A Little Bit About The Author

My name is Mike Doughty. I am a semi-retired businessman and co-founder of Champ Frame Straightening Equip., Inc. (manufacturer of automotive collision repair equipment) and its subsidiary mail order catalog company Auto Body Toolmart. The company has since been acquired and reorganized under a new corporate entity.

Click here for... The Auto Body Toolmart Story

The company was established in 1981. In 1988 we purchased our first desktop publishing system. We produced the company catalog using a mix of technologies. We did all the layout and line work on the computer and all the images with traditional photo lithography:

We realized at that time that the future was in desktop publishing. The phrase "publish or perish" became the slogan of the day and we knew that it was not just a good thing to do. It was a vital necessity for business survival. We began producing our own in-house graphics in 1988 with Xerox Ventura Publisher 1.1 and a PostScript laser printer. We output the layouts at a service bureau on a Linotronic imagesetter and used a litho house to strip the line art and photos into composite film for printing. Over the next few years we took advantage of desktop publishing in our marketing campaigns. In 1991 we established the mail order subsidiary Auto Body Toolmart:
		Starting in 1991 we began producing all of our graphics in house - including photography and line art when it was not available from our suppliers. We produced a catalog every 4 weeks starting with Xerox Ventura Publisher 2.0 and Aldus Photostyler 2.0. Soon after we switched to QuarkXPress™. We began using CorelDRAW® then Adobe® Systems acquired Aldus Photostyler, so we started using Photoshop®. Once we began producing the mail order catalog in house within 5 years our sales expanded by a factor of ten.

The capacity to produce professional quality graphics in house had become a reality for most any business. It became clear that businesses who utilized the technology would wind up with a marked advantage over those that didn't.

The purpose of this web site is to share what I have learned with others and to keep up with the changes of this new electronic medium.

Previous   Home    Contact Mike   Related Sites    Next