Producing Print Based MediaLO1

Your name

To do

• Explain method in own words• When it was invented/by who (if information is available)• How the method works/what do you need to do to use

this method• What does the method look like when used (include

images)• What are the costs involved with using this method• How quickly the process can be done

• Provide images to illustrate discussion• Reference at least one example with a image.

Hand Printing Methods

EtchingEtching was believed to have been invented by Daniel Hopfer around the end of the 15th centaury. Traditionally etching used to use copper plates but now it is usually zinc. These plates are then used to sketch a design and then coated with an acid-resistant substance. This acid resistant substance is called the etching ground, and the design is drawn with a sharp tool onto this. The ground is usually a compound of beeswax, bitumen, and resin. The plate is then exposed to nitric acid, which eats away through the areas of the plate unprotected by the ground (the part you have drawn on) and forms a pattern of recessed lines. Ink is then placed on and the ink is held by the recessed line. The plate is then applied to moist paper and the design transfers to the paper making a finished print.Etching can be very time consuming and you need a steady hand to put the design onto the plate. A printing press may be needed too for the harsh chemicals, always be careful around these chemicals too but modern etching methods have reduced the need for toxic materials being used during the process. It is not used commercially but is still used as an art medium. Etching creates a engraving or intaglio effect. This etched picture to the side is by William Hogarth called The Enraged Musician (1741). It is etched and engraved on paper and is placed in the Tate Modern at the moment. As you can see it is very detailed and to get darker areas more stokes needed to be etched in. This is a very high skill to have and makes art work lookvery intricate and detailed.

Etching

Costs from modelshop.co.uk

Artwork set up (20 mins)- £16.00Computer drawn artwork per hour- £48.00Hand drawn artwork per hour- £48.00A5 phototool (filmwork)- £32.00A4 phototool (filmwork)- £48.00A3 phototool (filmwork)- £72.00Additional exposures- £8.00

5 - 10 thou brassA5-£17.65A4- £33.50A3-£63.50

12 thou brassA4-£19.50A4-£37.00A5-£70.00

Etching by Jacques Bellange“Gardener with basket” (1612)

Looking at costs for etching now a days it is expensive and takes up a lot of time. There are many different ways and outcomes you can choose from now ranging from different prices. (example price below). If you were to do it yourself it would cost you around £100 to £500 to collect all the materials. The outcome would not be as good unless you had a very steady hand, but even the pressure would not be as powerful making the print not come out as good.

LinocutLinoleum, the material used for linocuts, was invented in the 1860s, it wasn't used as a medium for printing until the early 1900s. It was firstly used to make patterns on wallpapers. Artists such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse have made linocuts. Now a days linocuts are popular in teaching school children about the art of printmaking.Linocut is a printing method using a sheet of linoleum, much easier than wood but this can be used. Parts will be chisels or cut away, this will cut away the parts you want to stay white, and leave the parts you want inked, this will create you printing block. A very good advantage of this is that you have a linocut that can reproduce the same image over and over again. This is great for numerous of prints, the only thing that could slow the process down is applying the ink, but other than that once the print is carved out it is a quick process. This usually happens when the print is carved into woodso the print does not get ruined. The texture linocuts come out with are often rough and rustic. They are simple and easy to do ifyou want a simple pattern. Letters have to be carved reverse so they can be printed. But this method is simple and cheap and can be achieved at home or in schools.Linocut can be printed in multiple colours if wanted to. This will take time and care to ensure that the print is lined up correctly, if not you will end up with overlaps or shapes in places you didn’t want them to be.

Linocut

Sybil Andrews (19 April 1898 – 21 December 1992)Sybil Andrews created a consistent body of dynamic linocuts, for over 60 years, that offered a new way of looking at everyday life. In the 1930s She developed a very distinctive style, when in a time that effects the Cubism, Futurism and Vorticism were all influential in British Art.

