Category Archives: Fresh Ink

Fresh Ink

Pinball Designer Card: Jess Hirsch, Opaque White and Chipboard

By Nicole Lavelle | Published: February 10, 2011

Experimental offset printing: success!

Here at Pinball Publishing, we’re all about collaboration, fun, and exquisite printing.

The latest installment in our designer card series combines these tenets, and features a photograph from Jess Hirsch, former Pinballer and artist extraordinaire. Jess is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is currently working toward her MFA in sculpture, and her new work includes engaging work like the Folk Feng Shui series, featured on this Designer Card.

These chipboard pocket postcards feature black ink overprinted on opaque white, to create a duotone image that almost shimmers. The black is rendered warm by its semi-transparent nature and the (somewhat translucent) opaque white ink creates a nuanced brightness when printed on the chipboard. The printing of these cards was wholly experimental (we didn’t know how they’d turn out!) but we’re positive the results were a success.

See the rest of the Pinball Publishing Designer Card series here, and find more of Jess’s work in her online portfolio. You can find these cards at select locations in Portland, New York and San Francisco. See more photos and print details below!

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Fresh Ink

Bikes of San Francisco screen printed poster

By Nicole Lavelle | Published: February 1, 2011

Simple, straightforward, and oh-so-accurate.

From San Francisco-based cyclist and artist Tor Weeks comes this witty, beautiful screen printed poster. This two-color print was originally made for the San Francisco iteration Artcrank, a print show featuring bicycle-inspired artwork by local artists.

Maybe I like this print because it celebrates the architecture of the bicycle. Or maybe I like it because the wheel-less frame strapped to a pole in the Tenderloin speaks to an experience I once had with a cherished Bianchi road bike at the corner of O’Farrell and Leavenworth…

Either way. Bikes and screenprinting. Artcrank is on to something. See more photos below.

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Fresh Ink

The Ultimate Chipboard Trio

By Nicole Lavelle | Published: February 1, 2011

TRLA gets a new look.

When Will Bryant and Mark Menjivar join forces, terrific things happen. Terrific chipboard things, to be specific.

Will and Mark worked together to create this identity system for the youth advocacy arm of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA). Mark works with TRLA to offer aid to youth experiencing homelessness. He got in touch with Will to help him create a series of print items that could be at once beautiful, useful and durable. From that collaboration came three print pieces: a business card, a pocket postcard, and a Scout Book with custom-printed interiors that acts as a Youth Rights Booklet. Will also did the lettering and design for the snazzy TRLA Youth website. Chipboard internet? We’re into it.

In addition to being a chance to create a set of fun printed pieces, Will looks at this collaboration as an opportunity to help out: ”Enabling youth [with] the opportunity to better their circumstances is huge! Most of the kids come from rough backgrounds, so having access to this knowledge empowers them and provides hope for the future,” he told us. “It’s a blessing to be involved with a project that does this.”

And that, print friends, is why we think of Scout Books as little books for big ideas.

Check out print details and see more photos below.

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Fresh Ink

2011 Calendar; silver and black on chipboard

By Lindsay Arth | Published: January 21, 2011

Kristina Mueller created this silver-y 2011 calendar as part of a promo package for the New Year. It’s printed on chipboard which makes it extra great. The tactile-ness of the chipboard is allowed to show through the ink in small speckles, contrasting nicely with the silver-and-black sleekness of this piece. Each one is unique!

Item: 2011 Calendar
Artists/Designers: Kristina Mueller
Printing method: Pinball Publishing, Offset
Ink: Silver Metallic, and black
Paper:  Chipboard .020pt Kraft
Dimensions: 7.75″ x 11″

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Fresh Ink

Valentine screen prints from One Point Oh

By Nicole Lavelle | Published: January 18, 2011

YOU and ME, the perfect combination.

Fresh from the studio of UK-based One Point Oh comes this duo of Valentine’s-inspired screen prints. Packed with intricate illustrative detail, these bright and beautiful prints are at once typographic and pattern-based. Massive slab-serif letters and an ampersand speak to the typographic enthusiast, and the impeccably paired duo of red and orange make for a set of prints that can live beyond the hype of Valentine’s Day.

