In this post, we will be talking about why we decided to screen print this year’s Christmas card. As we said in part one (if you’ve not read that yet head back and give it a read) the Brio studio is based in an old screen printing factory. Back in the day, our now landlord would churn out thousands of prints a day mainly for the fashion market. We however were working on a slightly smaller DIY scale.
Talking of DIY, we hadn’t until now ever screen printed before! It’s always been something we wanted to try but never had the time or confidence to do so. Our plan was fairly straightforward: buy the basics, give it a go, and see what happens. Having carried out a fair amount of research into screen printing we brought some basic items from huntthemoon.co.uk. We can highly recommend these guys, they were very helpful and even offer a service where they expose screens for you (it did come close to this)
We won’t bore you with the details or make this into a step by step guide for screen printing but our process defiantly had its ups and downs. But once you get your technique down you’re away. Although the whole process seemed very daunting at the start with a bit of trial and error we got there.
Our setup was in no way to the standards of professionals but it worked. Our exposure unit is a builders light hung between two chairs, our screen printing table is a large chopping board and our washroom is a sink with a piece of hose. But in all honesty, you don’t need much more to get started.
We have always pined over the G.F.Smiths samples we have in the office but very rarely get the chance to use them in client projects. So now was our chance! We picked out Takeo Tamashiki Shiro 233gsm for the outer card, we felt the pattern worked with the lego theme and Neenah Environment Birch 118gsm for the inners which provides a nice contrast. If you would like to purchase one of our cards please go to the link below.
