Clémence Imbert took advantage of a trip to San Francisco toconsult several archival collections documenting the activities of Apple,Aldus, and Adobe—the three companies behind the concept of “desktop publishing”and its widespread adoption.

At the Computer History Museum, archivist PenningtonAhlstrand provided access to the archives of Esther Dyson, a journalistspecializing in computer technology from the 1980s to the 2000s, as well asoriginal promotional posters and brochures published by Apple, Aldus, andAdobe. Four boxes of material—not yet cataloged—bequeathed by former Apple employees and labeled “Applelore” also yielded a wealth of previously unpublished and sometimes spectacular original documents. Finally, it was possible to consult the journal Verbum, Journal of Personal ComputerAesthetics, edited by Michael Gosney, which closely traces the early days of computer image production, from bitmaps to 3D and interactive works.

Stanford University’s Special Collections holds a significant collection of archives from Apple Inc., including documents related to the rise of “desktop publishing” within the company’s focus ; as well as documents produced in France, such as the internal newsletters Apparis and Appropos—produced by Apple’s Europe teams in France in the very early 1980s. Stanford archivists have kindly digitized several VHS tapes containing presentations of DTP, featuring pioneering examples of usage in the UnitedStates, likely intended for retailers and sales representatives.

Finally, a detour through the Letterform Archive’s collections was a must to view part of the Emigré magazine collection, including original layouts that illustrate the hybrid nature of the production process for the early issues (text typeset on a Mac but laid out using traditional paste-up methods). Working documents on Zuzana Licko’s typefaces bear the traces of the back-and-forth between computer and paper in the type-design process. The Letterform Archive also holds some beautiful archival materials bequeathed by April Greiman. A big thank you to Stephen Coles, who gave me a warm welcome.