Tugboat Print Shop

(c) Tugboat Printship, used without permission

Every once and a while, we stumble upon a piece of art that infuriates us. Not because it's against our beliefs or is so terrible, but because it's simply amazing. While browsing Printeresting.org, a fantastic blog on printmaking (and a constant source of frustration for Monkey due to it's awesomeness), we stumbled upon Tugboat Printshop. They make Monkey want to punch himself in the face as they're such amazing printmakers.

So the image above is frickin' amazing. The "Bonfire" print is a woodcut print. Yes, that's right, it's a four-color woodcut print. That means the artists (Paul Roden + Valerie Lueth) carved the image into four wood blocks, then printed them over each other to get what is basically a full-color image out of four colors (basically the way CMYK inkjet printers work, but involving a LOT more time, skill, and crazy crazy amounts of dedication and patience).

(c) Tugboat Print Shop. Used without permission.

This other print of theirs is from their "The Deep Blue Sea" series and is on our "we want this" very close to the top. Narwals! Great color schemes! Block printing! Gah, very awesome. In another fit of awesomeness that makes Monkey's blood boil, they even decided to build this awesome little cart when they travel to craft fairs and such to sell their amazing wares.

The Tugboat Print Cart, photos stolen off Tugboat's blog.

Anyway, you should definitely go check them out. Monkey actually gets pretty infuriated by their amazingness, so he has to take a break from looking at their work or he might hurt himself, thus, you know that they're great. Go visit them over at www.tugboatprintshop.com!

Art Of the Day / Coincidence

Monkey has decided to create some sort of art every day, for at LEAST the rest of 2010. He is going to put these pieces of art up on his blog, Politics=Art=Culture, daily for the rest of 2010. He's starting today, so be sure to check it out!

Also, Monkey has to relate two incidents that occurred recently on our trip down to Long Beach/San Diego for our friends' wedding which is strong evidence (yes, we know about the principle of self-proving-ness, or whatever it's called in social psychology) in the idea of the Law of Attraction:

1) Seal is looking for a bagel shop she used to frequent when she lived back in Long Beach. We're driving down the road she thinks it was on, and we turn into a shopping center. I point out a bagel shop, and she knows that it's the wrong one, but she remembers it being in a shopping center with another cafe/bagel place in it. I then see a sign that says "The Bagelry" that's been removed (thus the shop left the plaza). I get on my phone and look up the bagelry, as Eve thinks that might be the place. We find an address, and we drive over.

When we get to our destination, we drive around the lot, and cannot find the listed address. Out of luck, we decide, on a whim, to see what's in the other large shopping center across the street. As we're driving, I sees a place called "Grounds" and I ask her if that's it. She remembers the place being much smaller, but we decide to get out of the car to check the menu anyway - and we've found it!

Grounds actually just expanded a few years back, misleading us as we were looking for a tiny, hole-in-the-wall place, as opposed to the diner-sized restaurant it is now. Eve got her childhood bagel sandwich, and we somehow found the place she was looking for.

The strangest thing is that we would have never found Grounds if we weren't looking for the Bagelry, a place that Eve probably has never eaten at.

2) It turns out that our friend Kevin is also in Long Beach due to a business training event. We try to meet up, but he tells me his phone is dying, so he might not be able to get a hold of us on our one free day down in LB. We decide that Eve and her family might take me to a nearby park for some nice naturetime, and I let Kevin know about our plans to head out over to the park. He says he might not be able to make it, but if he is available, he should call us.

Instead of going to the park, however, because it looks like it's going to rain, we decide to make a trip to the only store that sells Indonesian food in the greater Long Beach area. It's this little tiny shop, which is generally only frequented by people specifically looking for Indonesian food.

As we go in, Eve is showing me around, and I look up to see Kevin walking in. Randomly, he happened to eat lunch nearby (and he charged his phone in the restaurant), and got thirsty so he followed a large group of people into the Indo store, thinking if so many people were going in, they must have some good food/drinks/snacks/whatever.

Of all the places in all of the surrounding Long Beach area, the one guy we're looking for happens to stroll into the one shop we're in thanks to him wanting a soda. Crazy.

Another example that just happened two days ago:
My dad leaves me a message that he found out that my great-grandfather carved a wood block while in the Japanese American internment camps and the relief is now in the Smithsonian museum in Washington, D.C. On a business trip, my dad was going to go to the Smithsonian and see his grandfather's work in person.

