I've been a graphic designer for almost 40 years and that's how we use to work. Lots of changes since then, but the most life-changing thing is that now it is super expensive to ply my trade. Use to be I just needed an exacto blade and a few pens and pencils. Nowadays, my equipment and programs are expensive and need to be constantly upgraded.

I worked in offices not unlike those above! We smoked too! Yikes!! On linen, velum and Mylar. Ink, pencil and plastic leads. T-squares and so-called drafting machines. These years were 1974 through 1979 and then I found a job with the first architect in a large southeastern city with the first CAD program (Autotrol) run on Sperry Univac mainframes and Tekronix green screen screen work stations. Am now working in 3D in Revit. It has been an amazing ride.

Wow, I spotted only two women in total in all of these photos, and I had to look hard to find them. That is as big a change to the industry as the computerization, how successfully women have moved into the field.

There was ONE woman in ONE of the 19 amazing vintage photos...

Saw a documentary last night about designing the Concord airplane. There were literally thousands of engineers and draftsmen drawing things. I can't imagine how they kept it all straight.

My dad worked for the BLM in the early 60s he would bring home his work occasionally. I wanted to take shop classes (1964) and was told "no girls." When I asked why, they said I might get hurt. "Even drafting?" No, not allowed. Funny, because when I went to college in 1969 majoring in engineering, drafting was required. So I'm taking this class, the only female, left-handed, and no prior experience - unlike the guys. The irony was not lost on me. I did manage to pull an A.

Back before they sucked out all of the fun in drafting and architecture.

I have actually laid on my belly drawing curves using a spline and 'ducks' like one of the pictures. My father started drafting at link-belt in Chicago. He would tell me that you didn't get your first pay raise until your lettering looked acceptable and everyone's was the same.

Man, I remember learning architectural drawing on one of those huge drawing tables. They were actually brilliant to use. And I also remember first learning Photoshop (version 2 or something) back in the mid 90s. Doesn't seem so long ago. Damn, I feel old.

My parents both were designing machine parts on huge boards by drawing. They met and fell in love at work. After some years a change came and orders from the East stopped coming (mind you it was around 80s). So the company (which funny thing, exists up till this day) started reducing the staff. This way my father became unemployed and my mom got a choice between bein guneployed and taking up a broom and cleaning toilets at the place. Having a small kid they had little choice. The perconal computers were not available to learn CAD and alike. So from a wonderful inspoiring job they had their life broken pretty much. Just another das story of a really bad timing with age of employers and technical development.

A lost art. Sad really.

These are cool photos. Romantic, even. I especially love the 'floating' desks to maximize space.

See how many women you can count!

Back in those days you needed a little more time, but nowadays, you need a lot of money with the expensive programs, computers and upgrades. The speed went up, but with that also the pressure and stress. Are we better of now?

Alternate titles: "Pics of minorities and all their rights back in the day" "White Dudes!" 'Woman takes picture of man, then is told to go home to kids!"

During those times, project lasts 5 to 10 years! When the project starts, you can decide to buy a new car and will be able to pay until the project ends.

And of course nothing like finishing an inked drawing and " Brian we have a modification to make" Auto-Cad made mods and repetive items s breeze. I adapted to Auto-cad like a duck to water. As I type this comment I am looking at my antique slide rule and Swiss made drafting instruments. Havent touched them in 38 years. I willadmit to splurding on a 36" monitor

I was the first woman in my high school to take drafting in 1975. I ended up working in Engineering when IBM's CADRA came out. We were a contractor working for GM and GM was requiring all the contractors to go to CAD. None of the older guys wanted to give up manual drafting so I was the first person trained in CAD at our company. When the layoffs started, I was the youngest person kept on the longest before the Manager made his buddies learn CAD so he didn't have to lay them off. As soon as they were trained, I was let go. A week later I had a job paying $8,000 grand more because of my CAD skills. I was also asked to be a CAD Trainer after my shift so for four hours in the evenings they paid me time and a half for a year.

