by Martina Paukova

INTRODUCTION

The brief seemed straightforward and exciting: Ditto Press, a print/publishing company based in London was looking for a new publication that would show off the capabilities of their Riso printer in an innovative and interesting way. The final product had to reflect their aesthetic and make full use of their machines potential.

So basically, they were looking to produce a small publication that addresses a range of issues:- The way the ink sits on different papers- Legibility with different fonts- Overlapping different colours- Different photographic rasterisation effects- Gradient effects- Anything else you can think of

The idea was that the final product would carry a selection of test prints designed by a range of students. Each student was required to submit a novel idea for binding the publication also they were/are extremely particular about the standard and quality of anything they publish so we had to pay attention to detail, be original and really investigate the print process. From each student they expected a simple and clear solution with a twist.

And yes, Ditto Press prints with a two-colour Riso machine and stocks 12 colours.

Ditto Press studio.

2.RESEARCH

How well has research been carried out and applied to the project aims?

At first I decided to research Ditto as a creative entity. As they made it quite clear in brief, that the final outcome from student should reflect their aesthetic and that they are fairly particular about standard and quality of everything they produce, I looked deeply into their client list, their website and blog. What struck me was that everything they do seems to carry a very particular aesthetic thread, stuff being very illustrative, cool, trendy, urban, fashionably tacky.

Ditto produced graphics.

Second, I looked into Riso printing itself. Apparently a Risograph printer is an exciting piece of duplication technology. First, a thermographic master for each colour in the artwork is created, which is then wrapped around a drum. Ink is forced through the voids in the master. The paper runs flat through the machine while the drum rotates at high speed to print each image on the paper. This means that vast amount of high quality prints can be produced quickly and inexpensively.

Risograph machine in its glory.

Apparently using the Riso seems to be the new West, with its rising popularity. Most commonly it is used for single-colour, low-cost, high-volume print jobs, such as fliers and hand-bills, the Risograph is bit of a hybrid, a mechanised silkscreen process combined with spot colour off-set; unlike a photocopier, it uses ‘real’ ink and therefore doesn’t utilize heat to ‘fix’ the image.

Also, it seems to lend itself exceptionally well to illustration, working hand in hand with flat colours and patterned details. Illustration be it then!

More risograph produced graphics:

Selection of riso-printed illustrations found Online.

2.ANALYSIS

What level of analysis of research materials and standard of ideas generation?

So yes, after looking at Ditto aesthetics the obvious choice seemed to be an illustration. And rightly so as well executed illustration can be visually arresting, show off the colours well and generally have sort of charm unavailable to text or photography.

Except keeping in line with the aesthetics, the task was also to challenge the riso machine, we were adviced to look into range of issues as ‘the way the ink sits on different papers; legibility with different fonts; overlapping different colours; different photographic rasterisation effects; gradient effects; anything else we can think of.

Any printing related experiments with the machine were out of question, as we saw the actual machine only once at the initial presentation and only the selected few students would get the chance to see their outcomes actually riso-printed. So, as we were advised, the only way how to get close to the actual printing thing was to use either screenprinting or litho printing or experiment with humble inkjet printer. The latter proved to be a choice of mine as I found it to be the more flexible medium out of available two (screenprinting was too time-consuming and

especially at this stage of the project, where I was only experimenting graphically, the inkjet proved to be practical and undemanding.)

My home-based Canon Pixma i3600.

3.EXPERIMENTATION

What level is the quality of questioning, testing, prototyping and selecting of ideas?

It was the selection of workshops with Karl Foster, which truly pushed me to the direction of illustration. With Karl we looked at Pattern Making, Optical Art also we advised to look at the Illustrator plug in called Scriptographer enabling to extend Illustrator’s functionality. Karl really pushed us towards pattern making of some sort, e.g. utilising given data and creating their visual representation, also we looked at couple of ways how to source pattern from given photocopied photographs and basic geometric forms.

I found these exercises rather dull and lacking imagination, clearly, as you can see from my outcomes, cutting, folding, interlocking, repetition, symmetrical, asymmetrical wasn’t my thing.

Creative excersizes induced by Karl in my case provided rather strange results.Not a good ones.

I must say though, one technique introduced by Karl truly caught my imagination: we were given a picture of Gaudi’s architectural thing and with a help of a tracing paper were directed to analyse the picture and trace any shapes we fancied. Here, to Karl’s dismay, what I ended up with was a rather weird looking body of shapes, a bit sci-fi and fantasy related.

From Gaudi to this in 10 minutes.

I decided to take this further at home but instead of using and tracing only shapes I decided to trace objects, faces, details.

Initial drawings later to be vectorised, combined and appropriately coloured.

Here are attempts in vector and colour:

Initial coloured versions. Feedback was to give them more contrast and use 2 colours.