One Point Oh is the collaborative partnership of Rachael and Stephen Allen. Their work functions in a number of contexts: advertising, retail, marketing, product development and graphic art. This set of prints joins a number of other fine pieces of printmaking and text-based works in their online portfolio. Check it out.

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Fresh Ink

Insane screen printed posters from Panther Club

By Nicole Lavelle | Published: January 14, 2011

Fresh prints from Panther Club. THEY GLOW.

Fluorescent ink has got us hooked.

Panther Club is a self-described “publishing platform for independent graphic arts and illustration.” Their latest release is a series of blacklight poster prints from UK artists Colin Henderson, Espen Friberg, Jiro Bevis and Michael Willis. Panther Club is just getting started, but plans to release more limited-edition art prints and publications are in the works.

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Fresh Ink

Folkways Newsprint: You want to hold this in your hands.

By Nicole Lavelle | Published: January 13, 2011

A look at the work of Ronald Clyne, an under-appreciated 20th-century graphic designer.

This piece of print is a confluence of several nodes of creative culture that will make you design enthusiasts and music fanatics swoon.

From the Unit Editions website:

Ronald Clyne at Folkways is a 64-page newspaper devoted to designer Ronald Clyne’s record covers for the Folkways label. Clyne is one of the undiscovered talents of 20th century graphic design. He doesn’t appear in the textbooks or literature of graphic design. He is a neglected figure. Until now, that is.

This newsprint magazine is part of the library of well-designed,  high-quality publications from London-based Unit Editions. Powered by the collaborative team of Tony Brooks and Adrian Shaughnessy, Unit Editions releases are books “for graphic designers by graphic designers.”

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Fresh Ink

Fluorescent screen prints from Mike Perry

By Nicole Lavelle | Published: January 12, 2011

Geometry gone insane.

Last month we received a snazzy set of screen prints in the mail from illustrator and designer Mike Perry. They’re the kind of prints that make your eyes wiggle, with six neon and fluorescent inks butting up against each other to create really nice contrast.

Mike will soon be releasing his third book through Princeton Architectural Press, a catalog of screen printing called Pulled. You can pre-order it through Chronicle Books and be the first to receive it when it releases on March 23.

Check out more photos and information about the prints after the jump.

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Fresh Ink

Edits by Edit: The Printing Process

By Nicole Lavelle | Published: January 10, 2011

Thirteen posters, four days: a screen printing process in Brooklyn.

Though these posters have already made their way around the blogosphere, we just stumbled upon this stunning set of process photos. They’re just so fun to browse that we couldn’t help but give them some Bangback love. This collaborative poster series was conceived by Edit, a designer who spends his time “crafting compelling concepts and making them happen.” They were screen-printed at Axelle Fine Prints in Brooklyn over a four-day period.

The thirteen multiple-color screen printed posters were created by a collection of designers that includes Duane King, Collective Approach, and Manual Creative. Each poster is a visual rumination on a genre of music, created using only one element and one typeface. What started out sounding like an assignment from an introductory design class turned into a beautiful and understated selection of graphic delights.

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Fresh Ink

Long Live Print! Letterpress prints

By Nicole Lavelle | Published: January 5, 2011

Technology—new and old—collide in this art print.

From designer Jeremy Slagle comes a letterpress (or is it letterpress-inspired?) print for the paper-and-ink enthusiast.

This vibrant three-color art print is an interesting mash-up of technologies that aptly demonstrates the medley of approaches present in letterpress printing today. My educated guess is that the bold artwork was created on a computer with vector software. The skilled craftspeople at Igloo Letterpress likely transformed the digital file into a polymer plate. They then printed it using a Vandercook letterpress.

That this piece is the result of the confluence of a computer and a vintage press is telling of the current state of print as a site for the mingling of ever-changing production technologies. The fetishization of the print object is something we’re certainly guilty of over here (who can help from glorifying the beautifully tangible?) and this piece does precisely that. As long as there are those of us who extol the touchable quality of ink on paper, the (art) print object will stick around in perpetuity.

The mantra of “Long live print” starts to sound like an achievable reality once you consider the ability of printers to adapt to emerging technologies and place their work into multiple cultural contexts.

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