we should have asked the arts students! (and find a way to return the favor) i did not think about that.

that being said there were some intense rivalry between various studies, my presence may not be have been well received.

and judging how i am here, you can guess what i studied :-)

thank you for this. really feel like i got a missing piece of a puzzle reading this.

I volunteered and designed a good amount of posters for student organizations.

Don't enjoy it but did it to help my peers and friends out.

I find it ironic that back then we had a lot of trouble finding people who were willing to design posters and promo media on print.

Now the comment section on this post has people mourning AI taking over poster making in 2026. Where was the help back then?

From the perspective of someone who had to burn the midnight oil to do it for years, trust me, I would rather not do it and spend that time with my family and friends. And judging from how hard it was to find others who were willing to do it, I think its a reasonable argument that most people were not actually willing to do the work either.

So mourn away but I wouldn't cry if I "missed out" on making posters. If we had AI back then, I would not take on any of those poster making requests.

Some people enjoy doing that work, but most people did not, and I was often the last resort because a random club or activity could not find suitable help in time. So had to step up when a friend or acquaintance asked.

I think there is some misguided view where in "the good old days" people designed everything by hand. From the perspective of someone who had to make 10-20 of those a year as a volunteer, I can say it came at personal cost, often caused distractions from the actual event, and there was not enough people who stepped up to get it done. If it was so enjoyable we would have no problems finding people doing the work and that was not the case.

The posters and designs were often rushed out late night by the closest person you can find who had a copy of photoshop on their computer. If we had AI back then, I would bet you 100% it would be the preferable solution and no one would bat an eye. It wasn't the type of work a lot of people wanted to do, could do properly and is willing to do for free, at their spare time, rushed for a deadline.

(But yes, AI features are annoying and intrusive at times.)