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01 EDITORIAL
December 2009 Jonny Packham Editorial
This little supplement is your friend. Have you ever been in a print room and your’e stood stock in hand, memory stick in pocket, and you have no idea what to say to the printer. Small talk is’nt good. “How are the kids then?” Good start, but you should probably read this. So, through this set of 5 print booklets our aim is just to let you know a bit about the world of print, in areas that will definitely help get you from A to B in a print sense. From on screen to on stock there is alot to think about and I have been told and found out for myself how costly mistakes can be, but also how easy they are to make without the right know how. From a more personal stance, Graphic design and print is definitely a love hate relationship, we as designers love print, and the printers hate us! So that’s a big reason why you need to be able to get it right, from gamets to swatches and CMYK to RGB. Alas! Don’t fret, it’s as easy as putting pen to paper.
02 Contents
CONTENTS 04 DIGITAL COLOUR 08 PRINT PROCESS: OFFSET LITHOGRAPHY 12 PRINT PROCESS SILK SCREEN PRINTING/ FINISHES: SPOT VARNISH
16 HOW WAS IT MADE?
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DIGITAL COLOUR PROCESS Colour is one of the biggest parts of getting your practise right when it comes to print. Get the fundamentals under your belt and you have a good grounding to take a leap with print and improve your practise with a kowledge of digital colour processes ready for print.
05 Digital Colour Process
VISIBLE RGB PANTONE CMYK
The colour mode for print is CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, yellow and key black.) CMYK is a subtractive colour model used in colour printing. Subtractive means that C,M and Y when mixed, create black. The printer can print all colours in the CMYK spectrum and can also print using the PANTONE spectrum. RGB is typically used for screen.
06 Digital Colour Process
SPOT COLOURS
CYMK are actually spot colours, in a more advanced print method Orange and green are added for more colour choice (CMYKOG). This is called a hexachromatic process and is useful to use if for example you want to print using CMYK (or full colour) but also add a few extra spot colours for a one off print run. It has to be one off because the colours are mixed seperately to the printers ink or on seperate plates and this can be costly. All Spot colours have their own catalogue numbers. Knowing the number of your colours comes in handy when sending to a printer.
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07 Digital Colour Process
PICKINGCOLOURS Fig.2 Colour wheel Fig.1 Colour guide
Adobe’s Illustrator has some useful functions in order to help you get them extra colours just right. The colour guide and colour wheel are designed to choose colours that have similar, complementary and contrasting pigment properties the the colours you already have. To add colours to your pallette, you can drag the colour from the colour guide, onto your pallette.
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OFFSET LITHO
Offset Lithographys is the most common print method when it comes to commercial printing and you could literally sit and rack your brains about it all day when it comes to a print run.
For a more hands on approach, see page 12 for screen printing
10 Offset Lithography
OFFSET LITHO
Offset lithography works by transferring an image to a thin metal, paper, or plastic printing plate, photographically. Rollers then apply oil-based ink and water to the plates. Since oil and water don’t mix, the oil-based ink won’t stick to the non-image areas. Only the inked image portion is then transferred to a rubber blanket (cylinder) that then transfers the image onto the paper as it gets passed between it and another cylinder that is under the paper. The phrase offset refers to the fact that the image isn’t printed directly to the paper from the plates, but is offset or transferred to another surface that then makes contact with the paper.
11 Offset Lithography
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01.INK ROLLERS 02.WATER ROLLERS 03.WATER 04.PLATE CYLINDER 05.OFFSET CYLINDER 06.IMPRESSION CYLINDER 07.PAPER
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12 Silk Screen Printing
SILK SCREEN
Silk screen printing is a very versatile process and vast amount of effects and techniques can be achieved by using a silk screen. Alot of T-shirt design and also posters and other ephemeral design gets printed via silkscreen.
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14 Silk Screen Printing
SILKSCREEN
Most of the screen based printing techniques used today incorporate the idea of forcing ink through a stencil to create an image. This stencil is normally made by coating the screen in a photosensitive emulsion. This basically creates a negative image on the screen. To make a positive you need your artwork to be on one of these stocks; Acetate photocopy, lazer printout, photocopy or hand drawn onto truegrain. Bare in mind also that your image’s resolution needs to be 300 DPI. To make a photostencil you need to apply a coat of photo emulsion onto a clean screen and then place in a warm dry place with no light on. Once this coating is dry the screen needs to be exposed to UV light. (This hardens the emulsion coating and the dark areas of the imagery will not let light through.) When this process is complete gently wash your screen and leave to dry again. Acrylic paint is mixed with a gel medium to create a printing substance. Mix The paint and gel at the ratio of: one part acrylic and two parts gel medium. Then tape up the inside edges of your screen and attach to the screen bed. Switch on the vacuum and spread your ink across the top of the screen. use a squeegee (with your paper under the screen), drag ink towards you and push away. Lift frame and remove paper, leave to dry on a drying rack.
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01. Squeegee used for ink distribution 02. Printing on the print bed 03. Screen being exposed to UV light.
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15 Silk Screen Printing
16 Spot Varnish
SPOT VARNISH
Spot varnishing can be achieved using a silk screen frame, done in exactly the same way as the screen printing process. Spot varnish is a gloss coat which is almost invisible when printed until light shines on it, producing quite a sexy visual effect.Said from experience, it is sometimes neccessary to add a tint of colour into the varnish in order to promote visibility. The mix of colour to be added varies on how vibrant you want the colour to be in the varnish. The work over the page used a 5 parts gloss and a .5 part cyan to give a very subtle, cool tint to the gloss. It is also recommended that if you want to use spot varnish on a print run, that you test the consistency of the varnish. For th best results with a spot varnish you want the gloss to be roughly the same consistancy as an ink you would use, or an acrylic that would be used for typical screen printing.
16 Spot Varnish
17 HOW?
HOW WAS IT MADE? INK:BLACK/WHITE/PANTONE DS -1 U IMAGE: DUOTONE/ SPOT COLOUR TYPE: CENTURYGOTHIC/REGULAR&BOLD
Bcause we’re nice at Leeds College of Art & Design (But mostly Design) We like to tell you how we’ve done something, after all, keeping secrets is mean!
DUOTONE
In Adobe Photoshop, open an image, select image from the taskbar. Then mode, and switch From RGB or CMYK into Greyscale. Then repeat but choose duotone and choose your second colour as well as black. Editing the contrast can make this look rather nice.
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18 Coming soon
FILEFORMAT
How to transport files between programs and why the TIF file’s lossless format makes it ideal for use with print.
PRINT: ETCHING
Etchings and Embossing using copper plate and light sensitive polymer film. Exctiting times.
REPORT
Why screenprinting on the side of your nans house is a bad idea.
P DF P DF DESIGN FOR PRINT
JONNY PACKHAM 2009