406 Studio Brief 2 - Licence to Print Money, Screen Print First Test

Screen Print First Test 

After receiving crit on the design ideas i had for this brief it was suggested that the method i had picked for production screen print might have issues with the delicate nature of the flower parts of the designs. As these lines are quite thin the feedback suggested that they might not screen print totally or causes clouding in the final print due to their weight. To find a solution to this and to see if it happened i planned for a practise screen print tests once the screens had be exposed, this will give me time to change the design or alter the screen to fix any issues with the design before the final screen print.

These design have be created is 3 block colours as to make the style fit with the method of screen print, screen print means that every colour has to be added separately and shading is hard to create, therefore i keep the design to flat 3 colours which could easily be separated for the different layers of the screen print. The print method that had to be used for this brief was traditional print, this effect the design of the notes as i didn't use relay photography of the flower or detailed imagery as this wouldn't be apply to be seen thought the screen or printed correctly therefore i used a more illustration based design for the flowers.

To see if these design would work when screen printed i created as very simple test using just one shade of red on normal paper not to waste any of the stock i needed for the final outcome. This is very quick first print just to test if the pattern and text can be printed and to see if there is an issues with the design before the final print.    

Print Test

for the first test i will use the first layer of the imagery, this is the most detailed thin-lined part of the design therefore the part that will have the most issues, if this has any issues i will screen print the whole note to see if they apply to the rest of the design.

These are the first print of the first layer, it can be clearly seen that the layers have bleed this was as the screen was not flooded correctly (my fault) therefore the design had too much ink pushed through.To remove the extra ink i had to print the design any times, this slowly improved the quailty of the design and the clarity of the print to produce the print below. 

But as can be seen on these images, there was parts of the detail imagery that had been burn off by the exposure unit due to the thinness/low weight of the design. I thought this would mean i had to do the screen again so before redoing the screen i produced print of the other layer to see if they had any issues.

spotting on the screen 

 
When i created these print i tried to do both sides of the note at once, this was done by going over the design twice but as can be seen from this print it meant that some of the print were printed twice but slightly off so it gave a thickness to the print that wasn't intended, it made the prints look slightly messy therefore for the next print i will do each side of the not separately.

Fixes to screen

After discussing the issues i had with a tutor, the tutor explained that rather than redoing my screen as this would take time i could just paint over the line using emulsion over the parts which has clouded and burnt out the screen. This was done using a very thin layer of emulsion over the areas that had leaked thought and would mean that the screen would be suitable to use for the next final print.