Screen Printing

I Spent today in the print room with Suzan our technician to learn how to screen print properly. I was very excited to get my image on screen and experiment with different fabrics and techniques like devore, foil and flock, aqua span and simply pigment colour design through screen.

First of all we printed off my image onto acetate, we made sure each line was thick enough otherwise it wouldn't come through properly onto the screen.

We then turned on the machine as it takes 20minutes to warm up to expose our screens.

We then went to the printing room where Suzan explained all the different typed of meshes for the screens, for example one may have 42 threads per inch and others 61, or 71 threads per inch. This is so when you are doing specific techniques you can produce the right screen for that technique. For example the 42 tread screen would be used for thicker heavier dyes or substances, in my case texiflock and aqua span which are thick heavy glues and the less threads there are in the screen allows for the glue to pass through easily where a 71 thread screen would be more suitable for pigment and devore as these are alot thinner substances so the more tighter threads prevents it from spreading.

Suzan also showed us how to correctly mix pigment colours and gave us a sheet with the correct recipes on to follow and showed us an example of how to weigh the Magnaprint FF binder with the inks.

We then went into the dark room where the screens get coated with light sensitive emulsion called Dirasol, when there dry the screen goes into a Nat Graph Self Contained Exposure Unit along with the acetate underneath. 

once the machine is on you clamp down the lid and put a vacuum on to hold the screen in place. The acetate is in position under the screen face up so the design isn't backwards. It then gets exposed to the UV light for 20 light units which is about 1.5 seconds a light unit. Once the timer stops you remove your screen and take it to the washing area keeping it in controlled lighting all the time so it doesnt expose anything on the emulsion.

Then we washed the screen using a hose and sponge, because when the black design on the acetate blocks the light from exposing through to the screen, the emulsion stays soft and doesn't dry so when you wash it the emulsion comes away from the screen leaving your design exposed onto the screen as you can see on the image below :)

Tomorrow i will be experimenting with screen printing on different types of fabrics with different techniques which i am very excited about :) Hopefully also have my digital printed fabrics printed so i can see how the finishes are on those and maybe devore into a couple. I also want to produce another screen which is all textured moth wings and pattern so this could be a background before i print the bugs and insects on top. Hopefully i will have a very productive day!! I shall update my blog tomorrow to let you know how i get on :) 

Work From Yesterday

My Productive day wasn't so productive, i managed to finish one worksheet but the time and effort that went into that worksheet i think was well worth it. I Love the colourful insects and the different lines and textures of the wings that i had drew and i will be producing a few more to go along with these as a collection. I think they will look great on printed fabrics for fashion with the vibrant colour and texture. I took some close up shots so you can see the detail and texture. Hope you like them :)

Visual Research

From all my research i have collected i started to draw more unusual organic forms and flowers on these few sheets i have used a mixture of water colour pencils and gouache paint. i really love experimenting with scale and colour and i think the colours in these images all work well as a collection for a colour palette. 

I started with drawing unusual organic flowers and forms and also insects. I had decided to make it different and develop it further to draw bugs and flowers mixed together its quiet difficult to match a bug to a flower but i will be experimenting more with this to produce a collection of different bug flowers.

Today i have to day off work which is very unusual :) so i plan to spend it well and spend the whole day drawing :) Here is a sneak preview of what i'm working on today...

I LOVE the colours in this moth i have drawn, i love how bright it is and how i have created different textures with different marks hopefully by the end of the day i will have produced a few more :) if my day goes as productive as planned haha! fingers crossed.

Work Placement

After applying for work placement at Graham and Brown i have just received news that they would be happy for me to go on a two week work placement in the design studio along with Becky so we can car share!! Brilliant News!!!!! So Excited :)

Yet Another Study Visit..

This Morning i have been to citrus rain, a digital print company for fabric and textile based products. When i got there i was really amazed at the size of the unit they worked in on an industrial business park, it was tiny! I thought from hearing about them and reading on their website they would be quite a big company but they are actually relatively small but can produce quick turn arounds even on big orders with the maximum staff being 10 people - so you can imagine how small it was. As we have used them in the past for one of our modules i expected a big huge factory that produces all these different products but it was totally opposite.

We first of all spoke to the general manager who shown us fabric samples, and talked about how their company works, and explained alot about digital printing and why it isn't around in the area any more. Most of it is produced in Turkey and China, however they do not have the quick turn around like they do for shipping reasons etc, so citrus rain when working with the fashion industry are really helpful as they have a quick turn around for hundreds of meters of fabric, with shops like Primark creating designs and finished garments in just a couple of weeks, these facilities of on the door fabric printing is really ideal for the quick production.

