Nuriman Faris Design Specifications Matt White & John Kramer Spring 2013
Table of Contents
week
1
Letterpress During our first week, we were given the option to list down the top five production groups were were provided. My first choice was letterpress and I was placed in the letterpress group. I was so excited to get to experience the letterpress medium. I had done printmaking before and could relate to letterpress and its unique qualities, but little did I know how much I still had to learn!
The assignment for the first week was to get to know our medium... How does it work? Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing using a printing press. A printer will use moveable type and lock it into place onto the bed of the press. He will then ink the plate and press paper against the ink, apply pressure, and transfer the ink from the type onto the paper. What are its limitations? the process is done by hand (time consuming, subject to human error, difficult to edit), small production use, intended for small amounts of copy, different size presses have limited document sizes, color and color details are difficult and time consuming (minimal color use if preferable)
What are the common uses for letterpress? Common uses for letterpress in the 20th century consist of invitations, stationary, business cards, envelopes, posters (for advertising and decorative purposes), announcements, packaging, embossing, etc.
What are the attractive qualities about letterpress?
What is the history of the letterpress? Letterpress printing was the normal form of printing text from the mid-15th century until the 19th century. It was invented by Johannes Gutenberg and was originally used to print the Holy Bible. It remained in wide use for books and other uses until the second half of the 20th century. Letterpress printing remained the primary way to print and distribute information until the twentieth century, when offset printing was developed, which largely supplanted its role in printing books and newspapers. More recently, letterpress printing has seen a revival in an artisanal form.
letterpress is attractive for its hands on details, low number of editions (creates a value due to the uniqueness and rarity), process creates texture (raised ink, embossing, etc), forced minimalist style, vintage appeal, transparency, and color mixing qualities when you overlay inks.
week
2
Color For our second week of class, we focused on the theme of color! How does letterpress affect color? How can it be executed and to what extent? This week was more about inspiration, gathering ideas, and developing sketches for possible products we could create with letterpress. w
Inspirational ideas for Color These are some of the images I found on the web of the use of letterpress and color. i really liked all the different ways you could combine colors with letterpress. Even the embossed business card creates color with the use of texture and risen type. My group and I also discussed the various things we’d like to create using letterpress with the theme of color. We came up with books, pamphlets discussing spot color, posters demonstrating color mixing, use of colored stock paper, invitations for color based events, and possibly a calendar using color to indicate the various seasons.
As we continued gaining inspiration for a final letterpress product, we got closer and closwer to doing a calendar...
These are some of the images that inspired us!
Sketches These are the concept sketches I developed off our idea to create a calendar. I thought it would be interesting to allow color and imagery be the main focus.
At the time, we weren’t sure where our group was goin with the idea, but we just kept sketching until we came up with something more concrete!
I also wanted to focuse some of my concepts and ideas on typography and how we might be able to incorporate some rich wood text from the letterpress to create a vintage piece!
3
week
3
Research During week three, we fleshed out our ideas even further. During this time, I spent most of my time finding examples of relief prints for imagery and ideas. Eventually we would be carving a linoleum block for the image on our final product. Although I had some experience carving linoleum, most of my group mates did not and I spent this time demonstrating all the different things you could do with relief printing.
How to Carve a Linoleum Block 1. cut away what is white 2. reverse your image/drawing when transferring it onto your plate (it will print in the reverse of what is on your plate) 3. cut away from yourself, never cut towards you 4. use relief to create texture ps. check out this url http://www.shouldiworkforfree.com it shows a really cool flow chart for graphic designers and might be a good idea for our poster! * http://www.shouldiworkforfree.com * https://www.facebook.com/InkMonkeys At this point in our developement of ideas, we prgressed from trying to produce a calendar to creating a poster. We spoke to the vendor at Union Press in Somerville, MA and due to time contraints we chose to proceed with the poster instead.
Linoleum Carving Demonstration
I think we all got to experience something different this day! We were all able to witness the relief process and the kind of style, texture, and unique qualities of relief and letterpress! It was a lot of fun getting to teach everyone else about something I knew. It was also nice to get people so interested. Everyone gave feedback, asked questions, and liked the interactive qualities of letterpress. print! Hope you enjoyed it! Our group will also be sketching out ideas for our poster production and we’d like to get your feedback… we aren’t 100% sure what we’re limited to, but we’ll get more specifics next class.
week Week four was spend in group discussion. We discussed the possibilities for our final project, what needed to be done, when things needed to be accomplished, and I taught some of our group members how to carve a linoleum block. It was a good learning experience.
week
5
Poster Ideas For awhile, our group wasn’t sure what the end product of the semester would be. We weren’t sure how we could apply letterpress to various design aspects. We originally started by coming up with ideas of where letterpress was most used, then we thought about what products we might want to use letterpress to create, we went from calendars, to stationary, and then to posters.
Typographic Based Posters During this week, I looked into different ways typography has been used by letterpress in a poster format. I searched for ideas and concepts on the web. Letterpress, as a medium, is largely based on typography so I thought maybe our poster should be based more on the typographic aspects of letterpress.
week
6
Start of Production After finding out our group was doing a poster, we proceeded with conceptual ideas of our final products. I drew a few sketches on paper and began to digitally reder it. However, typographic poster layouts proved to be time consuming and tedious.
