Letterpress Manifesto Brief - Day 4

Final Prints

My first job of the day was to source some paper and trim it down to size. I wanted to experiment with different stock in order to see how the ink would take to different samples and also to see what combination of inks and paper worked best. I managed to get a bit of GFSmith stock from Amber which was fortunate. I also experimented using various bits of cartridge from the library. I measured up roughly how big I needed the stock to allow for trimming and prepared all the stock with the guillotine.

Pink Cartridge & Gold Metallic Ink

I was really happy with how this combination turned out. The vibrancy of the pink creates a great contrast with the metallic ink. The combination of colours really makes the design pop off the page. I love how the metalic ink shimmers in different lights. I found that the metallic inks were allot more opaque and sat on the stock really well. There wasn't much of the ink absorbed into the stock which makes the text allot clearer.

Blue GFSmith & White Ink

I like the blue stock however the white ink didn't work well at all, most of the colour was absorbed into the paper leaving a fairly transparent image on the stock which was a bit of a shame. It definitley didn't have the same affect as the metallic inks. I wasn't massively impressed with this combination.

Black Cartridge & Gold Metallic Ink

This combination was one of my favorites, there is something about black on gold that works really well. It has a beautiful contrast and really pops off the page. The shimmering of gold ink works even better against a dark stock making the text as clear as day. If I were to do this differently I would of tried thicker black stock ideally as this would look more professional and be a bit more sturdy than flimsy cartridge.

Blue GFSmith & Gold Metallic Ink

I liked this combination, however the paper seemed to slightly discolour the gold when mixed creating a fairly coppery orange, which is quite nice, however I don't think the colours compliment each other that well. It was interesting to see how the stock can change the colour of the ink but I wasn't overly impressed with the outcome on the whole.

Turquoise Cartridge & Silver Metallic Ink

This was another of my favorite combinations and reminded me of fish for some reason, kind of shiny and scaley like a fish. Once again I found that the metallic inks sat on the stock allot better than the others creating much clearer bold text which is the main focus of the design. Once again this would of been nicer on some thicker stock, but still using the same colour.

Purple GFSmith & Gold Metallic Ink

This combination had to be my favorite, it looks luxurious smart and the contrast of the colours works really well. It reminds me of cadbury slightly which I like. The stock is also really thick which means that the print will be more durable and won't bend or change with the application of ink which is great. Unfortunately I didn't have loads of this stock so I only managed to get around 4 or 5 decent prints on this paper which is a shame as it definitely worked the best in comparison the other prints.

Green GFSmith & Silver Metallic Ink

The green and silver combo also worked really well, I think this is mainly down to how opaque the metallic inks are when applied to the paper. It definitly makes the text stand out and pop more off the page. The stock is also of a good quality which helps.

Blue GFSmith & Silver Metallic Ink

Once again the metallic ink worked great on the GFSmith stock, this piece is also one of my favorites, the colours contrast really well and the phrases are easy to read and bold.

I tried other combinations as you can see above but they all had a similar outcome so I haven't photographed every one. I found that the white ink was probably the worst one to use and all the vibrancy was lost, I also found that the ink got pretty mucky and ended up quite grey by the end of printing with it.

This week has been really helpful and enjoyable as well. I found I lost myself in the print room not stopping for food and drink. This sounds pretty bad, but I felt so involved with the work that I didn't think about anything else apart from my type. It was almost like a puzzle, you are constantly searching and looking for letters and then trying to piece them together like a typographic jigsaw puzzle. I found that there were many problems that cropped up allong the way but I managed to tackle them as they came along. One of the main problems was making sure I had the right leading and also making sure I wasn't using letters upside down etc. By the end of the week I felt quite comfortable searching for type and setting it in the chase, there were many little things which made the process much easier. I am looking forward to experimenting more with letterpress when I have time.

Letterpress Manifesto Brief - Day 3

 New Composition

On the 3rd day I went about resetting my type in a way which looks more visually exciting whilst still being legible and readable. I first of all started by getting rid of Times and Caslon from the mix and started to have a think about what type to use for the other phrases. I wanted to have an even feel to the text so tried to split the faces up so that it differed from phrase to phrase. I also found that some of the points were too long and ruined the composition of the design. With this in mind I had to reword my phrases and switch around the fonts in order to make it look right. This was pretty confusing and I found I had to switch the phrases round quite allot until I found a combination that worked well together. I also didn't realize until after I had printed my first copy that in fact there were a few b's that should be d's and a few other small mistakes like this. Although it was pretty annoying it didnt take a massive amount of time to correct my errors.

