| Printing Art in a Snap - Meet Stephen Manousos | ||
I have been talking with Stephen for the past month and have discovered what a delightful character he is. His passion for printing is contagious and he takes great pride in producing quality products. I wanted to take a moment to give everyone a chance to meet the man behind our new product printing service. As a 2-year-old, Stephen Manousos fell in love with the alphabet of rubber stamps his mother bought him at Safeway. He could sit for hours pressing the stamps on inkpads and then onto paper. He couldn't spell yet, but the images he made were mesmerizing – black and red letters and punctuation marks in columns and rows. At age 10, he was publishing a newspaper in his Oakland, California, neighborhood. He published his newspaper off and on for the next eight years. Along the way he was editor of his grammar school and high school newspapers. He wrote news stories, took photographs, and drew cartoon strips. Cartooning was his favorite job. Stephen wanted to learn more about cartooning, so when he entered California State University, Hayward, he declared himself an art major. He was editor of the Cal State newspaper, but graduated with a degree in English. "The art department at Cal State wasn't what I expected," Stephen said. "I figured I could learn cartooning on my own, so I switched to my second love, writing." For the next 11 years, Stephen worked for a weekly newspaper in Oakland, was an editor with the Daily Review in Hayward, California, and was an editor on the national desk of the Los Angeles Times. He left the Times and started his own weekly, Aptos Post, in Aptos, California. He folded the newspaper in 1983, but kept his typesetting equipment and started setting type for local graphic artists. In 1984 he bought the first PostScript imagesetter west of the Mississippi and started imaging pages created on a Macintosh, including images made in MacPaint and MacDraw. His business had clients in all 50 states. His Linotronic imagesetter garnered a lot of attention from computer programmers who were busy inventing the first desktop publishing programs. 
"I did work for Aldus, Adobe, Ventura and others," Stephen mentioned. "They had me test their first software revs on my imagesetter."One of those programmers, Lee Lorenzen, who wrote Ventura Publisher, teamed up with Stephen and two other world-class engineers and fellow Aptos residents, Mark Zimmer and Tom Hedges, and founded Fractal Design Corporation, makers of Painter, Dabbler and Poser. Stephen served as vice president of sales and marketing. After Fractal, Stephen and Lorenzen founded Post Digital Software, makers of Roto, a video-painting application that was eventually published by Radius Corporation, which later became Digital Origin. Stephen also served on the Radius board of directors, and later became vice president of sales and marketing for Media 100, which acquired Digital Origin. Media 100 became a victim of the Internet bust in 2001. Stephen left and launched his own company in 2002. Stephen lives in Aptos with his wife, Janet. Their two sons, Nick and Nathan, are both software engineers. Stephen still deals with images, but his latest endeavor is a mild detour from his previous careers, including Fractal Design Corporation, where he always printed on paper. Now, Stephen prints images on everything but paper. He prints on ceramic tile, mouse pads, coffee mugs and jigsaw puzzles. He prints on t-shirts, name tags and coasters. It is Stephen's passion and talent for unusual printing techniques that connected him with Renderosity. Working together, Stephen and Renderosity will be providing a convenient new way for members to get their images printed on some amazingly cool products. "We have been approached by many printers in the past. After seeing several samples of Stephen's work, we were impressed enough to want to make this available to our community," said Tim Choate. "His single-shirt coloring process is outstanding. It's not a simple silk screen, it's colored into the fabric." Tim Choate continued, "Our future plans are to provide our members with a convenient way to sell their selected images on various products while reaping the rewards of their work and the traffic here at Renderosity." We hope you will all make Stephen feel welcome. September 25, 2006 |
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Member Opinions:
By: densa on 9/25/06
fantastic
fantastic
By: AgentSmith on 9/26/06
On tumbled stone tiles?! VERY awesome. ;oD
On tumbled stone tiles?! VERY awesome. ;oD
By: Jean-Luc_Ajrarn on 9/26/06
Thanks for this article. :) Amazing life! :) I saw two days ago the tiles, and intend to have some done soon. :D
Thanks for this article. :) Amazing life! :) I saw two days ago the tiles, and intend to have some done soon. :D
By: matrixmode on 9/27/06
This is great Stephen! Persevere...:)
This is great Stephen! Persevere...:)
By: SndCastie on 9/27/06
Great I have been wanting to get grandkids on a mug this will do the trick; Thanks you Stephen for bringing this to our community.
Great I have been wanting to get grandkids on a mug this will do the trick; Thanks you Stephen for bringing this to our community.
By: Spike on 9/28/06
This is too cool! Ording something now...
This is too cool! Ording something now...
By: nickcharles on 10/1/06
Very cool, and a great background story! So great to get to know you, Stephen!
Very cool, and a great background story! So great to get to know you, Stephen!
By: Spike on 10/2/06
I ordered the 6" X 6" Glass tile with a image of my art "Exotic Vessels" on it and it came in today. It looks outstanding!!! Great job!
Thanks again, Spike
I ordered the 6" X 6" Glass tile with a image of my art "Exotic Vessels" on it and it came in today. It looks outstanding!!! Great job!
Thanks again, Spike
By: Mercytoo on 10/6/06
I'm really impressed! I wasn't sure how well a 72 DPI image would print on the keychain, but it came in the mail today and looks wonderful! This is such a cool feature and I have to say, I like the affordable prices. (Hey, I am a starving artist & a dog groomer after all ;-) )
I will definetly purchase again in the future.
(Just wish you did print on paper, because I really would like to make some bumperstickers for my art site and I'd definetly buy them from you ;-) )
I'm really impressed! I wasn't sure how well a 72 DPI image would print on the keychain, but it came in the mail today and looks wonderful! This is such a cool feature and I have to say, I like the affordable prices. (Hey, I am a starving artist & a dog groomer after all ;-) )
I will definetly purchase again in the future.
(Just wish you did print on paper, because I really would like to make some bumperstickers for my art site and I'd definetly buy them from you ;-) )
By: amirus on 10/9/06
Great job!Respect
Great job!Respect
By: Claywoman on 10/10/06
Awesome awesome!
Awesome awesome!
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