Here is the scan of the previous two illustrations combined to enhance the graphic/pattern like side:

More contrast and two colours needed!

4.SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE

What is the level of understanding and application of subject working practices?

So with illustration, which I was quite happy with, the question of appropriate colour, paper stock and process arose. I decided to go for matt paper of a higher gsm for its hand friendly tactile quality. With colour, I decided to play with halftone and flat areas of colours, to show off its beauty. As the final format was to be clearly less than an A4, also I initially didn’t plan on using any overprint techniques, my home inkjet printer proved to be a great helper in my quest for the perfect Ditto themed piece of artwork.

Here I am trying outPhotoshop half-tone settings.

5.TECHNICAL COMPETENCE

How professional and appropriate are the skills used in the submitted work?

Regardless lack of any higher technical print process related guidance from tutors, I found myself technically quite competent. I employed a wide range of techniques to get to my final result, however of course, I would feel much prouder if I could lay hands on the actual Riso machine. Still, the combination of hand, Photoshop and Illustrator skills proved to be rather satisfactory in achieving the final result. However I must admit, I rather missed the opportunity of getting my hands ‘ink dirty’ with real printing, seeing with my very own eyes getting the plates ready, inking the drums and having the new born ink smelling artwork in my hands fresh out of machine. But, given the whole context I am quite happy with the results.

What I did:1. Drawing2. Scanning4. Vectorising5. Colouring6. Scirptographer tool7. Half-tone setting in Photoshop8. Overprinting on my inkjet9. Colour separation

What I did not do:1. Printing on the riso machine

I played with Scriptographer patterns, I played with halftone, and in the end I tried also overprinting (with rather weird results - I achieved fluorescent effect!)

Fluorescent effect was a suprise. Scriptographer was a fun toy too.

6.COMMUNICATION AND PRESENTATION

Is the project clear? Are the outcomes appropriately presented?

I decided to present my illustration on a A4 page. Rather boring, and unimaginative, I know, but as one of the not that clear tasks was to have a look at the folding techniques of some sort as a group and only a teeny tiny handful did attempt to come up with a feeble solution, I decided to have it simple and stick to the basic print.

Overview + detail.

CONCLUSION

Ditto project was a good one but unfortunately had its flaws. None of the numerous workshops provided us with a clearer insight into printing, nor did we have a chance to test the riso machine itself. Time we were given was unwisely spent with scissors and glue, patternmaking. I guess those were useful to trigger further flow of ideas and creative responses, which actually happened. However the technical aspect was clearly lacking and despite my attempts to read more on printing and its processes, the authority to explain everything further was missing. I am happy with my outcome despite the low mark I was given. I can bravely say that I did best to my skills and knowledge and had fun.

INTRODUCTION

Airside and their brief seemed like the proper fun from the very beginning. We were given 3 or 4 random objects (name of which we drew out of an envelope) and our challenge was to thread those into a narrative and tell an interesting and engaging story. The outcome was supposed to be either a 15/30 second film/animation, an illustrated book or something totally unexpected. Luckily, the objects didn’t have to be the focus to the story, they could be purely incidental, however they had to be part of the narrative. As they said ‘Wow us with your creativity’. The reason why I chose this project was the combination of illustration and animation, where especially animation made my heart jump as it was my first time ever laying hands on a moving image. This, in combination with Airside, who apparently like to draw things and tell stories, definitely seemed like a project to go for!

The words I drew were:

1.WIG2.PASSIVE3.HOLE

:-O Airside studio.

1.RESEARCH

How well has research been carried out and applied to the project aims?

Airside. This multidisciplinary creative agency is quite a household name in the industry, so after their briefing we were slightly dazed - how to wow them as they must have seen it all:-O With their huge client list and an amazing array of work the task ahead was not an easy one. At the centre of their work seems to be a story. As they say, they love taking huge complicated ideas and boiling them down to a very simple, funny story chock full of character. So with this in mind, before I started any narrating, I had a good look at the animation and illustration they produced so far. Apparently they like using vectors, flat areas of colours and above all, they love friendly, accessible characters with a positive surroundings and a cuddly quality.

Also, part of my research included sourcing out a most suitable software to use for my purpose, After Effects.

All Airside produced.

More Airside stuff along with later to be related louse.

2.ANALYSIS

What level of analysis of research materials and standard of ideas generation?

Task ahead was indeed a difficult one. Not only I had to create a story based on a totally random selection of elements, the story had be transformed into a moving image/ animatics sequence, which meant using After Effects (or Flash), software which I had never touched before.

Work done by Airside seemed to be connected by common denominators: friendly, positive, colourful, cuddly. So given my three selected words (wig, passive, hole) I was trying to form a narrative of some sort in my head, also I was trying to come up with a suitable time management solution, as not only had I to come up with a story, illustrate it but bring it to life to!