Comparison

Both linocut and etching needs time to sketch out the pattern needed, they are both very similar in this way but linocut is much more simpler and safer as it doesn’t need to be soaked in acid or use a machine to press the ink into the paper. The linocut print can be used again and again and can also be printed in colour. Etching is more expensive but will give you a better finish altogether. Lots of detail can be seen with etching but with linocut it is usual a block of colour.

Mechanical Methods

LetterpressLetterpress printing is a technique of relief printing using a printing press invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. The process involves using a large plate, usually wood or metal, with back-to-front letters in all different sizes placed onto the plate to make words. Originally it was done by hand but now it is mechanically done by lasers cutting the text into the plate. After the plate is created, ink is added to the plate, the areas with no ink on do not print and act as spacing for the letters. When the ink is placed onto the plate a sheet of paper is placed on top. The letterpress machine uses a rolling wheel to move back-and-forth across the paper, leaving an impression.Before this was invented all books, newspapers etc. were all hand written. With this invention the plates could be repeatedly pressed onto many sheets of paper giving everyone the same text in each book and this helped the levels of literacy improve all across Europe. The first print Gutenberg did was of the bible, so everyone had the same copy of one of the most important books in the UK and because it wasn’t expensive he was able to bring books to common people so everyone could learn how to read and write. Now a days letter press is still used to make large copes of work. It is also used a lot on wedding invitations and small images can also be letter pressed along with the text now making the card look fancy and professional.

Letterpress

RotogravureRotogravure printing starts off with the design being sketched onto the surface of a metal cylinder. this process is a lot like etching. Ink is then places on the cylinder where the design has been etched into. The raised areas are cleaned to make sure there is no ink on them and then the paper is pressed against the ink cylinder and transferred to the paper with pressure. Rotogravure can produce fine, detailed images. It can be costly when using it for short runs, so a larger run would be most cost effective because the cost of setting it up is large. Once the plate have been set up though they are very durable and the quality of each print will not degrade. It can print in colour, this may take time but it is able to do it by using different colour inks.Rotogravure is a very popular printing process because of its ability to print on a wide variety of surfaces e.g. paper and plastic. It is very good for printing labels for things such as plastic bottles and packaging. Lots of manufactures use this method of printing for large amounts of prints because it will be the most cost effective and give the best quality to their product. Huge machinery and harsh chemicals do need to be used in this printing process meaning it is only really able to be used on a commercial scale.

RotogravureProcess Outcome

Comparison

For both procedures, once the plate is set up each of them are effective and can be used again and again. Setting up the plates for both letterpress and rotogravure can take time and this is the most time consuming part for both of them. They both produce good quality products but the rotogravure gives an even better quality product. It also can be used again and again and the quality will not go. Rotogravure is only cost efficient with large orders and has to be done with large machinery in big warehouses, while if you wanted to do your own card invitations you can buy a small print press and do it yourself.

Digital Methods

PhotocopyingPhotocopying was invented in the 1960s to make office and education work simpler. This is how it works…1. Charging: A cylinder drum is electronically charged by a high voltage wire or a charge roller. The drum has a coating of a photoconductive material that becomes conductive when exposed to light.2. Exposure: A bright lamp illuminates the original document, and the white areas of the original document reflect the light onto the surface of the drum. The areas of the drum that are exposed to light become conductive. The areas of the drum that are not exposed to light remain negatively charged. 3. Developing: A toner sticks to the areas that are negatively charged.4. Transfer: The resulting toner image on the surface of the drum is transferred from the drum onto a piece of paper with a higher negative charge than the drum.5. Fusing: The toner is melted and bonded to the paper by heat and pressure rollers.

Photocopying

Now a days photocopiers can print in both black and white and colour. They are able to zoom into specific parts and change the colour of the page and do lots more. They are very good for copying text but sometimes struggle to copy images. Each photocopier is already set up for your benefit so it is very time manageable. Each print is relatively cheap if the machine is already installed and they are good for lots of prints or a short amount too.