Since I missed his call due to work, and I didn't want to chance waking him up (due to the time difference between California and D.C., I wait until the next day thinking "well, he's probably in a meeting, so I'll just leave a message." Imagine my surprise when he picks up WHILE HE IS STANDING IN FRONT OF THE WOOD BLOCK IN THE SMITHSONIAN. He told me he literally had just found the piece, and walked up to it when he got my call. Crazy, right?

Anyway, although this has definitely helped to sell this little Monkey on the Law of Attraction, I'm not going to bank on just positive thinking to help me reach my goals. Hard work, determination, and action are what's going to do the heavy lifting, but if this Law of Attraction stuff helps out, I'm totally down.

AAU Print exchange

Monkey is taking part in the Academy of Art University's 2010 Print Exchange! He is very excited to receive prints from 29 other artists in exchange for his humble 3-color serigraph that he's made. To honor the fact that we completely forgot to do a process post yesterday, Monkey wanted to share a bit about the way that the prints tend to change from concept to actual execution. He's pretty sure that's not what's "supposed" to happen, but he doesn't care and likes that bit of uncertainty anyway. Take it away, Monkey!

So here's the original illustration, done by scanning in the background paper, and using photoshop to do the coloring:
And here's the final print (although the top green tape needs to be trimmed off):
As you can see, a lot can happen between the master sketch to the actual print. One thing I realized is that because I was printing on lokta paper, the pink vegetable dye actually seeped into my white paint, thus the stripes still show through. This gives it a sorta ghostly effect, which at first I wasn't into, but I think it reinforces the concept of being jailed by the expectations and fantasies via pornography (which is why I chose the striped paper in the first place...pink jail bars anyone?).

Also, I added a lot of line work, as when I was making the screens, I ended up wanting to sculpt the form of the woman's face a bit more. The pale blue made a good shadow, but I still wasn't happy, and after sketching out a new version with the linework, I decided it should stay for the actual print.

Finally, when I started printing, I wasn't 100% sure that I knew what I wanted the woman to be thinking. After talking it over with Eve and Carrie-Ann (who also was working on her print exchange print), I decided to go with the "*yawn*" as it makes the print more open-ended than I originally I was thinking of making it, and it also makes it funnier.

I hate it when people say "the new caption was better than what I thought originally" but never tell you what they were thinking, so here are the other possible captions:

-"I'm faking it for all my fans out there"
-"I'm faking it all for you, baby"
-"I wonder what's on tv"
-"to all my fans: I'm actually faking it"

If you disagree and would have rather seen a different caption: too bad!

Process: commecial printing

Hi ho, everyone! Today on our process post, Monkey will do a brief explanation of how you can request printing quotes from commercial printers. When doing invitation design for Little Yeti, Monkey has to check around at some of his favorite printers to see who's going to have what stock, who can print in what timeframe, and who's going to be the most affordable for any particular job. Yay!

The HP Indigo 5000

Hi everyone! So today I'll do a quick overview of what you need to ask about when requesting printing quotes from commercial printers. I've found that generally the more knowledgeable you are about what they (the printers) do, the better relationships (and potentially better rates) a designer/illustrator can build with print shops.

To be perfectly honest, unless you're doing big business (whether a high number of orders of simply incredibly large print runs), you realistically aren't going to be getting huge discounts on print jobs. But, a) it doesn't hurt to ask, and b)knowing what you're talking about will help you be able to accurately compare different printers and their services.

So basic terminology:
Bleed - your printed image has a bleed if anything printed (text, design, background color, whatever) runs to the edge of the card. Instead of slowing everything down and trying to print right to an edge, what printers do is they print larger than the final size, then cut the card down to the final, or trim, size.

4/0, 1/1, etc., etc. Any number over another number (in x/y form) refers to the numbers of colors of ink on the front of the card, then the number of colors on the back of the card. If you wanted a two color image printed on the front of the card, and your logo in black and white on the back, you would request a quote for 2/1.

Full color (like a color photo) will usually be printed in CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and key aka black). So even though your illustration might have yellows and purples and reds and greens, and everything in between, when you request a quote for a single-sided poster, you're asking for a 4/0 print job.

If there's an option for scoring, or the process of making a crease or foldline, you don't need it unless you're doing something with folds.

Perhaps you've heard the words "offset" and "digital" printing thrown around. Offset printing is a printing method that offers more consistent printing, highly accurate color matching, and is great for high volume runs. Digital printing on a commercial scale is really just a really awesome inkjet printer. While it might not sound as awesome, it is usually way more affordable for smaller (~100-200) jobs. The quality of digital printing has also improved dramatically over the past couple of years, and the quality difference that I've personally seen is pretty slim, but to be perfectly honest I don't get a lot of things offset printed besides business cards.

