I’ve recently been taking on more poster design projects alongside the usual book cover fare, so I was going to talk about how one tackles that shift in scale. I was going to offer a fascinating insight into what one must consider when approaching the larger canvas; the subtle differences in the text/image balance; contemplating the presence of print in the real world compared with the equalising thumbnail nature of onscreen content; how both books and posters are essentially avatars and/or distillations and/or interpretations of more expansive acts of creativity.

It was all going to be very clever, very thought-provoking, really getting to the core of what design is. You would’ve nodded a lot. But then my computer died. So all I have to offer is: BIG FILES EAT COMPUTERS, OH GOD OH GOD.

One by one, things started lagging, freezing, crashing, and I finally pushed the whole thing to a juddering halt. If this was a film, sparks would be flying

This week has been one long technological meltdown. I’m used to working with modestly sized indd files for book covers. Sometimes they get a bit large, depending on the complexity of the artwork, but nothing terrifying. Jumping from that to suddenly having multiple gargantuan PSDs open at once has been something of a shock to the system. One by one, things started lagging, freezing, crashing, and I finally pushed the whole thing to a juddering halt. If this was a film, sparks would be flying and random panels would pop off exposing bundles of flaming wires, henchmen would be fleeing the volcano lair and … instead of all that, whirring and profanities. So many profanities.

Chatting with other, more experienced poster designers, it’s clear that this is a common problem. There’s no getting around the fact that chunky artwork is going to be chunky. The unanimous advice is to hook up as much external storage as possible and avoid working on actual-size artwork until the very last minute. Having a dozen one-gigabyte concepts open at one time is not a great idea. This is wisdom I will surely take into consideration once my computer is speaking to me again. In order for this to happen, I apparently need more computer.

To put the computer into recovery mode, it’s a simple case of turning it on while holding down two keys on my keyboard … a keyboard that my computer won’t acknowledge exists until after it is in recovery mode. The magic of bluetooth. So I’ve had to go out and buy a brand new keyboard just to plug in and press two keys so I can then connect my existing keyboard to a computer that may or may not be able to cope with the concept of keyboards. I’m pretty sure Kafka would have had a word or two to say about this had he made it into the exciting world of computing.

I’m pretty sure Kafka would have had a word or two to say about this had he made it into the exciting world of computing

Returning from the shop, flimsy eight quid keyboard in hand, new career choices in mind, things have of course taken a ridiculous new turn. After eight years of holding it together, my computer has truly given up the ghost. In an unrelated but incredibly timed act of self-pity, the hinge thingy has snapped, so the display now only tilts down. It’s all quite pathetic.

All that’s left for me to do now is find a reliable deity to pray to that my backups are all in order and ready to be migrated to a replacement machine. The only insight or wisdom I can pass on today is: maybe upgrade your computer more often, or at least show even the tiniest bit of foresight if you’re suddenly going to be asking it to do huge new things. YOU’RE WELCOME.

Daniel Benneworth-Gray is a freelance designer based in York; danielgray.com; @gray