Yep, that was me 30 years ago. Lying on the middle of the draughting table doing my thing. (Drawing) lol

I have witnessed this journey From 1982 to 1992 Drafting board. 1992- Autocad 2, 1994 Onwards Pro/Engineer (Now CREO)

I work as a draftsman now and to me it’s the worst experience ever. It’s been only 4 months and can’t wait to dump cad to the trash can haha. How can people “have fun” using autocad. Please explain!

My naval architect husband calls this "PencilCAD" he still does all his design and engineering drawings by hand. I quite envy his non-reliance on IT!

History repeats. In the near future we will have touchscreens as large as those desks...

Still design by hand with white trace, markers, etc....have a 48" straightedge on my "drafting board"with a flat screen and AutoCAd/Sketchup in front of me. Using all generations I was trained with!

I don't just remember, I lived it! I loved hand drawing, and became an architect cuz I like to draw, not cuz I like to push buttons. I took pride in being literally "hands one" and crafting a nice sheet. But one has to admit that what you can do with a drawing these days is pretty amazing, too, far beyond anything we imagined then. That first photo is a great illustration of why architects still refer to busy times as, "a**holes and elbows." That's mostly what you saw when you walked into the room, LOL...!

Yep, that was how it was done when I started in the '70s. The fun part was in the '80s when the CAD guys would try to keep up with us in the first submittal phase. They would laugh at us at revision time when we were busy with our electric erasers, and they were click, click, click and done.

People standing up to do their work, looking pretty fit and healthy. We have come a long way but as the economist Victor Keegan once said, some of it is progress in a backwards direction.

I remember when Boing looked like this on 1969.

Oh man! I remember my UG project was completed in Auto cad, what will happen if Auto Cad is not there!

Yeah I remember those days, everyone wore a tie too and a lot were smoking which would sometimes burn a hole on the paper! And of course when there was a change (and there were a lot) you have to rubbed them off until you create again a hole! And boy did it take so lo-o-o-ng to finish a drawing. But it was fun for sure and a lot of pride in our work. That really separated the good ones from the mediocre to the bad ones.

You had a board, paper, pencils, pens and erasers. That setup probably cost a few hundred. Autocad and Revit each cost thousands and now Autodesk is pushing for a monthly subscription. I'd say the disadvantage was printing from paper. Doing blueprints was messy with having to handle bottles of chemicals and trying to line up the copies exactly. Fun times.

Coolest part of Auburn Cord museum are the sepia drawings. the detail of the wiper assembly is awesome. Today our drafters on CAD can't see a foot of interference!

Technology can be amazing and it makes jobs a lot easier but it's sad to see so many men saying they still prefer drawing their designs, instead of using AutoCAD software.

I graduated NCSU School of Design in 1992. The industry had gone mostly AutoCAD by that point, but NCSU was at least 5 years behind the times. I should have gone and taken some AutoCAD classes at the local community college, but by that point I was just DONE. Now I work win clinical drug development with my design degree! :-/

One of the coolest things this brings to mind was the Naval Officers School in the early part of the 20th century. I recently read the biography of Robert Heinlein, and he tells of one of the duties of a new midshipman on every ship. They were required to keep notebooks and draw all the fittings for every element of the ship they came across. So each ship you manned meant a set of books dedicated to that ship. You might not have the opportunity to draw the entire ship, but what competence that must have brought to the crew! I wonder if there is anything like that going on today.

Great photos but where are the women I started drafting 45+ years ago on the board and started using Auto CAD in 1986 it was a brilliant career I have just retired

I worked at Ford Motor Co back in 1969 as a student engineer. We had just switched to 3 D coordinate system and had just started testing computer aided manufacturing 3D machines,. I recall my group leader saying , when looking over the engine drafting room with ~ 100 designers, checkers and detailers in it that this all goes away many years from now.

that is the time when we could smoke crack, work, and not screw up the computer.

The USS Missouri Battleship was designed, built and sailed in 39 months, most of it designed on the fly as it was being built. An equivalent ship today takes 3-5 years of design and another 3-5 years to build so have we progressed?

Looks interesting especially lying on the floor. Worked as a Draftsman in Tata Motors using the drafting board and then using Pro Engineering software. Autocad was never used by our company- Joe Zach.