Different Kinds of Printing

After I went on a field trip to Sanita/Indevco/Unipac – a series of companies that produce different types of paper and soft tissues, print on them (and on other external products), and make their packaging (cardboard – with printing) – I thought about the different types of printing that I like and came up with the conclusion that i mostly like printing for posters and for fine arts. These are both achieved in many ways:

Posters could be either silk screen printed or printed in a press. Of course these include different subcategories of printing techniques that vary with the style needed. Press Printing is available everywhere in lebanon. The main problem is in silk printing because it is only found in some universities, and most graduate designers cannot have access to them. But this is not a major problem since there is one alternative, which is getting the material and making it at home… the only difference would be that instead of using a UV machine, one can use sunlight. It works exactly the same way and you will end up with the same result. In poster design though, unlike fine arts, the designer makes 1 silk screen printed piece and then scans it in, and can print an infinite number of posters from that at the print press.

Printing for Fine Arts is a very vague topic. Silk screen printing is one of the different techniques that could be used. Other techniques could purely hand made and not mass produced since it is a fine art piece.

Silk Screen Printing

Last week we had a silk screen printing workshop by Rena Karanouh and it was the first time I see a work being silk screen printed. Personally I loved the technique and thought it would be one that I’m going to use a lot in my life. I really can’t say which one of the different styles I liked most because, to be honest, I liked all of them. I really appreciated the ones where an artist would use the four colors (CMYK) in some areas in halftone to make it look close to photography, and solid colors in others.
But what i like better (something that suits my style), is the one where the outline is offset-printed on top of the filling colors. I think it gives the piece a twist and makes it look very graphical.

After this workshop, I am quite sure that I will be using silk screen printing in many of my works, especially poster designs, knowing that i like using solid colors and vector graphics in most of my work…

 There are some examples I found on the web:

What I think makes this a great piece is the combination of halftone photographic printing with an illustrative solid print…

The two posters above show that nothing is really impossible in silk screen printing, no matter how complex it is.

This last poster is my favorite. I really like everything about it from colors, to type, to the abstraction at the bottom created by the offset of the black on white…

Some of my work

Until now, i still do not have great pieces for one reason: every time i work on a project and finish it i feel that i can do better. and on the next project, i do better, but still feel the same… an on…
but here are three of my favorites till now.

               

myself as a designer

If i was to describe myself as a designer, i would say these things:
I basically like design that is very clean and doesn’t have photoshop filters…
I prefer illustrator work to photoshop pieces.
I like typography
I like illustration (character development).
I prefer concept to aesthetics.

BitaSoft

BitaSoft, an animation, programming and game development company came to LAU a couple of weeks ago and gave us a lecture… What they were talking about was really interesting especially the software they were launching, that rendered graphics “as you go”. I also liked the fact that with the advancement of technology today, one cannot tell if an image is real or virtual…

But sadly, i visited their website and hardly think that these people (BitaSoft) are part of this software development…

Letterforms

Im my opinion, each letterform has a characteristic or connotation. My favorite letterform in the english language is lowercase “g”. I feel that it has many human characteristics (at least that’s the way i see it) and has great potential graphically. It is one of the complex letters but still looks nice and clean, has a lot of balance…

Three other letters that i like are “f” , “j” and “k”. i like the “f” because of its long classy look. it looks very similar to a young woman’s body, or rather a model’s body, is very feminine and also has balance.
The “j” looks also good because of it’s simplicity. It is an “i” with a twist that gives it life.
Finally comes the “k”. For me, the “k” is one of the nicest letterforms because it has the “l” integrated in it which gives it a nice long structure. and this structure is broken by the two arms that give the “k” amazing balance, and makes it look unique as a letterform.

 

Icons, Pictograms, Symbols…

Icons, signs, symbols, pictograms, phonograms… are all found in our day-to-day life. here are some examples:

Pictograms:

This is the example of a pictogram that was used in the beijing 2008 olympic games. I think it is very clear and effective and reflects the culture in the way lines that have been used in the making of these pictograms relate to their type and the way they write their language. It basically has the same aesthetics.

Ideograms:

Symbols:

Innovative ways of designing with materials

Materials have a lot of potential in design. I think it all depends on the client’s willingness to accept new ideas and to pay for their production.

One good example of innovative ways of using materials is the use of bubble wraps in a calendar that would be mostly for kids:

Another use of bubble wrap which i think is cool is the package designed by “build” (Michael C. Place) for a book. I think it is cool because of the texture it gives and the feeling it gives to the package. second, it gives the feeling that you should handle the package with care. finally it would make you wonder of what’s in the package if u don’t pick it up and/or read about it.

Another material that i found was used in a cool way is plexiglass which was used in the making of a business card and i personally found it very beautiful and effective.

Materials i’d like to use

design is not only printed on paper or other materials that we use commonly. There are plenty of other materials that could be used. Two of the materials that i would love to have the opportunity to work with are plexiglass and bubble wraps. but i would not work with them in the conventional way, but rather try to use it in a new way. for example, maybe having a wall of bubble wraps… here are some pictures of how plexiglass is being used now. one slight difference is that i would try to find a way to use these materials graphically instead of using them in product and interior design. for example, plexiglass, i think, would work perfectly fine in a set of high-class design-related event tickets…

     

Environmentally friendly package

I think this is a student project. it is a sustainable package design that is entirely made out of paper. I’m not sure if the ink is soy-based but it seems to be rather good in that it the bulb doesnt break