In their unit they have five printers and two heat presses. They produce their fabrics on synthetic fabrics using transfer print, this enables them to print high quality designs onto fabric and then using the heat press to fix the dye. As a synthetic fabric reaches high temperatures the fibres expand and open in order for the inks to sink right in to give a better quality print and prevents it from ware and tear They do this through a heat press and also a heat roller for larger fabric lengths, because it is being pressed this stops the inks from moving anywhere else and keeps the line sharp. We were able to use a print printed onto transfer paper and then send it through the heat roller press to see and get a better understanding of how it works which was great. They use this technique as they find it suitable and easy for them and their customers as it gives the fastest turn around.

Then he explained to us about printing onto silk, and the extra care and processes it needs and how its more difficult than printing onto synthetics as the fabric needs to be chemically coated before the inks can be printed onto the fabric. It then also needs steaming and washing before it is ready to use to fix and set the dyes. Citrus rain do provide this service but as their space was so small they out source their coated fabrics, print them and then send them away to be washed and made ready for the customer.

We then spoke to the man in charge of the machines, who separates designs and gets them ready to print, weather it be putting into repeat, or reproducing someones art work or fabric, he showed us his software he uses and how he sends them to print. He was also working on the pad and pen matts to draw from which i have seen a lot throughout my study visits so it might me worth wile me investing in one myself :) although they are very expensive!

Our visit was very short but it was great to see how they worked and produce their designs and fabrics, after visiting these huge factories it was totally different to see a small little unit which could still produce mass amounts of fabrics for customers. It was great to see the difference and see how they both work :)

Study Visit

Today me and becky went to two different companies that produced their own wallpapers, firstly we visited The Surface Print Company which was very similar to Anstey. They produced wallpapers in a number of different ways like Anstey for clients such as Romo, Nina Campbell, Cole and Sons and many more. It was another great experience to see how they worked and compare their factory and way of working to Anstey because it was very similar, The Surface Print Company did not produce digital wallpaper prints however they produced different wallpapers with techniques on which Anstey never, for example, flocking and grit. After our tour of the factory and learning bait about the history of the company and how it is a family business we then were given samples of each wallpaper techniques and also samples of the plain wallpapers before they are printed on which was good to see the different textures, surfaces and weights of papers. Then we were shown a number of different pattern books from companies such as Romo, Swarovski, Pip studios and loads more which we had a good browse through to look at pattern placement and also techniques and colours used.

After visiting The Surface Print Company we then visited Graham and Brown which is another wallpaper company. However is was very different from any of the other companies as it had an in house design team which produced all their own collections for Graham and Brown which i thought was excellent as well as having designers and customers wanting their own designs and working with them to provide that service they also have their own collections. Firstly we got taken into a huge design room, it had loads of colourful mood boards, trends, wallpaper examples, lighting products and many more spin off products on show to give inspiration to the designers. We then met a lady called Paula who told us a bit about the company and what she did. She also asked us questions about what we wanted out of the day and what we was looking to find out, and where we came from and what we were studying, she then introduced us to the team in the design studio, some who just work on the computer and some who just work drawing and painting - i thought it was great that they wasn't restricted in what they wanted to do and that they were allowed to design in the way they felt they were best at. It was great to speak to different people and what roles they had or see what they was working on, it helped us gain an understanding of how a design studio works and how you are part of a team but also have individual roles to work on.

We then met Julian who then showed us around the proofing area, this was where they then taken designs and made it achievable to print as wallpaper, they had individuals who would specifically work on separating the art work ready for manufacture. Julian showed us around where they separate the design and create acetate sheets for each individual part of the design or each individual colour. He explained about creating the screens which was good to know and also about different mesh's i didn't know that you could get different size mesh to create a different texture or look to a design. They have from 15 to 180 holes per square cm to allow different amounts of ink through the screen - which was good to learn! We then also got shown where they create their samples on flat bed, Julian did an example of a design being printed to help us understand the process. Each sample they produce is recorded in every detail. The screen is attached securely into place and locked into position so it doesn't move. Then the squeegee was locked into a certain angle and applied with certain pressure which is all measured and recorded so that if the sample is successful they then have all the correct measurements and information to produce it again. He also showed us a flood coater which is a guard for the ink which goes into place just in front of the squeegee, this allows to spread the ink evenly by a 2mm film so it is equal throughout the sample. Then the paper is held down by a vacuum so it doesnt move as the machine prints the design on to it.