Laser PrintingLaser printing is very much like photocopying but it uses a laser beam to charge the specific parts of the cylinder that then allows the powdered toner to stick to the negatively charged sections. And again heat and pressure is then used to stick the ink to the paper. The machines that produce laser prints will usually be small and cheap to run therefore are good to have in an office, but they can sometimes have a problem with printing large areas of the same colour. Although laser printers are faster than ink jet printers and cost less some photo specific printers are better suited to printing photographic reproductions. Depending on what you want to print depends if the laser printer will be better. They can print in colour but are only limited to four colours.

Laser Printing

Comparison

Laser printing is cheaper and good to have in a small office as long as you are not printing large blocks of colour, but photocopying is great for copying pages of text and sometimes small images. This is great for educational purposes. Neither of the printing processes are too expensive once the machines have been installed. Depending on what you need to print/copy will depend on which one will benefit you the most. For example if we say you needed a quick quality copy with a small area of colour I would use the laser printing method.

Print Methods Situations

To Do

• For each of the following scenarios, you need to decide on the best printing method to use.

• You need to explain your choice of method considering technical and aesthetic qualities, cost, speed and the skills and knowledge required.

100 high quality wedding invitations.

• Your client wants very high quality wedding invitation and is prepared for them to cost a lot of money and take time to produce. The invitations will be on high quality paper. The invitations will only have text on them.

Decision and justification

The printing method I would use would be Letterpress. Sometimes it can take time and cost a lot of money if you want fancy writing etc., which I assume this client would want. The letterpress print would leave her with high quality wedding invitations if done right so hiring someone to do this would be a good idea. 100 copies is not too many nor too few and would still give the client the same copy over the 100 invites in a high quality standard.

50 special edition greetings cards.

• Your client, a talented local artist, wants to produce small print runs of greetings cards. They do not want to use electronic printing methods. They need a cheap and simple method of printing so they can produce small runs of different designs but it needs to look arty and handmade when it’s finished.

Decision and justification

For this client I would use Linocut printing. It can be done at home easily and it is very low on cost. The method is very simple but creative and will look arty and handmade once finished. The design can be easily cut out and using ink or paint the design can be printed down. You can re-use the linocuts so they can be placed on the other cards or you can make a different design because the material used is not rare and can be picked up from art shops cheaply.

3000 flyers for coffee shop.

• You client has a one week only special coming up and wants 3000 basic, single colour flyers to promote it. As the flyers will be given out in the street they only need to be cheap, in fact, the cheaper the better. They also need to be produced quickly.

Decision and justification

I would use Photocopying for this client. Photocopying is quick and very cheap if you already have a photocopying machine installed. Photocopying does not have a problem when printing just one block of colour, unlike laser printing. A basic design can easily be copied from the original. The only problem it may have it printing 3000. this is not a large problem, just it may take an hour or so to complete. But you, yourself do not have to do anything, just wait until all the prints have come out and hand them around the streets.

100 copies of the village news letter.

• The parish council want to produce a monthly news letter for the village. It will be a single side of A4. It will mostly contain text but might occasionally have a black and white picture. It will be given away for free so should be cheap. The council would be interested in printing it themselves to save money.

Decision and justification

Photocopying the original print 100 time will save you time and because it will be given out free it will keep the cost as low as possible. Even if you do not have your own photocopier local shop, schools and library's will have one you can use. The black and white small image will be able to be produced, not at the same quality of the original but they will be able to be copied through. This is a quick and cheap method especially if they have their own photocopier, which I expect from a parish council.

10,000 copies of a fashion magazine

• WM Fashion want to produce a new catalogue to send out to its current customers as well as its existing ones. It needs to be high quality colour printing but it needs to have a low per copy cost.

Decision and justification

Here I would use Rotogravure. Although it is not cheap when printing a few copied but with 10,000 copies needing printing it will most likely be cost efficient for them. All of the prints will give the same high quality standard that the first one did to the last print. This print is very good for magazines etc. because it can be printed onto any material and will not effect the quality. This is the only printing method that you can choose what type of paper you want and still get the same quality standard. So this would be the best for this company because it can print lots of copies quickly and efficiently and is cost efficient.