A recent graduate of design has put together this rough guide to screen printing - a nice insight into the process of taking design to screen printing on a small scale - despite the overpowering music track!
A pretty rough guide to screen printing from Andrew Bell on Vimeo.
Computers make the process of publishing shallow – we take for granted the effort we once needed to publish books - the amount of craft involved - the attention to detail and the exhaustive process - making a book was a serious consideration, unlike today where we can churn out publications in a fraction of the time.
This video documents the traditional book printing and binding processes, from original illustration blocks engraved in the late 1800s, to typesetting on the Linotype, to letterpress printing to traditional bookbinding, including leather cover and gold foil embossing to even include cutting finger tabs.
Pictorial Webster’s: Inspiration to Completion from John Carrera on Vimeo.
The Melbourne Museum of Printing held a fund raising open day yesterday and they could not have been more please with the turn out - “a thousand times more people than we normally get!”. It was shoulder to shoulder throughout the museum - housed in a modest workshop in Moreland Street, Footscray, Melbourne. I’m sure for a lot of us this was our first visit, and I have always been meaning to go, but it took their cry for help to get myself there - and I’m pleased I did - it’s fantastic to see a place like this operating and demonstrating the printing process of the not too distant past.
They are currently under threat of eviction after 25 years - after the success of yesterday I hope they have managed to raise enough funds to keep this treasure running.
The photos here were taken on the day
Here we are again in our endeavor to give you an insight into common printing processes that are often taken for granted but understanding them in detail can help appreciate their capabilities and limitations.
Die-cutting (also known as forme-cutting) is the process of cutting or punching shapes from sheets of paper or card by pressing a shaped blade into one or more sheets.
The process uses sharp blades that are folded and cut to shape either by hand or by computer controlled machinery and then knocked into a laser cut plywood backing board - this is known as the die-cutting tool. The tool is then inserted into a press, sometimes an old letter-press machine, and under pressure is pressed into a pre-printed sheet of paper or card and the shape cut out - also known as blanking.
The blades can be sharp for cutting, dull for creasing or toothed for perforating.
Some of the better videos we found that demonstrate how the die-cutting tool is made.
You could watch this machine run all day - mesmerizing! But this video will give you a good understanding of the relatively simple die-cutting process - the blades are pushed against the paper under force, and like a cookie cutter, cuts the paper.
When I speak with printers these days most feel confident that print will be here for the long run - who could live without the tactile feel of paper, the smell of ink, the satisfaction of turning a page to reveal a new one and the intimate relationship we have with these items that hold so much inspiration?
Within the last 10 years the big print presses that put ink to paper have progressed like the car - fundamentally they are the same machine - same concept as the very original machines, but now a lot of the human control has been taken over by computers, accuracy and efficiency have improved.
Creating printing plates have improved immensely from film photo offset to direct to plate using lasers (CTP). So there is little sign that this technology is going to drop off anytime soon.
Or will it?
We have already seen the advances in digital printing almost equaling that of offset printing with printing process like the HP Indigo, but what about the non-printing options that may kill printing altogether.
No need to mention the web and the onslaught of the PDA where we can visit any site any time for all information. But these devices rely on transmitted light in their visual displays to get the image to the viewer - this can be straining to the eye and be difficult to read over several hours and doesn’t provide the same readability as paper.
The future is likely to be in the area of electronic paper displays (or ePaper) - the only technology available at the moment that comes close to the reflective qualities of ink on paper. This technology has been around since the 1970s and was only available in black and white - like the Amazon’s ‘Kindle”, but now technology is advancing at a high rate and most major players in the computer display markets are getting involved and we’re are now seeing full colour screens.
How does it work?
Initially the technology used polyethylene spheres between 75 and 106 micrometres across. Each sphere is composed of negatively charged black plastic on one side and positively charged white plastic on the other (each bead is thus a dipole). The spheres are embedded in a transparent silicone sheet, with each sphere suspended in a bubble of oil so that they can rotate freely. The polarity of the voltage applied to each pair of electrodes then determines whether the white or black side is face-up, thus giving the pixel a white or black appearance.
Now it involves what is termed as e-ink through Electrophoretic display and Electro-wetting displays.
Cross-Section of Electronic-Ink Microcapsules
The E Ink microcapsules are only 100 microns wide, which means that roughly 100,000 microcapsules can fit into a square inch of paper. Each of those microcapsules contains hundreds of smaller pigmented chips. In earlier prototypes, E Ink worked with white chips and blue ink, but later it developed other color inks for multicolored displays. Wiring the pages to create an electric charge and still maintain a paper-thin page has been a challenges in developing a digital book out of electronic ink. E Ink partnered with Lucent Technologies to enable the use of organic transistors developed by Lucent in the e-paper displays. These tiny transistors can be printed onto a page to provide the adequate charge needed to switch the E Ink chips from one color to another. - source
A news report on ePaper:
Market Report - Makers Hope E-Paper Prints Money from NTDTV on Vimeo.
So could this mean the end of print? - I say - likely!
Follow the progress of this technology at epapercentral
The popularity of screen printing does not appear to have waned - with the advent of new technology that seems to be making old technologies redundant, screen printing still thrives as a very flexible printing method.