He then showed us how it is dried through the oven and mentioned that every machine they had in the proofing room were set to exactly the same in the factory so they get exactly the same outcome when it is produced. Then we got shown the light box where all the wallpaper was tested under different lights, Daylight, Household lights, Retail lighting and also UV lighting, he showed us examples of wallpapers that hadn't been colour mixed correctly and how they both looked different in certain lights because there where non adatives in the inks! All these things you wouldnt even consider knowing in my position to create wallpaper for my degree never mind considering them to develop so it was great to learn and understand this.

Throughout our tour i started to learn and notice that Graham and Brown were very big on quality and producing only the best in the best way which i thought was great! The amount of recording and colour mixing and measurements in place so everything runs smoothly really showed in every stage of the tour. The things that where recorded where, paper and weight of paper, weight of ink, screen mesh size, pressure of squeegee and angle, machine processes and temperatures, design structure, colours mixed for the inks, and I'm sure probably a few more that i missed! They even measure the time that the light bulbs have been switched on for in the light box so when they reach a certain amount of hours they are both changed in the proofing room and in the factory in order to achieve the best quality - to me that is great dedication and proof to show how much they put into their wallpapers.

We then got shown the colour mixing room, where there were a great talented team on board in order to achieve the best colours and inks, they used water based dyes and solvent based dyes. Julian told us that Graham and Brown invest a lot of money into colour management and know that it is a vital part of the design process to achieve the right colour. In all factories i have visited i haven't seem this much enthusiasm and work put into or talked about with as much importance as Graham and Brown did. 

We then were taken round a tour of the factory where all the high tech machines produced the designs onto wallpaper in different ways. The machines they use were those very similar to the others which there bound to be, only Graham and brown seem to produce much more wallpaper more quickly than the others, Julian explained and showed us that they had things waiting in line to be used for example one machine had two rollers in, one which was in the process of printing and the other was waiting to print the next design which was going to be printed after. Also rolls of paper at the end waiting to be loaded straight after the paper runs out so it can just carry on with the next design. This enables them not to turn of the machine and wash inks and screens etc before they produce the next batch which i hadnt seen in any other factory.

We then got shown to where the wallpaper is packaged and boxed and loaded into the lorry, it was great to see the start of a design and then the final design and how it goes through sampling and then the whole process of manufacturing to being loaded ready for shipping. As this helped us gain a better understanding of the whole process it goes through. Julian also showed us a room in which a further training took place, he told us that they work in conjunction with UCLAN to run extra courses weather it be at night, on your dinner, or in the day so you can take your career further which i thought was an excellent opportunity for staff in order to develop their knowledge and education.

Julian also showed us to their Gallery, where they also produce wall art, in the area they also have rooms in which they show clients round to see what they like or to feed ideas. Julian also showed us how Graham and Brown help with the marketing side of the business which i though it was great! its one thing if you have a great design or collection but it you don't know how to advertise and market yourself or company it will get you no where. I thought it was great that they also incorporate this in their company as it is a very important part of the process.

It was a great day and i learnt a lot about the company and even more about producing wallpaper - its important to visit different companies and see how different they all are and compare how they work! I really enjoyed this visit and as we also met a student who was on work experience we asked weather it would be possible to do some work experience after we graduate, so hopefully if all goes well we could spend a week or two in the design studio to get to see and understand fully how they work as a team and individuals, it would be really interesting to work to set briefs and trends for different clients in a professional environment which i would love to experience :)

New York Fashion Week

New York Fashion Week

As New York Fashion Week started yesterday i will be keeping up to date with the latest trends and what is happening on the catwalks. As it only started yesterday there isn't loads of info yet but here are a few peeks at what is happening on the catwalk

Leather seems to be a big trend throughout all designers collections on the catwalk - it is going to be big for autumn, plus its even cut out or laser cut which is what i wanted to do in parts of my designs which is great

Also the colour green seems to be recurring throughout a huge range of different designers which is also in my colour pallet that i chosen :)

These knee high gladiator shoes seem to be popping up everywhere too - cant say i'm that keen

And as always, prints are still huge, however it seems that designers are using different techniques on the prints or working into the prints to get a different outcome which looks great.

 

Another trend which is also apparently going to be massive is monochrome.