So here is one of my poster concepts brought to life! I placed photos of just about each step which included: 1. Tracing original sketch 2. Flipping tracing paper over (for reverse transfer) 3. Using Saral transfer paper on my plate, with the tracing paper over it, and tracing the sketch in reverse with a pen to transfer it onto the plate 4. Carving away the white (or whatever your paper color is) 5. Inking the plate 6. Printing! I used three different types of paper. I used rice paper, 100% cotton paper (printmaking paper), and colored card stock. I noticed that with the rice and cotton paper, the print was much cleared. Part of that could also be that I used a barren to print instead of a book press. I’m going to try it again on a book press and compare the results. I’m thinking of adding another plate with the logo SPEC on it in a different or/and transparent color and laying it on top of this print once it dries.
Union Press Trip
week
7
Final Concept After our field trip to Union Press, we came up with a different idea for our final concept. We thought we would be creating a poster for our class, but during the field trip, we saw how Eli had used letterpress with a CD cover sleeve. So we thought it might be nice by doing a collabrative project with some of the other groups. So we decided that we would design a CD sleeve, the silkscreen group could silkscreen labels for the CDs that time base would burn the movie onto, and the offset group would create the booklet for the case.
week
9
Concept Realizations The previous week, our group did a skype chat to discuss some of the ideas for the CD sleeve and divide the tasks between the group members. We decided we could translate the concept we had for the poster for the CD sleeve. So we needed to conceptualize the class utensil lino plate onto the CD Sleeve. I also spent some time looking on the web for images of letterpress on chipboard CD sleeves.
Letterpress Schedule April 5th Finalized concept Group meeting/discussion E-mail Eli with final concept & ask about linoleum Make sure the design concept is in sync with style guidelines! April 10th Have the image cut and ready to print April 11th Send/Drop off cut image to Eli
Specific Developments After our last class, discussing all the specifics of what our concept needed, I worked on more decisive concept ideas. I didn’t have the Gotham typeface so I used Cicle (which was generally close enough). It will at least give the general idea of our concept and how we might be able to play with it. Part of the concept was to add each classmate’s name on the back of the case. I needed to verify that I had everyone’s name and that it was spelt correctly.
So Maria and I google chat together earlier this afternoon to discuss some of the more developed concept ideas. These are the points we discussed: 1. we are pretty much set on the image, although we may want to change some of the placement 2. we are going to play with the title and subtitle, its placement and spacing 3. we are replacing the alternate font with Gotham 4. we have to contact Eli about wether or not we should/could do a bleed with the image 5. trying to invert color of text and image to vary our options Our updated schedule is : April 7th 1. upload new concept ideas by late afternoon 2. reconvene at night to discuss last changes 3. send Eli the finalized concept and questions
April 10th 1. review any proofing and complications that may arise 2. have the image cut and ready to print April 11th 1. Send/Drop off cut image to Eli
week
11
Revisions This week, we made even more specific changes to the design. I got the Gotham typeface and was able to make the necessary changes to the design. I also took the input our classmates had and applied it to the design.
So here are some revisions to the concept of the CD sleeve I did see some of the comments that were made on the other posts and took heed! Here are some of the changes I made: 1. I tried to account for the opacity that occurs with letterpress and I think that’s why there was a funky blue color. I changed it so the blue has no opacity. 2. I also tried to adjust the color of the chipboard to more actual color, instead of the dark color that occurred when we scanned it. 3. I also changed the alternative typeface with actual Gotham to keep it accurate. 4. I played with the placement of the title and subtitle. 5. We are keeping account for no bleed.
week
12
Pantone Color So our group ran into a few dilemmas in regards to the colors we were using for the CD sleeve. We checked the pantone color swatches against the color of the CD sleeve and most of the colors were too close in value, except for the green. First we tried the blue and the value was too close to the CD sleeve.
John matched a lighter blue to the sleeve, but unfortunately it was not a color in the Logo and we wanted to be as consistent as we could in the colors we are using for brand identity. So then we matched the other colors and the green was the one that looked the best. John concurred with us and wants us to use the Green Pantone color in the Logo design. He said it shouldn’t affect the division of colors between the collaborating groups (Offset, Letterpress, and Silkscreen). John suggested that offset still use the green and magenta, we use green and black, while silkscreen can use the blue and/or orange.
week
13
Revisions After the last minute color change, we revised our concept and design layout with the new green pantone color. We also looked into placement of the text and which one looked best.
We all drew up a few more sketches of possible layouts and interchanged the colors that would be printed. We tried demonstrating the black printing over the green ink and vice versa. As a group, we decided it would probably be smarter to print the darker color over the lighter color, due to the transparency of letterpress.
These were the two layouts that we had for the back of the CD sleeve. We weren’t sure if we’d be able to do either, depending on the availability of type that Eli had, but our goal was to personalize the CD sleeve and put each classmate’s name on it.
week
14
Process During this time, I spend it working on my process book and running last minute errands with my group. We made a print check at Union Press and approved the CD sleeves.
week
15
SPEC Event This was our last week of class! We finally got to see the end result of everyone’s hard work and how it worked together as a cohesive brand. It was so much fun to see what everyone else had done and I was so hapy to see all of the effort we put into the class.