OUGD406 STUDIO BRIEF 2 - FINAL DESIGNS AND SCREEN PRINTS

These are my final designs for this brief, both the dust jacket for the book, and the A4 print as well, both digitally produced. I chose the fluorescent green and grey colour palette over my previous colour combinations as I thought this was the most unisex combination, and where both the colours compliment one another, so the pattern is understated against the bold banner, as this allows the title to stand out more.

Digital designs

This is my final sleeve design, which I had to change the size of slightly from my previous designs, as it has to fit the actual size of the book, which meant that I had to change the size of the type on the spine to fit the new size, and also the size of the title text on the front cover, as well as the size of the green band at the top as well, so that it fit the size of the new title size better. Changing the band and the size of the actual sleeve meant I also had to change the size of the circle on the back as well, so that it fit the size on the back cover page, and was also central to the pattern and block green band as well.

This is the final design for the screen print, exactly the same as the dust jacket front cover, only the sizes changed slightly to fit the A4 size.

The printing process

My two pots of paint, produced using 1/3 acrylic paint, and 2/3 thinner, which makes the paint slightly translucent, as there is more of it so it lasts longer, but also so that it dries slower so the paint doesn't dry on the screen as easily.

This is my screen with both my negatives exposed onto it ready for printing.

I had to parcel tape up the edges of  my screen, the areas that were yellow, to stop paint from getting onto them as the paint goes through the yellow parts of the screen but not the brown.

Close up of my pattern exposed on the screen.

The block banner exposed on the screen.

First I had to print onto the plastic sheet covering part of the printing table, so that I could line up my paper accurately so I printed onto the paper in the right place.

I printed on the screen by spreading a thick layer of paint at the bottom of the print, using a squeegee the right width for my design, an inch or two wider ton each side. I lifted the screen up slightly and then pushed the paint and squeegee from the bottom upwards to flood the screen with paint. This paint is what will print onto the paper underneath, not the paint I will push through next. I then placed the screen down fully on the table, and brought the squeegee through the paint from the top to the bottom using two hands on each end, pushing firmly and evenly, to create an even print.

This is my initial pattern print. As you can see I have marked where the paper will go using masking tape so that the pattern will print in the same place on the paper each time.

I taped off the part of the screen which I didn't want to print, to ensure that no paint spread onto it. I did this for both the first and second stage of printing.

Again I printed in the same method as I did for the pattern print, only this time I using the print on the plastic to line up my paper instead of the masking tape guides, as I thought this would produce more accurately lined up prints.

A print example, after the two colours have been printed.

Final Screen Prints
This was the first time I had screen printed before, and I found it both challenging and rewarding, as the outcomes were a lot cleaner and more precise than I had thought they would come out, however it was hard to get a clean upper band of green, due to the large block of colour, mistakes were a lot more obvious. I had varying results in my prints, and experimented with a few different kinds of stocks to see which worked best against the colours of my print, although I think I ended up with a few really effective prints.
I think that the grey was a little darker than on the digital designs, and perhaps would have made the green looker a little darker if it was a lighter shade. The green also came out a lot more fluorescent that I had originally wanted as well, and I had to pull two coats to get a less vivid shade of green I was after, as otherwise it was a lot lighter than I wanted it to be, and made the title hard to read too. I think I could have avoided this by adding a little bit of dark green paint to the mixture, to make it less luminescent, and darker as well so that the title can be easily read.
These are some of my photographs of the final prints.

As you can see the green is a lot more fluorescent than my original digital designs, a lot more luminescent. When you look at the title as well, it doesn't look the same colour as the paper, but has a slight pink tint to it, which I think is caused by the severe luminescent colour of the green contrasting against the white colour of the paper.

Some of the ink hasn't reached the complete edge of the screen in the green here.

The ink not reaching the edge of the design is also shown in the top right corner of this print as well.

On this print there is a severe gradient in the paint, which is due to how I pushed the paint through the screen in the flooding process, I must have pushed more into the right side of the screen for it to appear darker.

This gradient is also shown in the bottom green strip as well, making it hard to read the authors names.

Again the paint hasn't spread fully to the edges of my design, and here the paint also appears speckled as well.

Here there is a gradient but also the second layer has appeared patchy as well, which is a problem with how I had flooded the screen the second time. The band also overlaps with the pattern a few millimetres as well which is a problem with me aligning the paper with the print on the plastic.

This is a lot lighter print than some of my others because I had only pulled one layer of paint through the screen.

As you can see some of the paint hasn't come through the screen on this print, mostly around the edges of the green banner.

On this print I think my screen itself moved slightly, making my green colour print further up than it was supposed to.

This is a much closer shot of the overlapping of the colours, making the grey a different shade, and the authors name a lot harder to read, being half on the grey and half on the white paper.

Here you can see how patchy the second layer of paint is against the first layer, another fault in me flooding the screen.

To try and clear the screen I printed just on plain paper, so that my next prints were a lot more even.

I don't think this worked as you can see on this print the top right corner has a patchy corner, it isn't sleek and accurately printed.

Another print where this is the case, with the paint not reaching the corner, also in the right of the bottom green strip, missing off the latter part of the authors name.

This print is a lot more even, as the paint reaches the whole of the design.

Although the paint reaches all of the design, it appears speckled, varying in colour strength and shade.

I had thought the problem with my flooding the screen was fixed, however as you can see the water line down the second half of the green print.

This fault in printing has spread to the bottom green strip as well.

The first coat missed off part of the authors name, and the second coat missed off even more.

I quite like the watercolour effect this screen print has achieved, which isn't suitable for my book cover, however the effect is quite nice and peaceful, very creative.

I went back to printing on plain paper to clear the screen again, and you can see the paint blotted at the corners on the ride hand side, and the increased strength of colour as well.

This print is a lot better, however you can still see where the paint isn't spread evenly in the corners.

In the end I found out that the problem that was causing the uneven print was because I was flooding the screen with only one hand on the squeegee, and the other holding the frame in place, because my arms were a little short. This of course put uneven pressure on the squeegee, and spread the paint unevenly through the screen too. To solve this I had to balance the frame on my tummy and then put two hands on the squeegee, one on either end like when I actually print, so that the paint is flooded evenly through the screen. This solved my problem as you can see some of my prints have turned out very evenly.

Comments:
I showed my final prints to a few of my tutors and peers, and they all thought they looked really effective, but one ting my tutor pointed out, was that the green made the title appear slightly pink, perhaps because of the luminescent colour against the stock colour. On the print where I had a massive almost water mark looking part to the green band that ran down the middle of the print, my tutor said that he actually quite liked this effect, even though it wasn't intentional, it looked quite interesting, which I agree, the line is interesting and adds a texture to my prints.