A new arrival in our lives inspired me to create a limited-edition, piece of print to gift to relatives and a few close friends. Working with 16 Tonne Risograph printer, in Bristol, I designed a set of illustrations across two, double-sided A3 sheets. The project was printed in two colours: red and blue with a predominant usage of overlay - i.e. when two colours overlay, they form another colour. 16 Tonne helped me choice a paper stock - we went with a 200gsm, off-white paper, which is thin enough to see through, when held up to the light (helpful when lining up crop marks), yet opaque under normal viewing conditions. After printing, the sheets were folded vertically, stapled and trimmed.
Close-up of our family crests, a lion and wolf…
I really liked the long, wobbly tongue depiction that a lot of crest imagery tends to have, so carried that through to these interpretations.
I particularly love the interaction between the solid ink and how it sits on the paper - in this case picking up on the grain and creating a lovely soft feel with some of the paper grain coming through. Also, very pleased with the overlay here and the subtle shadow on the pencil.
Music is a big part of our lives and we had a lot of fun selecting songs that related to ‘Sam’ in the run up to his birth. The lyrics for this song by Sam Cooke really stuck with us.
"You need old Wham Bam Sam, the drumming king to lead you there"
(lyrics from 'Wham Bam Sam' / Hank Williams Jr)
The riso-printer needs a black and white flattened file of the single colour. It’s useful to include the crop marks, so the printer can line up the colours and especially so, when there is a print on the reverse of the paper sheet.
I drew a lot out in my sketchbook, which were scanned and worked up into final artwork. Other times, I reference a photo. Artwork was created on two layers - one for each colour with the top layer on the ‘multiply’ transparency setting to replicate how it would appear when riso-printed.
A fictional boxing match…
…between Sam Berger and Sam Mossberg
Walmart’s founder…
…turned out this inspirational quote for life
Another musical nod…
…this time to that famous scene from the movie Casablanca
At 16 Tonne / Bristol
16 Tonne risograph printer
Folded, stapled and ready to be trimmed. Notice the crop marks still present
Printed sheets fresh out of the risograph printer at 16 Tonne / Bristol
Test sheet misprinted overlays make for interesting results!
Trimmed off cuts