Q&A: Dan and Denise Marcolina, Marcolina Design

In 1988, Russell Brown, an art director at Adobe Systems, viewed a demonstration of an innovative image editing application created by two brothers from Michigan. Adobe purchased the license for the software and by February 1990, Photoshop 1.0 hit the market. The rest is computing history.

Since its launch two decades ago, Photoshop has revolutionized the way photographers, graphic designers, artists, printers and computer enthusiasts manipulate and display images. And when Brown, now Senior Creative Director at Adobe, was asked to put together a special presentation as part of Photoshop’s 20th Anniversary Celebration, he contacted Dan and Denise Marcolina, the husband and wife team behind the highly successful Marcolina Design of Ambler.  

A designer with over 25 years of experience, Dan was one of the first artists in the Philadelphia area to own a copy of Photoshop 1.0 and has pushed each new version of the application to its limits to create breath-taking and award-winning images. Marcolina’s work caught Brown’s attention in the early 1990s and the two have collaborated on several projects. With a little over a month before the 20th Anniversary Celebration, this was to be their most ambitious assignment to date.

The result was a one-of-a-kind presentation combining live images with digital effects that played to Russell’s off-the-wall humor, while highlighting signature features from the 12 versions of Photoshop.

The Marcolinas spoke with Keystone Edge this week about the innovative presentation and the influence Photoshop has had on their business.

Keystone Edge: What was it like working on such a unique project?
Dan Marcolina (DaM): While we had worked with Russell on several projects throughout the years, we were honored that he called us about this presentation first. This was going to be presented in front of many of his peers, including top executives at Adobe.

Denise Marcolina (DeM): Photoshop has played such a large role in our success. Being a part of this project was a way to look back at 20 years of design and see all of the great things we’d accomplished.

KE: You had an opportunity to go to San Francisco and be in the audience during Russell’s presentation. What was the reaction?
DeM: While I had seen the presentation as it was being developed, there’s nothing like seeing it in person. It was amazing to see the crowd’s reaction. It was the best part of the night.

DaM: After the presentation, John and Thomas Knoll, the brothers who created Photoshop, told Russell they didn’t realize part of the presentation was digital until halfway through. It was such a hit, Russell’s doing it again at the upcoming Photoshop World in Orlando.

KE: Photoshop was released the same year you started Marcolina Design. How has it changed your business?
DaM: With the advent of Photoshop, you could begin creating images in a unique way that couldn’t be done before. It was very cutting-edge. We could design collages of photos, illustrations and text that weren’t possible without a computer. And only a handful of designers were doing this kind of work back then.

DeM: To be successful, we had to be at the forefront of technology, purchasing the latest and greatest as soon as it was available. For example, in 1993, there were no laptops. If you wanted to present the work to prospective clients, you had to carry a bulky desktop computer with floppy disks.

DaM: We wound up making a $15,000 investment in a Kodak printer initially designed to create topographical maps for the government. But the 12”x12” photos it created were incredible. It showed our capabilities and helped earn new business and recognition. Today, we continue to push the envelope on projects, exploring Photoshop’s capabilities to provide innovative designs for our clients.

KE: How does being a husband and wife team help your business?
DaM: Working with Denise helps me do what I love without worrying about the other aspects of running the business. I know other designers who went into business for themselves and then were bogged down by the operational demands. Before we started our own business, Denise was a district manager for the Children's Place. Her experience helped her take over the management and human resources responsibilities for Marcolina Design.

DeM: In the beginning it was very tough, as we had small children, but we were meant to do this. We put in a lot of long hours, but the respect and trust we have for each other helped make our business thrive and succeed.

KE: How do you see Photoshop developing in the next 20 years?
DaM: With new versions of Photoshop, I think we’ll begin to see a whole new group of tools that will be considered miraculous and really surprise users with their capabilities. These new tools will take advantage of more powerful computer processing. For example, you’d be able to erase entire objects in a photo and then rebuild the image as if it was never there. I’d also like Photoshop to focus on more mobile applications for the iPhone and other similar devices.

DeM: From our experience at the 20th Anniversary Celebration, you could see that Adobe really focuses on their software engineers and are putting a lot of emphasis on the technology. Even as Photoshop has no real competition, they’re still striving to be innovative and developing the program’s creative capabilities.

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Joe Petrucci is managing editor of Keystone Edge. Send feedback here.

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