PMS stands for the Pantone Matching System. This is the industry-standard of color and color matching. Pantone produces books of swatches that any commercial printer worth doing business with will have. If you are getting an offset run done of just a few colors, you can specify which PMS colors you want them printed in, and since the presses use pantone colors, you'll get exactly what you're looking for. With digital printing, they'll combine CMYK the best they can to get the color you want, but really bright, saturated colors usually come out more muted than expected.


You'll also want to specify your paper weight (if you have a preference) and/or paper brand, etc. Ask about PCW (or post-consumer recycled waste) if you're interested in finding out how much recycled content is in your paper choices as well.

So, with all that in mind, the quote I requested for some wedding invitations I recently designed went something along these lines:

Hello! I would like a quote for 100 5"x7" invitations printed 4/0 with a full bleed on 130 lb. Mohawk Options iTone stock without envelopes. Additionally, I also need 100 4"x6" RSVP postcards printed 4/4 full bleed on the same stock without envelopes. Also, what size bleed do you need? Thanks a lot!

I asked for a specific stock because a)I sent this to a printer I've worked with before, b)I wanted a 100% PCW paper and Mohawk Options is one of the few papers I know about that has pure white, heavy cardstock that's 100% PCW, and c)I know they print on HP Indigo printers, and the iTone stock is designed specifically for the Indigo.

Anyhoo, I know that's probably a lot of information, and it's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of getting things printed (I didn't even mention screenprinting, letterpress, or engraving), but hopefully that'll get you on your way to learning more about paper, and printing. If you have any questions about commercial printing, please feel free to ask and I'll do my best to help you out!

PS - Happy Birthday Monkey's Dad!

Overworking

Hi all, sorry for the late post...Monkey has been fighting the flu, and Seal has been taking care of him, so the idea of sustainability has definitely come to mind.

Both being workaholics (Monkey by far being the worst), M+S need to constantly remind themselves that the world doesn't end if you have to call in sick to work, or if you only can finish 50% of a project. Yes, there are consequences (you miss a day of pay, you get a lowered grade, etc.) but if you constantly push yourself too hard, too fast, too long, you'll eventually burn out and then you'll be out of it for days.

Monkey has been unable to really do anything for the past three days now, which is not the best timing since he's trying to prepare some new prints for the Book Arts Jam (where he'll be exhibiting at the Academy of Art table) due to his illness. After trying to work his dayjob while sick, he ended up going home early one day, then he slept in the stockroom for an hour the next day, and finally he decided that he couldn't come in.

Life goes on, people may be inconvenienced, but the longer you are sick, the longer the minor inconvenience goes on. It's best just to take a full day off or two, rest (don't do other stuff!) and recover.

This is not to say that there aren't time when going all out 200% isn't necessary, but that shouldn't be the way of life. Monkey thinks you should definitely push your limits as necessary and as much as you can, but know your limits so you just don't push too far. Be sustainable!

Saturday fun+ Etsy wishlist

This Saturday Monkey + Seal had the pleasure of heading out to SPACE gallery on Polk to check out a gallery event put on by SIR, a cutting-edge Japanese-living-in-SF show. If anything, you need to check out their website to hear some awesome music that plays when you load their site. We were super lucky that Seal got handed a flyer by Lavit Sea, who was on hand to display a painting and do some on-the-spot watercolor portraits. Also, one of Monkey's friends AKANE was there with some cool abstract pieces. The drinks were also tasty (although not as strong as Monkey might have liked), and Monkey + Seal had a great time overall.


Earlier in the day, Monkey got the chance to make a quick trip out to the Center for the Book's Roadworks, where Megan from Aviary Press was one of the featured artists. She's starting a new line of letterpressed cards based on strange sea creatures like this Southern Bobtail Squid. Awesome stuff! Monkey also got to run into friends Dutch Door and New Lights! Yay!


Additionally, Monkey was browsing Etsy and found this little gem (shown above) in one of the treasuries. ATHD, the creator of the piece, also has some amazing (and expensive) other pieces of jewelry. If Monkey + Seal were into jewelry (we're sorta minimalist on the jewelry), and had the cash, we'd totally be down with some of her stuff.

Last but not least, Monkey will be working in a collaboration with another designer to do a new screen-printed poster based on typography. We're thinking it'll be one color, edition of 50, perhaps with some color variants thrown in for good measure. More details when we're closer to printing!