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The Los Angeles firm of Young & McCallister began in 1912 as a partnership between Frederick Arthur Young (1875-1949) and Albert Bruce McCallister (1881-1945).  McCallister is generally regarded as Los Angeles' first "fine printer" and one of the founding members of the Zamorano Club in 1928.

Young was born in Wakefield, England. He became a letterpress printer and emigrated to America in 1907, starting a small printing house in Los Angeles. McCallister, born in South Dakota, began doing odd jobs at a newspaper printing company beginning at 10 years old, acquiring considerable expertise as a printer.

In 1916, the firm became one of the earliest printers to use the newly invented Selectasine process, setting up a separate department for graphic screen printing work, which was given the name Vitachrome, becoming one of the first licensees of the Selectasine patent. Vitachrome became an independent company in 1926, and today it is probably the oldest active screen printer in the world. Along with Velvetone and Selectasine, Vitachrome was one of the pioneering firms in graphic screen printing.

Selectasine was a screen printed process invented by John C. Patrick Pilsworth and first utilized by San Francisco based Selectasine Company in 1915. The company applied for a patent for multicolor printing from a single screen in 1915, which was granted in 1918.  Selectasine, its San Francisco competitor Velvetone Poster Company and Los Angeles based Vitachrome, founded by Young & McCallister, would become the industry pioneers for this printing process.