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The decline of Dymo and other eccentricities

Please understand that, particularly at the end of producing an issue, there's little but unusually useless minutiae rattling around in my head. And I know nobody cares, really, I do. Anyhow. (It's called a rant, right? ) At some point last week I decided one of the features in next issue really needed its headline to be fashioned by a labelmaker. And, yes, I know there's a typeface made for the computer — I have it — which replicates that look. But it's not the same.

I mean, there are typewriter typefaces on the computer, but they're not the same either. So when you see something that looked like it came off a typewriter in our pages, it almost certainly DID come off a typewriter. I keep two in my office, and there's another one broken outside Maggie's bedroom reduced to its status as a decorative object until I can find time to try to fix it, but it's been broken for at least four years now. And I bought out an entire store's stock of Letraset, which factors into next issue, as well.

Just because we make these things on a computer is no reason to eliminate the illusion of handmade craft, right?

So...my labelmaker doesn't work. Hasn't worked for months. I fuss with it some, but I ran way behind this issue and my patience for balky mechanical objects isn't good under the best of circumstances, much as I like handmade things. And then I fuss with it some more. And then I give up and drive to WalMart because the only other option is to order one online and that just smacks of a kind of desperation that not even I am willing to give in to. Besides, I want it right now. It's my patriotic right.

The new labelmaker comes with a little bit of tape stuck out with its manufacturer's name — Dymo, they've been around since 1958, slightly longer than I have — neatly printed. But it's the wrong typeface! (And, again, I'm pretty sure you don't care but this just has to be written and done with.) These ideas get rooted, though, and so I brought it home and printed out a few words. Not only is it the wrong typeface, but the letter spacing is all wrong.

So I fussed with the old labelmaker again, finally got it to work. And the story got done.

It has been observed before that I do not handle change well.

This morning I had a look at Dymo's website, which has a succinct corporate history, a broad product line, and a small handful of these hand-press labelmakers still in production. Cheap plastic, of course. And they all have the new typeface on 'em.

I should probably get a life. Or, rather, I should probably attend to the life I have. I should certainly clean this office and put both the labelmakers and all the neat colored tape I got with the new one back in a box out of sight. Not that anybody would notice them amid the clutter. But still.

Posted by grant on April 9, 2007 10:15 AM | Permalink