OUGD301 Self Evaluation

Final Design Boards

Photographing Products

Francesca and I took out lights and set up our own photography studio today to take pictures of the products I have produced for each of my briefs in order for these to then be put onto my design boards.

Final Crit

All in all, my crit feedback was very positive. There were a few changes suggested but they will enhance the presentation of my work, so I am going to ensure that I make these changes.

This crit was also a good opportunity to see everyone elses work and boards, so I can use inspiration from these to improve my own work.

Inpress Event at Dock Street Market

Unfortunately I was ill and could not attend the opening event on the Friday. Nevertheless, we had the boys of 'Form & Writing' and 'James Murphey Illustration' as guest designers, so they we able to help out with the others and get the event up and ready. We also had the Crash Blossoms playing live. It was a successful night and I am told we had a lot of interest.

inpress:: stock difference

I managed to get hold of the 2 pieces of the stock we flood printed our colours onto for the front of our business cards, I was going to print our collateral onto this stock, however, it feels far too weighty to do this. So, I have compared the stock colours to the colours I am already using and am going to use what I have already done but propose they would be the correct colour as they are currently only slightly darker.

inpress:: at Dock Street Arts

As our event was coming to an end at Dock Street Market, another event was beginning in the same place which we had been invited to have our work at too. Dock Street Arts is an exhibition and sale of an array of arts, which we are now involved in.

 
Our work will be in the exhibiton for the next month as the work changes on a monthly basis.

Pressing the postcards

Seen as my crit was cancelled I decided to use my time wisely and took yet another trip down to the Vernon print rooms to press my postcard in the hydraulic press.

I got Nial to show me how to use the press, which was fairly easy, although it used a lot of arm strength! I put a piece of greyboard on top of the plate and postcard in an attempt to give it a deeper impression. This worked, so I then used a thicker piece of greyboard to give an even deeper impression. All in all, the plate worked very well in embossing the paper, I think this was also due to me choosing a low gsm paper stock. The laid concorde paper also looked very effective against the embossing.

I really like the fact that I have been able to use a specialist print process which makes sense to my work and highlights what the type is saying.

Fourth crit boards

These are my crit boards to show the proposed digital designs I have been working on so that my peers can see this as well as the physical products I have brought in to the crit.

inpress:: postcard artwork to print

I have printed the artwork for the postcards, ready to press on the hydraulic press tomorrow. I decided to use the lined paper stock as I thought that with it being only 80gsm it will deboss better than the thicker card stock I could use. Also, from previously printing onto these stocks, I found that the ink sat better on this paper whereas the ink tended to be drawn into the card stock.

Making the reindeer cards

This evening, I printed the reindeer card and painted in watercolour each of the noses. The cards are now ready to sell at the inpress event on Friday.

Feedback I have had from peers has been very positive towards these, so hopefully these sell! 

Making the copper plates

Today I went down to Vernon street to pick up my copper plates, they were soaking in a solution which I needed to leave them in until the blue film was removed.

I then washed of the solution in the sink, blotted my plates dry and I was ready to go!

I took the copper plates home so that I could line up the type in the correct place and mark it with masking tape so that I could position every other postcard in the same position when I came to press them all.

Vernon:: Copper plate

I went down to Vernon street today to make a copper plate for my Hope branding and the type postcard for inpress. It was a fairly lengthy process but Neil helped me through it and I learnt a lot (could definitely go down and do it again).

This was one of the last stages, where the copper plate had been exposed to my image with UV lights; I had to use a sponge to remove the excess and reveal the copper plate.

I have left it with him to soak in a solution overnight so it will be ready for me to pick up tomorrow.

Screenprinting tshirts

Today I have stripped my screen and got it ready for printing. I mainly wanted to test the colours and see how each of them worked on the different fabrics, so I printed on a light (white), medium (light grey) and dark (dark grey) tshirts to see how the ink sat.

I chose to use one of my simple vector image designs on the t-shirts so that I could experiment with colour, without it distracting from the image itself. So I created a gradient from pink to blue. The ink didn't sit very well on the dark grey fabric but worked considerably well on the light grey and white fabrics. So, I am going to buy some more lighter coloured tees.

