmed the paper down to just the right size, hoping that the corners you glued would not print off shadows. Of course, to achieve that, you had to make sure you didn’t shoot it too dark–or your original layout of printing would appear as a box instead of just words.

The brochure seemed necessary. It was a way of communicating that you were a prosperous organization which had the time and money to put together a pamphlet which explained who you were and therefore gave you credibility.

Now such a simple little task can be achieved in five or ten minutes on a computer and zonked out through your printer–with machines that will even fold it for you.

Progress is a beautiful thing–as long as you remember what you did before progress, and never lose the childlike sense of appreciation for being freed from monotony and meticulous, meaningless maneuvers.

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix