We’re celebrating our 25th year providing products that help everyone from studio managers to graphic designers to video producers stay productive and creative. As part of the festivities, we’re going retro and taking the plunge into a nostalgia pool filled with Zip drives, beige Power Macs, primitive social networks, old school design apps and more!
Creation and innovation can be a tough business, but it’s worth it. A quarter century of hard work has led to countless milestone moments and tech developments. See for yourself how far we’ve come…
1992
- Roger Whittle founds Jigsaw24. The colour orange is never the same again.
- Animation gains a new dimension as classic horror game Alone in the Dark introduces us all to the joys of 3D polygon character animation, traumatising at least one member of the team so badly that they give up gaming forever.
- Neil Papworth wishes Richard Jarvis “Merry Christmas” in the first ever SMS message.
1993
- The PDF is born (this may well be the least cool entry on the list, but the 'compare document' feature in the latest version of Acrobat DC is a lifesaver, and the new editing toolkit is properly brilliant).
- The internet is born. Cats everywhere shudder but don’t know why…
- NVIDIA is founded; gamers swear by their high-powered GPUs to this day.
1994
- American telecoms company AT&T run the first ever internet ad banner campaign. A single bead of sweat trickles down the forehead of every person working in the print business.
- Photoshop 3.0 is released and introduces the world to layers.
- Iomega’s Zip drive is released.
- Apple launch their ‘Serious Business Computer’ ad, which we strongly urge you to watch:
1995
- JavaScript is released. Jamie, our Web Designer, says “JavaScript is crucial to web and non-web projects and it’s hard to imagine working without it. But the range of libraries can be baffling, so I prefer React and Angular.”
- Sony releases the first PlayStation, beginning an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency in children.
- Coca-Cola’s iconic Christmas truck advert airs for the first time. All together now: “Holidays are coming, holidays are coming…”
1996
- The first CSS specification is published.
1997
- Apple encourage us to Think Different for the first time; science responds by cloning Dolly the sheep.
- IBM’s Deep Blue defeats chess champ Garry Kasparov. We know we’re not an IBM outfit, but credit where it’s due.
- Google domain name is registered. We could not have compiled this list without it, so feel compelled to include it.
1998
- Wacom release the first Intuos tablet. There is much rejoicing. Graphic Designer Liana says “I remember getting my first job and being amazed by Wacom. I’d spent all of my time at uni huddled over an 11” MacBook, trying to do everything on the Touchpad, which obviously has nothing on a nice big Wacom.”
- First ever Google Doodle. Bit rubbish, to be honest.
- HDTV is introduced. Everyone becomes picture quality snobs.
1999
- The mighty Nikon D1 becomes the first DSLR to challenge the market supremacy of film cameras.
- Budweiser asks “Wassup?”
2000
- Post-apocalyptic horrors promised during the Y2K Panic fail to materialise.
- Everyone buys a Nokia 3310.
- Sony launches PlayStation 2, the best-selling video game console ever.
2001
- Apple launch iTunes and OS X, ushering us into the modern era of Mac.
- Microsoft remove that Paperclip thing from Office. It is not missed.
- Wikipedia is launched. Students everywhere are elated, and nobody wins an internet debate ever again.
2002
- InDesign becomes the first ever Mac-native desktop publishing tool.
- Gartner calculate that one billion personal computers have been sold since their arrival in the 70s.
2003
- The first ever Creative Suite is released, including the all-new Premiere Pro.
- The Dalsa Origin becomes the first commercially available 4K camera.
- Skype is launched, making video conferencing several thousand times easier.
2004
- Facebook beings its journey to world domination. People Poke each other.
- MySpace arrives, and manages to trick a generation of teenagers into learning HTML by letting you customise your profile.
- Motorola release the Razr V3 flip phone. It’s really thin.
2005
- Adobe launch Creative Suite 2, featuring Smart Objects.
- The first YouTube video is released. Elephants’ trunks are really cool.
- Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle becomes the first film released on Blu-ray.
2006
- The .gif standard becomes freely available, making written language obsolete and neatly dividing the world into gifsayers and jifsayers.
- Jack Dorsey sends the first ever tweet (and is too edgy for vowels):
https://twitter.com/jack/status/20?lang=en
2007
- iPhone arrives, and promptly shifts 1.4 million units in its first year.
- CS3 arrives, meaning you can finally use Photoshop on a modern Mac without having to go through Rosetta.
- Cadbury rehabilitate Phil Collins’ image with their classic drumming gorilla ad, which none of us can believe is really ten years old.
2008
- Nikon’s D90 is the first DSLR to introduce video recording.
- Artist Shepard Fairey creates the iconic Barack Obama ‘Hope’ poster.
2009
- James Cameron’s Avatar becomes the highest-grossing film of all time.
- Microsoft launches Windows 7, sealing the fate of Vista.
2010
- iPad is released.
- The first commercially available jet pack is launched.
2011
- Adobe introduce Content-Aware tools.
- Wacom introduce the Cintiq 24HD. It weighs as much as a not-so-small child, but we all want one anyway.
- The number of Apple devices sold in this one year is larger than the total number of Macs sold ever. We imagine a lot of people spent this year frantically working out how to make their website responsive.
- Steve Jobs passes away aged 56.
2012
- The final boxed version of Creative Suite, CS6, is released, which we mention only because our marketing team won a prize for their campaign and have been insufferable ever since.
- Jony Ive gets a knighthood; rumour has it he commented witheringly on the maximalist design of the medal.
- The Hobbit is the first movie filmed at 48 fps. Viewers suffer eyestrain.
- The world doesn’t end. In your face, Mayans.
2013
- Kenneth Grange scores a knighthood, joining Ive as Britain’s most decorated designer.
- Adobe launch Creative Cloud.
- Film Gravity uses the most complex lighting setup in film history, using a custom-built light box with 1.8 million high-powered LEDs to film zero-gravity footage.
2014
- YouTube announce that they receive 100 hours of new video content per minute.
2015
- Windows 10 is launched, if you’re into that sort of thing.
2016
- Mobile browsing overtakes desktop for the first time.
- Harambe the gorilla dies and is memorialised forever in meme form.
2017
- Carter Wilkinson makes a plea to Wendy’s for a year's worth of free chicken nuggets. It becomes the most retweeted tweet of all time, currently standing at over 3.5 million.
https://twitter.com/carterjwm/status/849813577770778624?lang=en
- Twitter shut down online video service Vine. At least it lasted longer than its videos.
- Jigsaw24 turn 25; immediately has crisis about logo.
If you'd like to find out more about about contemporary creative kit, give us a call on 03332 400 888, email sales@Jigsaw24.com or pop your details in the form below. For all the latest news, follow @WeAreJigsaw24 on Twitter or ‘Like’ us on Facebook.