Changes

Here you can see the changes I made to my manifesto in order to create a piece of type which works well together. I changed the order of the manifesto as it doesn't really matter as long as the message is clear and readable. I found it was quite an interesting task trying to figure out a new structure for my text. It was almost like a puzzle, it took a good bit of time to come up with something I was happy with. Towards the end of the day I had finally managed to set my type and print off a few versions. I still was not happy with the outcome though as it looked unfinished. After looking at my print for a while I decided that a border would make the design look more settled and would be the finishing touch needed to make the print look complete. I spent a good hour sifting through the draws to try and find some ornaments to decorate my design with. I managed to find a set of different bits I could use and decided to use a combination of 2 of the ornaments to create my border.

 The Border

 The border was a pain in the arse if im going to be honest, it took around 4 hours in total to set as once I had distruptyed the chase many bits of the leading became loose and fell out. I also had to try and work out how I could make an even border to fit around the edge of the type. I decided to lay the chase on a cutting mat and use the measurements as best as I could to evenly spread the ornaments out, however this was a really hard and fiddly task to get my head around. It took hours of experimenting and swapping around until I had finally got something I was happy with.

After days in the print room I had finally finished setting my type leaving a few minutes to run a print off, I inked up my chase with the roller and prepared the stock and stuck it in the vice. The moment of truth was finally here, I took the chase out of the press and was really happy with the result.

 The border definitly finished the piece off, it looked even and interesting. The type has a big impact and worked allot better with smaller spaces between each phrase. I decided to clear all the equipment away at this point and call it a day, leaving a full day for tomorow to print as many off as I could.

Letterpress Manifesto Brief - Day 3

Letterpress Manifesto Brief - Day 2 / Night Time

Composition Experiments

After printing my test piece I had a sit down at home and spent hours fiddling and messing around with the type to try and come up with a more interesting composition for my manifesto. The print I had produced over the past 2 days was pretty boring and standard. It looked pretty messy and didn't really work well together. I was pretty gutted at how it had turned out, but this was just the starting point. I also realized that the numbers were not really needed in the design and made it worse if anything. I started off by scanning in my design, then printing it out and cutting it down into the various components in an attempt to create something a bit more interesting to look at.

Cut out Experiments

I wasn't really happy with any of the layouts I had produced. They were a bit more creative and different but they didn't read very well and looked pretty tacky. I decided the best option would be to try have a fiddle on the computer to see whether or not I could come up with some different compositions.

Digital Experiments

I came up with a few different variations on the computer which worked slightly better. A few of the designs referenced a coat of arms which I thought was quite appropriate as they usually represent what the 'person' stands for so I thought this could work well. However the whole point of a manifesto is that it is meant to be read. So having a design which is hard to read kind of defeats the point. So I went back to the drawing board.

I finally decided that I should keep it simple but not justified to the left like my first print as it lacked some creativity. After playing about with the text I produced this composition which was quite square in shape which I liked. It worked well with the phrases and also worked well as an image too. This was not my final design as I still needed to eliminate 2 of the typefaces and get rid of the numbers, but this was a start.

Letterpress Manifesto Brief - Day 1 & 2

Making Sense of the Type

After my Manifesto presentation I decided I wanted to create a printed version of some description. At first I was going to come up with an illustrative poster which I could screen print as I was keen to get back in the print room and off the computer. After some thinking I decided it would probably be more benficial for me to try and experiment with the lead type and create a letter pressed manifesto. After spending a week at Vernon street creating letter pressed woodblock posters I had got the feel for the process and settled on this method. I headed to the print room to find that none of the staff were actually trained on the machine and few of the staff knew how to set type. I didn't let this get to me and I decided I would just try and do it by myself. I had a look through the cases to see what type I had to work with. I found allot of the type was either too big or too small for the size I was wanting to print. There was also only A4 chases available which limited how big I could produce my poster.

Chosen Type Faces....To Begin with

I started off by choosing several typefaces that I thought might work together nicely and that are off a similar weighting. The type needs to work together and compliment each other in order to work.

Times Bold 36 pt 

Caslon Italic 48 pt

Times 36 pt

Chisel 48 pt

Clarendon Bold 30 pt 

Leading

Setting the Type

It took me around a day to figure out where each letter was in the draws, as there wasn't a map available for reference. This was a massive pain in the arse, and made the task so much more confusing and slow. It wasn't until I went for an interview the week after I had finished my printing that I found out there was a  a mapped out set place for all the letter forms. However the lack of map meant that now I pretty much know where everything needs to go in the draws. It took me around 2 days to set this in the chase. A few hours of my time was probably spent trying to find leading for the spacing between words. This was a hard task as the leading for each typeface was quite sparse I had to half the weighting and use double the leading instead in many cases. For example there was no 48pt Caslon leading for spacing so had to use 2 x 24pt to make up for the lost height.

Printing

After finally finishing setting my type me and the technicians tried to set up the Vandercook but with no luck. We managed to set the chase in the bed but when it came to actually inking up the rollers and printing they decided it wasn't the best idea. This was pretty annoying as I had spent 2 solid days setting the type.

