dtam

check out this guy [http://www.dtam.co.uk/] really sick. from what i understand i think he's a lecture at huddesfield uni.

flexography web printing

Research for packaging.

Pad printing

again some research for the process of how my chilli glove will be printed.

ballon printing

Thought i'd look at how balloons are printed, this will give me a idea of how my glove will be printed. This is a custom made 1 man screen printing station with a built in air compressor.

commercially produces blister packs

this video shows how blister packs for medicine, tablets etc are made. This information will inform the way my blister would be made if it was produced commercially.

Trip to the printers

Today i went to a printers called KJ print which is based in Crosshills west yorkshire, Its a smallish firm which specializes in offset litho they have 3 machine's, 2 CMYK full colour, 1 with a finishing and one without. They also have a 2 colour machine which is used for spot colours and duotone prints. The machines can produce up to 2,000 prints a hour.

It was interesting to see how the machines looked in real life and i was very fond of the smell of inks.

Most of the runs that they do are between 10,000 and 30,000 so the plates for printing were etched onto polystyrene rather that aluminum plates which are used for high quantity runs.

Another thing that i found interesting was the cutting and folding machine that they had. This folded and cut the prints after they had been printed. It looked very similar to a letter press and after talking to ken about it he told me that a lot of old letter presses can be converted into folding and cutting machines, foil stamping machines and embossing machines.

I liked the idea of this as the big old letter presses look so much more exciting than the new style printing machines. I suppose it's also good to put something back to use rather than it just sitting there gathering dust. The one ken has was converted by company in Bradford.

The machines were down stairs in the 'workshop' area. Up stairs they had a proofing team who set up the artwork and do little bits of design and amendments to artwork if needed. There was also a in house accounts bit, so the whole business was in one building.

Ken also told me about other types of printing which was good to find out, he said that flexography was mostly used for printed labels and that the quality of print was not as good as litho. He also spoke a little about gravure printing which is mostly used for doing high quantity fast runs, so things like newspaper supplements and magazines are often printed this way.

Here's some pictures i took of the machines, i intend to use the information gathered and pictures for my 16 page print production booklet.

Full colour litho machines

This is the machine that makes the styrofoam plates.

Letterpress converted into a folding and cutting machine. ( can do di-cutting with this too.)

Give up art

This design studio is something i just found after looking at a previous post on this blog. They are responsible for the record sleeve design and whole idenity of apple pips a small independent record label.

As you can see on the previous post i noted that i liked the di- cut process that was used on the record sleeve and the stock used. Matt on the out side and dark grey and bright green on the inside and glossy.

I took a look at there website and found that the other stuff they did used various printing methods such a di-cutting and embossing etc. I also found out that the head honcho there went to london school of print, which im sure helps him create these different and tactile designs.

Here's the link for there website and some of my favored work.

{Botiga - the luxury destination club - needed a stunning brochure to communicate with potential new members. Working with their existing brand guidelines we created this compact and covetable brochure. Featuring a blind debossed logo on the 8 page cover; with a singer-sewn, drawn-in text section, and belly wrap. We also provided full copywriting and retouching services.}

Headhunter limited edition vinyl sleeves

tempa the client here decided they were going to press this on to coloured vinyl, to show the colour of the vinyl give up art designed the sleeve so it (again) had a cut out, this way the vinyl colour could be seen and there for you could tell which record it was even though the sleeves are very uniform.

Tropicana rebrand

I saw this video on ad age's video site on you tube and felt it was a good example of packaging design and how the audience reacted to it.

Tropicana have tried to re- brand there original image of a orange and straw, to a glass of orange juice. I felt that the concept behind the actual design was strong but the finished article was not as strong as the previous one. The change to the packaging was quite dramatic and made the brand of juice look quite cheap much like value or economy brands of orange juice. I think if the final design of the packaging was done in a similar way to before and kept more of a premium look it could of worked.

It's a good example of how re-branding a product that already has such a strong identity is a hard task. I shall use this information to inform my design of re-branding Sainsbury's chili packaging. The task is slightly different as i feel that the packaging for chili's in general is quite weak and does not represent the product very well. It has also made me think about how the final design will be per-trade and if such a dramatic change could affect the sale of the product for the worse rather than the better.