Whilst researching into New York Fashion Week, i also came across Iris Van Herpen who i researched into last year, her cut work and sculpture of her designs are just outstanding! i would love to be able to produce something like this but wouldn't even know where to start haha! Her collection also looks inspired from organic forms and insect skins which i though related well to my project, Here is a few images of her latest collection.

Work So Far...

As i have been on a few study visits and not got fully back into my routine of visual referencing and drawing i really need to start to produce some of my own drawings and designs, i have only three more study visits to do, aswell as blogging and researching and my other module its very hard to fit in time to do my work which is driving me mad :) aswell as having a demanding job and a boyfriend im finding it very hard at the moment.. but NO excuses... i need to crack on!! Its what i enjoy doing most but there always seems to be a reason stopping me these past few weeks.. anyway.. here is what i have achieved so far..

My initial ideas where to develop more of my last semester work with a twist to take my work further so these are a few of my organic forms and bug flowers

I wanted to experiment with fabric techniques using flock and devore on my printed fabrics and also laser cutting into fabrics and most particularly leather as i think it will develop my designs further and give it a more contemporary style so these are the start of my insects which will be put onto screen and also drawn around in illustrator so i can then take through to laser cutting. I did some in fine detail and others just silhouettes to give me different outcomes.

This page i am developing my organic forms and exotic flowers and showing where my inspiration and ideas have come from by an illustrator called Ernst Heackle.

As i have decided my main focus is on printed textiles i wanted to create a few backgrounds and textures for my fabric using details of insects skin and wings. This was just a quick experiment to see what marks and textures i can get with different media and techniques. I also used foil in the top right hand corner which gives a nice shiny effect.

Here i am developing more bugs and insect shapes to work with for my final designs, i have started to just look at parts of bugs/insects bodies as to give me different patterns and shapes to take away the feeling that it may be a bug or insect. I started here by just two heads but i will develop this further drawing and looking at different body parts.

I know where i am going with my ideas and what i want to produce i just need to start cracking on :)

Wow!

Wow is all i can say about my visit to Anstey Wallpaper Company, The lady we met up with called Sabrina couldn't of been more helpful on our visit, even giving us Tea and Biscuits! 

We started off learning about the company and what Sabrina does in her job role, Anstey as a company do not design their own wallpapers, they do produce some designs of their own but only for sampling and examples of techniques. They are known to be one of the most versatile, professional and capable wall covering printers in the world also having the broadest machine profile in Europe. Their capabilities include combinations of surface, surflex, rotary screen, flexographic, gravure, long table, flat-screen, vacuum screen and hand block-printing on to paper, non-woven, vinyl and specialist substrates, most of which we had no idea what they where. Anstey are more manufacturing based than designing and producing their own collection, they work with other companies and designers all over the world, even down to helping graduates produce their wallpaper which i think is great that they don't limit themselves or find themselves too good for people starting out. Sabrina told us that they will help and work with whoever wants to make their artwork into wallpaper, even down to having your own personal helper in the design team to help make decisions and samples of colour and different techniques that can be used on your wallpaper. They offer advise on new machinery processes and techniques they could apply that they might never of heard of.

We then got shown around their design studio and sampling room in which all the colour matches/colour ways and sampling techniques are carried out to show smaller samples to the client. It was filled with examples of wallpaper, also a huge wall full of fabrics, surface pattern, colour swatches and texture which i thought was great!

We then got shown around where they produced their digital designs on a Mimaki printer, this printer printed designs of wallpaper out at a huge 54 inches wide which makes it easier to hang and also doesn't have any joins through the design. These are printed on a non woven paper which allows you to just paste the wall and not the back of the paper. The inks they use are placed on quite thick in order for the design to look like it has been hand printed on screen, so in order to dry this they use a UV light which allows them to print a bit quicker. We also got shown their new Mimaki printer which was still in its delivery box, they are in the middle of developing their digital printing process and with this new Mimaki it will allow them to print 4 rolls of wallpaper at a time on the one machine.

Then we got taken to the sample room and got shown samples going through the machine using engraved steel rollers, the engraved rollers are engraved with a diamond and allows to print very fine detail onto the wallpaper. We also got shown a different type of roller for a different printing technique called Flexographic printing, this is a rubber roller which allows to print a soft stamp effect onto wallpaper.

                                       

The next part of the factory we visited was the hand printing techniques part of the factory, We then got shown where they block print, which is the traditional way to creating wallpaper, and now the most expensive because its so labour intensive and beautifully handcrafted, Anstey have original William Morris blocks and now own them to produce and sell as original William morris pieces. It would take the craftsman one week to produce ten rolls, where the company as a whole produce 30,000 rolls a week. It is not very often they get orders for hand block printed wallpaper as it is so expensive and used mainly in stately homes or palaces.