This was a massive set back which was out of my hands. There seems to be only one member of staff within Leeds College of Art who actually knows how to use the machinery and he doesn't even work at the Blenheim Site which is pretty annoying as it makes you wonder why they even have the equipment available to students.

I decided Instead of trying to use the Vandercook I would just experiment using the vice presses to print with. The problem with this process is that its fiddly slow and is more prone to errors. There is also the fact that the pressure will not always be even. It is pretty much a bodge job in comparison to the automated even printing capabilities that the Vandercook offers. It is much slower as tyou have to manually ink the chase up after every print, carefully placing the paper on top without it moving and smudging. This means that every print is not central and will need trimming down. Once you have placed the paper on the chase you then have to carefully place some padding on top, however this seems to move about quite a bit which ruined many prints. After tightening the press you then have to do everything again but backwards, which creates more problems. I found that on many occasions I would ruin my print trying to remove the padding or from pulling the stock off the chase. There were loads of problems that cropped up from printing this way which is a shame, however the process has been really helpful in many ways and has taught me the importance of being gentle and taking your time when it comes to printing. Half the battle is in the preperation. Its a really time consuming and intricate process which needs time and care.

First Print

The other issue with letterpress is that you will never know what its going to look like properly until its printed, as the lead type in the chase looks beautiful regardless, it is not until it is printed that you see how well it works/doesn't work. After printing my first copy of my manifesto I wasn't that happy with it. I was unhappy with the Caslon type face as I don't think it worked with the other faces, I think the fact its an italic font makes it look out of place in comparison to the others. I also think I have used too many typefaces and I need to cut down in order to give it some consistency. However all my time wasn't wasted as this the first print has helped me to whittle down what is wrong with the design. I really like the Chisel font and also Clarendon Bold, they are quite unique faces and definitely have some character. I also like Times Bold, there were more faces available but non of them were big enough, or in some cases far too big. I also spotted that some of the letters were actually upside down. For example the 'n' on 6. Fear not, test the waters is actually a 'u' upside down! I found this test print was allot more useful than I had originally thought.

SECRET 7" - Age of Reson - Extended Brief

Final Screen Prints - 2 Colour + Spot Varnish

As with the other secret 7' submission I wanted to push the brief further and experiment some more in the print room. This was mainly because I would like to keep pushing my printing skills and improve my practice whilst I have access to all the equipment at Uni. I found this print was much easier to register than the 'Get it on' album cover as there was only 2 colour layers involved with this design. The print came out much smoother in this run and there was only a few prints with streaks on the black layer. Ideally it could of done with a bit more ink in the mixture or possible doing a 2 pulls on the black layer. 

I decided to use the Snowden paper to print my designs on as the stock was a decent thickness and took the ink very well. I was considering using the Somerset paper however that would of taken on far too much ink and allot of the vibrancy would have been lost. I am happy with the registration on the majority of these prints and am also pleased with the spot varnish. I definitely think that this print run went allot more smoothly than the T-Rex designs. Overall I am happy with the outcome of my prints, I think I will now try and digitally print both album covers out and create some real album sleeves.

Lino Prints - 2 Colour

 

As an extra task I decided to experiment with lino printing, after seeing other students in the print room creating lino designs I was intrigued to give it ago my self. I noticed that the inks they were using were oil based and created a much more rich shiny image that gave off a really vibrant finish. With this in mind I went and booked myself a lazer slot, and tool my file down to the workshop. I loaded my document onto the computer and then rasterized the image to burn the negative space on each layer. Originally I was going to cut right through the design and try experimenting with the different pieces however the technician thought that it would be too fiddly so I stuck to 2 separate layers.

Unfortunatley I spotted a problem after I had watched it on the lazer cutter for over an hour,... I had forgotten to reverse the image so that it was back to front. This meant that the type on the TV would be back wards and so would the symbols. I decided that instead I would just cut the screen out of the TV and just leave a blank space as the message was still clear with the imagery, and the symbols didnt matter too much as they were still recognizable when back to front. This made the image abit more obstract but still has the desired effect. One other error that came about was that the negative space had not burnt down far enough so inky marks kept being transferred onto the parts of the lino that were not supposed to be printed. However I really like the effect this has given, it has essentially given the image a more 3D quality highlighting the edges of the flames and also accidentally creating a white noise like pattern on the TV screen which works equally as well as the type.

Printing has a massive learning curve, the more you do the more you understand, you will always make mistakes, but once you have made them once they are hard to forget. Its not as simple as just pressing the delete button like on the Mac, printing is all about the preparation. It is important to make sure everything is ready to go, the inks need to be at the right consistency, the stock needs to be evenly cut and the process needs to be smooth and even in order to get the desired effect. I had loads of fun doing this lino print, and I am really happy with the finished product, the oil based inks make the image pop off the page allot more than the water based inks.