When Design Was a Contact Sport
Back in the 90s, graphic design wasn’t a few clicks and a Wi-Fi connection — it was blood, sweat, rulers, and Letraset. You needed patience, precision, and sometimes a prayer. If you wanted to kern type, you literally cut it out with a scalpel and shifted it under a magnifying glass.
Canva and the Wi-Fi Warriors
Now? Anyone with a laptop, a Canva login, and an overinflated sense of confidence can crank out a “logo” between Netflix episodes. Need a flyer? “No worries, I’ve got a template.” Business card? “Yep, just drag and drop your details into this stock layout.”
Suddenly, every cousin, neighbour, and part-time barista thinks they’re a designer. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here with 25 years of ink under my fingernails wondering if I should’ve just gone into accounting.
Tools of the Trade vs. Toys of Convenience
Old-school print shops had wax machines, bromides, and film cameras. The smell of spray mount could take years off your life expectancy, but maann, your comps looked sharp.
Canva? It’s clip art in gym gear. It’s like giving toddlers Lego instructions and expecting the Sydney Opera House. Yes, it’s “accessible,” but so is karaoke — and that doesn’t make everyone The Wiggles on Tour.
The Silver Lining
Here’s the thing: Canva has a place. It’s brilliant for quick social posts, school newsletters, or when your mum insists on making her own Christmas cards. It frees up professionals like me to focus on bigger projects that actually need skill, craft, and the occasional Pantone book.
The Retro Dad Verdict
I miss the discipline of the print shop, the smell of ink, the hum of an offset press at 2 a.m. But I also enjoy not having to clean wax rollers anymore.
So yes, Canva democratised design — but let’s not confuse templates with talent. One took years of training, the other just needs a Wi-Fi password.
Retro Dad: Rewinding childhood, one tantrum at a time.
Rob Allen is a designer-dad, print tragic, and the voice behind Retro Dad and The Hernia Diaries. With 25 years in the design and print world — and three kids under six running the home office like tiny art directors — Rob tells stories where Pantone swatches meet Peppa Pig, and where print deadlines collide with parenting chaos. When he’s not juggling labels, websites, and school pick-ups, he’s probably rewinding his own childhood memories for blog material.
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