Then we where shown what they call the long tables, as they are 30meters long. At the end they have a huge carriage which holds 3x2meter screens. The screen moves along the paper which will be placed on the table and it prints a screen, misses one and then prints again, by the time it has got to the end it then goes back to fill in the gaps its missed in order to give it time to dry so the screen doesn't leave marks on the paper. It produces 9 rolls as it produces three long and three wide. They also have a similar machine which does the same thing but the paper is attached to a conveyor belt and the paper moves instead of the screen.

 Also we got shown the room in which they colour mix the inks for the printers, they produce a barrel of one colour at a time and have different binders to use for example, pearl, glitter, white, opaque, metallic and translucent.

We then got taken into the noisy factory part. Anstey own machines to produce their wallpaper that are over 100years old, and seen as the first invention to manufacturing wallpaper. The ink is poured into a tray which then gets printed onto a felt blanket, the blanket then transfers it to a roller which then prints it onto the paper. It moves quickly through the machine and prints each part of the design on quite fast before it is even dry which is called wet on wet, it gives a squelshed effect which gives it a totally different look to any other techniques. If the wallpaper has a background colour the ink is sprayed on really quick and thick so it gives the wallpaper a texture. These inks they use on this machine are water based.

 The next machine we got shown used Flexographic printing with the rubber rollers, this machine uses a solvent based ink which is more environmentally friendly. Anstey recycle the fumes from the solvents which then goes on to heat the building. This makes it more environmentally friendly as once they have finished with water based inks they then go on to landfill and cannot be recycled.

We then got shown one of their newest machines which is their quickest, the machine costs £300 an hour to run which is a lot! It uses solvent inks that dry instantly, it then has eight different cylinders which all have individual colours to each part of the design, they are produced in layers so the first cylinder will be the background colour, then the second will be the next part of the design with the most colour, so when you get to the end its the smallest part of the design going on last. Watching it produce the wallpaper was so quick it flew through the machine creating meters and meters of the finished design in minuets. Unfortunately i couldn't get an image of this machine as the wallpaper it was producing was for a customer and had copy wright protecting their design, and obviously as it was only in production no one had seen this so they don't want their design out their before it has even been produced! 

A Weeks worth of wallpaper printing - 30,000 rolls

The last machine to produce wallpaper we saw was mainly for techniques once the wallpaper had been produced, the techniques this machine created was beading over the wallpaper to give it a shiny glittery texture, they do this by screen printing glue onto the wallpaper, then scattering beads across, the excess beads then get recycled and the paper goes through an oven to dry. The other process the machine did was embossing, the paper that goes through to emboss is vinyl paper, it gets heated in an oven to soften the PVC and then huge steel rollers (Costing £10,000 for one roller) then rolls over the paper to emboss the pattern which then gets cooled so the pattern stays on the paper. Anstey do have their own general linear steel rollers with patterns in which they allow customers to use as it is quite  pricey to have a steel roller produced for one range of wallpaper. But if a customer did pay for their own roller to be made it is then exclusive to them so no one else can use it and they can as much as they like.

We then got shown where the wallpaper goes after it is produced in huge rolls, it then gets unwind, checked for any faults or splodges of ink by someone actually sat their watching rolls and rolls speed past them, personally i didnt think they could see that fast but Sabrina explained that if they see a fault they press a button and the machine automatically puts it into a separate trash bin - and the bin was quite full so they must be good at their job!

It then gets cut into 10meter rolls, and finally gets sealed and labelled.

Finally we got taken to a huge warehouse where all the steel rollers where held, and i mean it was huge! there were thousands of rollers kept their for patterns for wallpaper. Sabrina said they keep these rollers for unto 5 years maximum and then the steel gets recycled as a design doesnt get used after five years.

After being shown around their company and getting a great insight into how wallpaper is produced we went back upstairs to their offices where we had tea and biscuits :) also a lovely chat about how Sabrina started, what she did at University and how she progressed to where she was today! She answered all of our questions and gave us some great books and examples of wallpaper to take home! Overall as you can see we had a great day and learnt a lot about how wallpaper is produced, different manufacturing processes and different techniques that can be used onto wallpaper. Its a a great way to see how the wallpaper is produced and get a greater understanding of how it works, how customers order and then go through the manufacturing process as it was nothing like i expected :)