OUGD 504 - Studio Brief 1

In this session, we are going to discuss print formats and print finishes, as these are the things that we need to be researching for our first brief, Design For Print.

There are many types of print formats and finishes, each having its own advantages and disadvantages. Some of these are:

• UV Coating

This can be applied to a variety of surfaces, such as: glass, plastic, paper and wood. When you have coated paper, you can tell it is coated through its physical appearance. It is glossy and, like glass, when the ink is printed onto it it sits on top of the paper. Unlike coated paper, uncoated paper is has a matte finish and similar to a sponge, absorbs the ink into the paper.

• Die Cutting

This process is used to generate large amounts of a particular shape from a chosen material.

• Emboss/'Deboss'.
• Laminating

There are three different types of lamination, which are: inline, offline and sheet to sheet.

• Duplex

This is double sided printing and is available on most standard printers.

• Foiling

TASK: With a focus on stock, find as many variants as possible for each of the following areas of design:

• Branding and Identity
• Packaging and Promotion
• Publishing and Editorial
• Information and Way-finding

Collect physical examples of print process and evaluate their successes and weaknesses.

We were then allowed to continue working on our Design For Print projects, in which I had become slightly stuck. Although I have just had a group critique, I am still stuck on the audience and content for my book. These are some thought that I have had:

• Audience - Print enthusiasts, perhaps with little knowledge of print. My book would be a print manual that helped inform this audience and aid them in becoming more effective printers.

However, when I think about this audience I start to have doubts as to whether they would be the best target audience for what I am proposing to make. As my book will be a novelty item, something appreciated most by those who understand print, I think that I would need to be aiming my book at these people. So:

• Revised audience - Print enthusiasts that already have some understanding of print and how it works. They would appreciate the way in which the book has been made and think of it as a good example of the creative possibilities within print.

But then if I am aiming my book at this more knowledgable audience, surely I wouldn't need to have a print manual telling them how to print; this being something they would already know and not want to read the same information.

• Content? - It wouldn't need to be very informative due to my revised audience, so could I therefore keep my content more abstract and based around the idea of space and exploration?

If I was to keep my content more abstract, I would then not be successfully answering the brief, as it clearly states that it should be 'an info-pack of things to know, consider or remember in order to produce successful design for print'. I then felt that if I could figure out what the point of my book is, maybe this would help inform the content that would be appropriate?

• What is the point? - My book would be showing off what you can do with print, whilst visually demonstrating the idea of print being about exploration and discovery.

As I felt that I was going around in circles and not really getting anywhere, I decided to have a quick discussion with a tutor in order to try and get to grips with this now so that I could push on with my brief.

I explained my situation and the problems that I was facing, before trying to explain exactly who my audience is. I would consider myself to be a bit of a print enthusiast, especially since the start of this brief, yet I wouldn't say that I was well knowledged within print. A point that was brought up was that people who only have a basic understanding of print, although they understand the concept of the processes, don't have the correct terminology and vocabulary to go and research it themselves. I really liked the idea of creating a form of a 'print dictionary' that gave people some information and the starting points for further research.

• Audience - I am now designing for people who have an understanding of print, but are looking for something new and more interesting to research and explore. I am aiming my book at people who are fed up with what they're doing and want to broaden their horizons through print. These people would still therefore be print enthusiasts and would still appreciate the way in which the idea of print has been used creatively. I am essentially giving these people the vocabulary to enable them to go away and research things for themselves.