OUGD405 - Studio Brief 4 - Screen printing beer mats

Here is the logo I created for the 'Three Tuns Brewery'. I had only planned on doing the beer mats in one solid colour so I simplified the logo to all black and white. As I was to be printing on mount board that had one white side and one black side, I wanted to use white ink for the black side. However, after talking to the teachers and assistants as vernon street, they suggested no too as white on black material appears washed out and faded. Therefore the beer mats I made were only one sided with the logo. 

The Process:

Choosing a screen and then washing with the power hose.

Printing the negative and letting the screen dry.

Coating the screen with emulsion, waiting for the emulsion to dry.

Exposing the negative onto the screen on top of the Light box.

Washing the screen with just the hose and no power, rubbing gently with a sponge. The design is left within the emulsion. Then waiting for it to dry.

After drying, getting the screen and aligning it to the press. Mixing the ink and bond together. (40% - 60% mix) Creating the register marks so the beermats could be aligned correctly for print.

Flooding the screen with the ink.

Using the squeegee with the right amount of pressure.

Cleaning the screen and the rest of the equipment used after screen printing.

It's a very lengthy process. But it's totally worth it. 

I got very impatient having to wait around for the screen to dry, emulsion to dry etc. For thing to get prepared. But once the printing takes place, it all seems so worth it. There is an immense amount of satisfaction once printing your designs. I felt proud after screen printing my beer mat designs.

My design printed onto mount board.

I wasn't sure on how I was going to get rounded edges on my beer mats, but thankfully at Vernon Street, there was a machine that was able to cut the edges of paper and materials into round corners. This piece of equipment it often use to round of the edges paper within small booklets and notepads. 

 My set of rounded beer mats!

I'm very happy that I managed to produce these set of mats by hand instead of sending them off to printed. I felt a great sense of achievement from doing this, whereas with an online order, it's only a few clicks, which is almost lazy. I'm also grateful to have learned the screen printing process. It has gotten me to grips with how the method and routine works. Future work to be screen printed shall also take less time.