Screen printing (also known as photomechanical serigraphy) is one of the oldest forms of printing, first seen used in China. It is a versatile printing process that allows a printed image to be applied to many substrates that no other printing process can achieve. Today it is well know for it’s use of applying graphics to T-shirts but is also used for printing posters, textile fabric, product labels, printed electronics, including circuit board printing, balloons, plastic packaging, manufactured products - and the list goes on.
Screen printing: A printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate. A roller or squeegee is moved across the screen stencil forcing or pumping ink past the threads of the woven mesh in the open areas - wikipedia
The advantage of Screen printing is the density and viscosity of the inks used - they are opaque and rich in colour, flexible and adhere to a vast number of surfaces. there are about 5 types of inks used in this process: solvent, water, and solvent plastisol, water plastisol, and UV curable.
Screen printing is a printing method that is a truly hands-on process, and a potentially messy one at that. It is a relatively simple process that can be done from a home studio or be done by large automated machines.
Here is a video that goes into depth about the screen printing process, including finishing the job at the end with guillotining
In my endeavor to explain as many printing processes as possible I have now come to the most common method - Offset printing or Offset Lithography Printing (Lithography meaning the process of printing from a flat surface treated so as to repel the ink except where it is required for printing).
Here’s an attempt to explain it in detail: Offset printing is a technique during which an inked image is transferred, or “offset” from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to a printing surface. Offset printing is often combined with lithographic printing, which uses the repulsion of oil and water to produce a flat image carrier. This is often referred to as offset lithography.
Offset lithography is the most common type of color printing for high-volume jobs.
Each of the primary colors used in printing - cyan, magenta, yellow and black - have a separate plate.
Offset printing process
The ink gets to the paper through a process that uses oil to repel ink. The ink is dispersed to the plates by a series of rollers. On the printing press the plates are dampened by water rollers, and then ink rollers. The rollers disperse the ink onto the plates.
The plate’s image area picks up the ink from the ink rollers and the water rollers keep the ink from transferring to the non-image areas of the plate. Each plate transfers its image to a rubber blanket that in turn transfers the image to the paper.
Offset printing presses are made up of printing bays - each bay prints 1 colour, so the one colour GTO press pictured below only prints one colour, the one beside it has 12 bays and prints 12 colours. Typically, printers will have 5 colour presses, the 4 process colours of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black and the ability to print a fifth colour which can be an addional spot colour or a machine varnish. These days though, with press time being paramount for printers, they are opting for larger presses, like the 12 colour below - these are known as perfecting machines - they are able to print the 4 process colours + 2 specials on the 2 sides of the paper in one single pass.
Advantages of Offest Printing
Consistently high quality images. Offset printing makes images and lines sharper more easily than other printing methods because the rubber blanket is flexible and therefore can conform to the texture of the printing service.
Production plates can be made quickly and easily.
Longer printing plate life. The plates last longer because there is no direct contact between the plate and printing surface.
High speed and high volume printing.
Costs less the more you print. Most of the price of printing is wrapped up in the preparation of the production plates and anything else that happens before the first page is printed. Once everything is prepared, the more you print will only cost you the price of paper and ink, which is minimal compared to setup costs.
It appears I need to get some printing techniques out of my system - perhaps I’m just yearning for a job to come along so I can use them.
Here’s a print process that is quite rare, expensive and unique - Flocking. Flocking can have several applications, more typically on clothing ie T-shirts, but can also be applied to paper - it is the application of small fabric fibers adhered to a surface which gives it a felt appearance - soft to the touch.
Here are some examples of Flocking to paper
And a video of a Flocking machine in action - enjoy!
Your business card would be your most important piece of visual communication you can have - it represents you and/or your business in a bite sized high impact device - it leaves an impression with the person you are introduced to, even if it is for only 30 seconds. It belongs with the first impressions people will have of you, like wearing that Hugo Boss suit or the shoes that match your outfit - the fine attention to detail is all taken in to account.
So the effort to make your business card suit your business philosophies is important to get right - it’s more than a bit of paper with your contact details on it.
If you are looking for inspiration for creating a business card or to consider what printing methods can be adopted, a good starting place is at are some of the website that showcase them, such as cardobserver.com - here you will find many samples and excellent printing examples including letterpress, embossing, foil stamping, laser cutting, die-cutting, gloss varnish, metals, plastics and even sewing machine stitching. There are certainly countless ways to impress with your little first impressioner.
Through this blog we will also be talking about the other passion we have - print! Some may think this as weird as a passion for Vista Sans, but no design can sing without the means to present - like looking at a website with 16 colours as apposed to millions - if that analogy works!
I’m sure most have heard of offset printing and digital printing - but what we intend to do in this blog is to discuss the types of printing out there and also give a little insight into how it works and the benefits and limitations of each process.
For this entry I’m just going to jump to one of my favorite printing methods - “letterpress” - also referred to as “relief printing”. If only we could apply this to more jobs - it’s such a beautiful tactile effect that brings dimension and light to the flat surface of paper.
The process uses the left over technology from the birth of printing where movable type was used for printing (typically metal but were also wood). The surface of these letterforms would be inked and the pressed into the paper - the more pulpy the paper and with enough pressure you get an embossed appearance.
These 2 videos help explain the process of letterpress - excuse the American reporting droll
