Tradigital

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What Does Tradigital Mean?

Tradigital refers to the melding or combination of the traditional and computer based (digital) methods used to create something. The term is an amalgamation of the words “traditional” and “digital” and was coined in the early 90s by Judith Moncrieff, a Pacific Northwest College of Art artist and teacher who invented and taught this medium at her school.

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Techopedia Explains Tradigital

Tradigital was originally used to refer to the techniques used in creating images using both traditional and digital methods, but the term has been adapted in various fields, like marketing and engineering. The word is now colloquially used as an adjective to describe something that combines traditional and new (digital) concepts.

It went mainstream, due to Jeffrey Katzenberg’s use in the term “tradigital animation” to refer to new animation techniques that blend computer graphics and traditional cell animation techniques. Katzenberg mentioned Toy Story and Shrek, as well as many other titles, as examples of tradigital animation, which he defined as a seamless blend of two and three-dimensional (3-D) animation techniques.

Tradigital is also used in printing, known as “tradigital printing,” where traditional printing processes, like UV photo transfers to silk screens, are produced using computer generated positives. Other techniques use woodcuts, lithographs and other methods combined with digital methods, like computer printing. There is no single process in this area and most, if not all, are still experimental and relatively new.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.