Initial thoughts/

ideas regarding the story and its setting.

3.EXPERIMENTATION

What level is the quality of questioning, testing, prototyping and selecting of ideas?

We had a couple of idea-generation workshops with Darren, but apparently my creative side was totally switched off in those moments, as my activity that day didn’t yield any major breakthroughs or significant results. All I knew was that my story was going to feature one main character, it would include hair or wigs and would be kind of slightly dark in nature but with positive outlines.

It started with wigs and insightly head louse. Then came Demis Russou.

Jozef as a character literally just appeared. There were no other tentative versions, nor were there any other characters or trial and error things waiting do be developed. This hairy individual with fear of lice just came and it worked!

It was one afternoon at home, when character Jozef was born.

4.SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE

What is the level of understanding and application of subject working practices?

The subject here seems to be the story itself and I was fairly happy with mine: Jozef the Wigmaker, a hardworking, solitary individual with strong work ethics and only couple of pleasures in life. Every day at 2pm he gets up from his worktable, passively walks to the lice-spray cabinet, passively but carefully sprays every corner of his room, checks delivery hole in the wall, where he usually finds a CD and then dances to cheesy 80s music he collects. Then back to work.

As the story grew, new and new traits we being added, e.g. love of music, strong work routine

etc..

Jozef ‘s life is quite mundane:

sleep, work, dance, work.

5.TECHNICAL COMPETENCE

How professional and appropriate are the skills used in the submitted work?

Technical competence was much harder and time-consuming to achieve. I had to do the following:

1. Vectorise handrawings 2. Colour all the scenes2. Make everything move in After Effects3. Record appropriate sound effects (Jozef also sings the refrain while dancing)5. Make everything work together.

I had to teach Jozef walk, dance, spray and stare.

Jozef’s promo poster.

6.COMMUNICATION AND PRESENTATION

Is the project clear? Are the outcomes appropriately presented?

The finial outcome was presented as a 1 minute animation with sound. Animatics would have been enough, but as I was having so much fun with this project I decided to take it a bit further and actually animate. Due to my hands on beginners approach to animation, the final product might seem a bit rough in movements, but I like believe that its story and the atmosphere are strong enough to make one forgive the eventual animation flaws.

Click!

www.vimeo.com/martinapaukova/jozef

CONCLUSION

I can bravely say that this Airside led project was one of my favourites. Not only did I have to bite into a storytelling problematics, coming up with a character and a sufficient story by threading 3 given words. I also had to make the story come alive with After Effects. So yup, definitely challange but utterly enjoyable one!Brief was very clearly set with no place for ambiguity. Turning illustrations into animated feature brought the opportunity of reimagining character called Jozef, delving deeper into his world and developing new dimensions. I really enjoyed coming up with a story and I also enjoyed the software part, I felt challenged and I feel I worked hard. I was very pleased with the result, Airside seemed to like it too, job well done!

RESOURCES DITTO:

Grabowski, B., 2009. Printmaking: a complete guide to materials & processes. London: Laurence King.

Jones, D., 1955. Graphic methods and colour printing: a companion book to ‘Printing in school’. Art Society Press, King’s College School.

Vicary, R., 1977. The Thames and Hudson manual of advanced lithography. London: Thames and Hudson.

Eichenberg, F., 1978. Lithography and silkscreen: art and technique. London: Thames and Hudson.

Wiedemann, J., 2009. Illustration now!. Vol. 3. Köln: Taschen.

Klanten, R., Hellige, H., Uleshka, 2008. Playful type: ephemeral lettering and illustrative fonts. Berlin: Gestalten.

Miller, K., 2007. Revisionaries: a decade of art in Tokion. New York: Abrams Image.

Perry, M., 2007. Hand job: a catalog of type. New York, N.Y.: Princeton Architectural Press.

Tambini, M., 1996. The look of the century. London: Dorling Kindersley.

www.dittopress.co.uk

RESOURCES AIRSIDE:

Wells, P., 2006. Fundamentals of animation. AVA.

Arthur, S., Spiro, A., 2009. Gods and monsters. Nowbrow.

Lord, P., Sibley, B., 2004. Cracking animation. London: Thames & Hudson.

Patmore, C., 2003. Complete animation course : the principles, practice and techniques of successful animation. London: Thames & Hudson.

Cook, B., 2006. Animate! book: rethinking animation. London: Lux.

Beiman, N., 2007. Prepare to board!: creating story and characters for animated features and shorts. Burlington, Mass.; Oxford: Focal Press.

Besen, E., 2008. Animation unleashed: 100 principles every animator, comic book writer, filmmaker, video artist and game developer should know. Michael Wiese Productions.

www.adobe.com/support/aftereffects/

www.airside.com