The Aesthedes was a

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images and art with the aid of computers. Computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, digital art, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. ...

computer-aided design Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

(CAD) system designed and developed in the 1970s and 1980s by Claessens Product Consultants (now Cartils) in

Hilversum Hilversum () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Holland, Netherlands. Located in the heart of the Gooi, it is ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. The Aesthedes was introduced to the market in 1984 by D.P.G. Claessens (1922–2019) who, after studying monumental art at the State Academy of Art in Amsterdam, studied Industrial Design. He started a Product Development company in 1960, Claessens Product Consultants (now Cartils) in Hilversum, with clients such as Heineken, Amstel, Bijenkorf, Philips, Douwe Egberts, Friese Vlag, Bols, etc. In the mid-1960s, he started experimenting with electronic equipment to support his design work. A growing need within his company for such equipment that did not exist before led to the development of the Aesthedes. The vision of Dominique Claessens was that a designer should be able to start immediately, without knowledge of computers. Meeting the need of designers to be able to use their creative brain, without being hindered by switching to the cognitive part of their brain, a keyboard was developed that matched the layout of the creative designer's desk. Everything had to be within reach and no overlapping of windows, for example. For that reason, the Aesthedes has 6 screens. 3 Data screens (below) showing project data, RGB values of the layer and the last 10 commands executed. The computer was launched commercially in 1985 from Aesthedes offices in Hilversum, London, Cologne and Los Angeles. The first version was equipped with ten

Motorola 68000 The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector ...

microprocessors, three 20” full colour, high-resolution screens and three small data display screens. It was unique at the time for being able to manipulate

B-spline In numerical analysis, a B-spline (short for basis spline) is a type of Spline (mathematics), spline function designed to have minimal Support (mathematics), support (overlap) for a given Degree of a polynomial, degree, smoothness, and set of bre ...

s (a type of curve) in real time and to produce camera ready (i.e. ultra-high resolution) finished artwork for use in

offset printing Offset printing is a common printing technique in which the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithography, lithographic process, which ...

or other printing processes, including

photogravure Photogravure (in French ''héliogravure'') is a process for printing photographs, also sometimes used for reproductive intaglio printmaking. It is a photo-mechanical process whereby a copper plate is grained (adding a pattern to the plate) and ...

.Computer graphics challenges artists
''

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a popular science magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organ ...

'', 5 September 1985 The 3 screens above are from left to right the "Zoom screen" on which a drawing can be zoomed up to 100x, the "Creation" screen in the middle where the total image of all layers is on top of each other and the right screen on which the current working layer can be seen and on which any animations can be seen. The 3 color monitors show 16 million colors at a resolution of 512 x 512. There are 64 layers available on which you can work with a canvas of 64000 x 64000 units. These units could be defined (Define Scale) to a project's needs. Small when working on a postage stamp, or huge when working on large format prints. A legendary example was to define a unit in such a way that a map of The Netherlands was at real life scale, so actual distances could be measured in kilometers on screen. One of the earliest customers in the Netherlands for an Aesthedes CAD system was the state printer, SDU, which uses the machine to design various hard-to-forge works,Hestia Bavelaar (red.), ''The Style of the State: The visual identity of the Dutch government'', Foundation Design, Den Haag, 2010, including parts of the Dutch 25-guilder note

Jaap Drupsteen Jaap Drupsteen (born 1942 in Hasselt (Overijssel)) is a Dutch graphic designer. Drupsteen worked as a graphic designer for NOS and VPRO; he specialized in making station identifications, music videos, and other video and television productions ...

(the "robin"). Aesthedes was also used extensively in the design of

Heineken Heineken Lager Beer (), or simply Heineken (), is a Dutch pale lager beer with 5% alcohol by volume produced by the Dutch brewing company Heineken N.V. Heineken beer is sold in a green bottle with a red star. History On 15 February 1864, ...

and

Amstel The Amstel () is a river in the province of North Holland in the Netherlands. It flows from the Aarkanaal and Drecht in Nieuwveen northwards, passing Uithoorn, Amstelveen, and Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, to the IJ in Amsterdam, to which the rive ...

beer bottle labels. Its launch customer in the UK was

Marks & Spencer Marks and Spencer plc (commonly abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks & Sparks or simply Marks) is a major British multinational retailer based in London, England, that specialises in selling clothing, beauty products, home produc ...

, which used it to design signage and

food packaging Food packaging is a packaging system specifically designed for food and represents one of the most important aspects among the processes involved in the food industry, as it provides protection from chemical, biological and physical alterations ...

. The supermarket

Asda Asda Stores Limited (), trading as Asda and often styled as ASDA, is a British supermarket and petrol station chain. Its headquarters is in Leeds, England. The company was incorporated as Associated Dairies and Farm Stores in 1949. It expanded ...

and design agencies such as Michael Peters & Partners and Holmes & Marchant were among other early customers. The

Apple Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

revolutionized the graphic design world and rendered the Aesthedes effectively obsolete. The company was sold by Claessens to Barco.

Specifications

Aesthedes 1

* CPU: 10x

* Display: 3x 12" data displays, 3x 20"

RGB The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green, and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three ...

colour monitors

Aesthedes 2

* CPU: 2x

Motorola 68020 The Motorola 68020 is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1984. A lower-cost version was also made available, known as the 68EC020. In keeping with naming practices common to Motorola designs, the 68020 is usually referred to as t ...

* GPU: 4x Thomson EF9365 graphic display processors * RAM: 1.9 MB RAM * VRAM: 2.4 Mb graphic memory (64 levels) * Storage: 2x 385 MB hard disks, 2x diskette stations (3.5" and 5.25") * OS:

Microware Microware Systems Corporation was an American software company based in Clive, Iowa, that produced the OS-9 real-time operating system. Microware Systems Corporation existed as a separate entity from 1977 until September 2001, when it was boug ...

OS-9 OS-9 is a family of real-time, process-based, multitasking, multi-user operating systems, developed in the 1980s, originally by Microware Systems Corporation for the Motorola 6809 microprocessor. It was purchased by Radisys Corp in 2001, a ...

operating system in ROM (normally not visible to the designer/operator) * Display: 3x 12" data displays, 3x 20" Barco

colour monitors * Weight: 220 kg without colour monitors * Resolution: 512*512

24-bit colour Color depth, also known as bit depth, is either the number of bits used to indicate the color of a single pixel, or the number of bits used for each color component of a single pixel. When referring to a pixel, the concept can be defined as bits ...

pixels in frame buffer

Gallery

Aesthedes facility in Belgium, mid 1980s.jpg, Aesthedes facility in Belgium, mid 1980s Aesthedes1-ComputerAidedVisuals-JanVork.jpg, Aesthedes 1, at the company Computer Aided Visuals in Amsterdam Aesthedes 2 console.JPG, Aesthedes graphic editing console on display at the University of Amsterdam computer museum

References

{{Reflist

External links

Aesthedes 2 graphic designer's work station

Google Plus page showing pictures of the Aesthedes workstation.

Aesthedes 2
at the HomeComputerMuseum. Computer workstations Film and video technology Computer-related introductions in 1982 Information technology companies of Belgium Graphics hardware companies 1982 establishments in the Netherlands Companies based in Amsterdam Multinational companies headquartered in the Netherlands Dutch brands