IP:: Meeting with Manager at Dock Street Market

Today we went down to Dock Street Market to have a quick meeting with Jake, the manager. We just clarified with him the space we are going to have on Friday night and what furniture we require. We have also discussed where the band will be positioned (on a stage in the main area of the bar). We have also ensured that our work will be stored securely overnight. Excellent.

Pantone matching

I have pantone matched the coloured papers that I had screen printed recently for my projects: the packaging and swing ticket stock for my tee project and the inpress business cards. As they would be sent to the printers as a spot colour, I need to be able to specify the spot colour. Some of the colours didn't match a pantone colour exact so I had a few coloure to choose from, but I manage to match them as close as possible:

Open publication - Free publishing - More matching

Urban Tease:

-Pantone Solid Matte: 178M, 1785 M, 1777M
-Coated Euro: 1777c, 1787c
-Solid Uncoated: 1787U
-Solid Coated: 177c, 178c

Inpress Business card:

-Solid matte: 285m (Blue)
-Solid matte: 375M (Green)
-Solid matte: 1787M (Red)

inpress:: postcard prep

I have prepared my artwork ready to make a copper plate from tomorrow. As it is the second line of type that I want to make the copper plate from, I deleted all the rest of the type and then made it 100% black.

Tshirt:: Prep

I have been trying to sort out which design to print for my tshirt design tomorrow. I have 2 screens ready so just need to go and expose my screen then print. I am going to try and fit the 'urbantease' inner label on one of them, as this will allow me to then print in the same colour (proposed spot colour) that I have printed the packaging in and swing ticket in, so that it will all work together as a collection.

The majority of my design are not to be simply printed onto the tshirts but instead combing different fabrics or using stitch.

Although I proposed this design would be stitched, I am thinking that I may print this tee design. I want to try and print the front and the back so that they meet, but I am afraid this may be a little tricky, so we shall see. But the point is, I don't want to just print a design straight onto the center of a tshirt; I want it to have something more about it. I like that this design is focused around the side of the shirt rather than being central.

I played around with how else this could work just down the front side of the tee, but essentially I think it is going to work better split into two and working around the side.

I have prepared my artwork on two A3 boards ready to print off in the mac suites. I may have to change the size slightly once they are printed on paper, but we shall see.

inpress:: Christmas Card

I have been designing a reindeer Christmas card to sell as the inpress event (and if not, give to my friends and family!) as drawing is one aspect I love and miss, I have decided to incorporate this into my design and not just design digitally. I have however, drawn a picture (freehand) from a reindeer image I sourced, and then scanned it back in. I am then going to print this image onto cards and paint on (in watercolour) a red nose... for Rudolf!

I firstly tried this on plain card, keeping it minimal at first but then adding more colour. I wasn't too keen on this though, as I didn't have the time to make it as good as I wanted it to. So instead, I tried printing it onto a piece of the brown card I purchased (intially to lasercut from for my RSA brief). I thought this with a watercolour red could look minimal but effective ...and I think it does. Each reindeer will be individual as I am hand painting the noses on, which should make the card seem crafted and more speical.

I am going to print a greeting inside the card to make it look more professional.

inpress print collateral print outs

After deciding yesterday that I didn't want to use colour on the front of the letterhead and compliment slip, I have had some feedback from fellow peers and now thought otherwise. I think the colour on the front helps bring through the block colour on the reverse and having the type in the box follows on from the theme of the website; it also allows the type written in the body of the letter to become a focal point and separated from out contact information. As we do not have an address, I have simply used a telephone number, our email and twitter address (not traditional, but this is all we currently have).

The letterhead would be used if we are going to write letters to potential clients or studios with regards to any matter we had. The compliment slips would be used to write a note of regards to anyone who purchases products from our online shop and will be sent in with the package.

In order to ensure the print collateral will look as I want it to when it is printed out, I printed out mock up versions. This allowed me to consider the point size of the type, the positioning of the elements on the page, colour and stock choices, amongst other factors.

From discussing with fellow peers, it was decided that I should use the last design of these where the box continues off the page; this makes the page appear bigger and, again, ties in with our proposed website design.