We have to screen print a deck of cards as our final project for screen printing. Originally I was thinking tarot cards, and Jeremy suggested a typography theme. I played with the idea for awhile, but I kept hitting my head against the wall. I normally avoid working with my assignments head on; I try to find a weird, “out of the box” sort of approach, which turns out gimmicky at times, I think. For example, I had to execute a letter-sized magazine ad for intro vcd, and I ended up with an odd fold-out and a die-cut for jetBlue. My cd project had transparent overlays.

So I’m doing a straight up poker deck, 52 cards + 2 jokers. Hands are the theme, though I’m currently deciding between making the shapes of the actual numbers or just holding up fingers for cards 1-10. I’m leaning towards the former since that looks more interesting, but it’s kind of a pain to figure out how to position and contort my hands. Also, the photography’s all Photo Booth—it’s really hard to take pictures of my own hands!

Right now I’m kinda hanging on how to do the spot colors on the backs of the cards. I’ll probably ask my instructor tomorrow on how to break it up. I think it’ll look really cool if I can pull it off.

(My sister also calls this my “gang sign” project.)

I really love reappropriation art. It’s exciting as a means of interacting with art, to take your interpretation of a piece and create a physical manifestation of it in a sense. There’s also taking an image and placing it in a completely different context than its original. I know that some artists can feel violated by seeing their work used in a way they didn’t intend, but once you put your art out there, interpretation is fair game. It seems silly to me to try to control that.

Meanwhile, here are more recent screen printing adventures of my own:

PRINTED IN GOLD.

Dialogues: Intersecting Space & Meaning

These artists create multisensory experiences for the viewer that examine ideas ranging from social concerns to material, color and memory. Viewers participate in the conceptual dialogue of each installation through the innovative use of art object and space within the gallery setting.

February 20 – March 2nd, 4-6PM weekdays, 4-7PM weekends
Reception on Thursday, February 26, 6-8PM

Glynis, XYZ’s current graphic designer, started with an idea for the flyer and I developed it further. If you’re not seeing this all over campus, especially the art department, then we’re doing something wrong. If you’re in the New River Valley area, please come out to see the show! Installation art is always exciting.

Here’s the updated version of the cover I did a couple weeks ago. It ended up not being chosen for the cover, but oh well. (Though it’s not like I would’ve ever seen it in print anyway, as none of the previous classes have been able to get their books printed …)

1) Japanese Art textbook – I’m taking two art history courses this semester: “Art of China and Japan” and a special topics class on Dionysos. I’ve always preferred learning about Greek art more than any culture’s, and the nuances of Dionysos as a god and character are exciting. Meanwhile, I’m still trying to remember all the periods of Chinese history … the names are harder for me to remember.

2) Easisolv – This is to wash out the screens in my screen printing class. I had a really bad experience with Pocono Screen, and thus am still waiting for my screens to come in … I wouldn’t recommend them. They apparently have a recurring issue with sending shipments to the billing address instead of the shopping, and I got serious attitude from customer support. I have a much higher tolerance for mistakes when the company attempts to be apologetic or sincere.

3) Girls Aloud “Out of Control” – A late late birthday gift from my sister. I love Girls Aloud, but that stretched type on the packaging makes me so sad.

By the way, here are my first attempts at screen printing with an old 110 mesh screen (with some ink already dried in it …)

I had used a stencil with the screen before, but this time I actually used the photo emulsion and such. Anyway, the test print on the left turned out much better than the shirt print. I tried on the shirt twice, and there’s some offset from multiple attempts. Fabric is HARD.

It’s definitely just a start, and I need some feedback! Please click on the thumbnail to get the full effect.

Okay, I also don’t know nearly enough designers, so I’m gonna try to keep track of the names I hear and look ‘em up.

Jay Ryan – A Chicago-based designer who specializes in screen printed posters for bands.

My Morning Jacket / Minneapolis – six screens used

I’m trying to break down why he needed six screens for this. Two for the gradient background, 1 for the black, 1 for the grey, and isn’t the yellow the color of the french cover he’s printing on? Either way, I dig the deco imagery, and I guess I never really thought about trying to print gradients …

Hero Design Studio – Another music-focused design studio, though based in Buffalo, NY. 

A poster for Queens of the Stone Age

I got this for Frazier for Christmas since QotSA’s one of his favorite bands, but also because that’s a fucking hot ‘Q’. I’m also really impressed by the detail of the imagery!

Jason Munn – Okay, yes, music, again. San Francisco-based, and awesome to the point of having a permanent spot at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Um, a poster for Beck

Munn’s compositions definitely skew towards minimal, but good Lord, that’s a 4-screen print and those colors are overlaid GORGEOUSLY.

If you know any prominent designers who specialize in screen printing, lemme know, especially if they don’t do band posters. I wanna see more uses of the technique. (If you say Warhol, you are not being clever.)

We had to do an editorial illustration for one of Virginia Tech Research Magazine’s articles, and I chose to cover a piece on “volunteer tourism,” where people do charity work for fun … as in vacations and such.

I was really interested in the other-ing aspect, as well as a part of the article that observed that some tourists are insistent on meeting the people they helped out of a wanting to be thanked. People mean well, though sometimes we can be oblivious to our own motivations.

I wanted to go for a retro 50s vibe. It started out along the lines of atomic age advertising, but I ended up leaning towards Mary Blair’s style, mainly because I had a lot of fun mimicking it.

I sat down around 8:30PM to at least apply the new portfolio’s layout to the wordpress blog, which I finished right before midnight … and then obsessed over comments for the three hours following. 

So! Here we are. I have the old content from last year exported and saved, but I really want to start over with this new iteration of the blog. 

To celebrate, have my deranged Twitter bird. This is the cover of my magazine project for intermediate design class. The concept is a publication focusing on new means of social networking, including sites like Facebook, Myspace, and of course, the cover story Twitter. (Yes, a print piece about the internet. As Sophie pointed out, I could play with the irony of this.)

Bob’s main comment was that I should come up with some kind of new pronunciation for “passwd.” I think what he was getting at is that I could brand my publication to the point where it could become a household name, reaching such heights of fame as to become a new word in the English language a la Shakespeare, who invented words like “epileptic” and “obscene.” (His comparison, not mine.)

“Passwood?” “Passwad?” “Passwud?” We literally spent half of my critique time discussing this.