18 February 2012

We Now Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Program...

Two major things occurred which prompted us to stop using the blog, Facebook and taking a day job in a print shop.
We opened a Facebook account to better connect with the people, but two things came about as a result. The Facebook thing became less of a Laser Diagnostix platform and more of a personal thing. That was a mis-step as the novelty of Facebook overshadowed our original purpose there. The other thing was that we just didn't have a lot of content to post. That stemmed from taking the day job. Although Laser Diagnostix had been established, it could be said prematurely. The depth of screen printing as a trade and/or skill is great. Recognizing this from the start, I knew that eventually I would reach a ceiling in terms of what I could teach myself. Once I decided to quit my day job and focus on my craft, the next move would be to get a gig in a professional print shop. I got super lucky and landed a gig as a production designer in-training at Action Screen Graphics in downtown Austin. It turns out that poster artist legend, Frank Kozik, used to keep a studio in the Action shop. Tons of the poster art I fell in love with from the pages of Public News, telephone poles around town and record stores like Sound Exchange and Infinite Records in Houston were produced there. http://www.gigposters.com/designer/2386_Frank_Kozik.html Complete success. I started there in December 2010 and thus my professional venture had begun in earnest. My education has been an amazing experience thus far. Now armed with a solid knowledge base and resources to match, Laser Diagnostix is picking up the pace with the help of Production Manager at Action Screen Graphics, Ryan Hallee. At Laser Diagnostix we owe much to his generosity and expertise. When Mr. Hallee learned that I owned a four-head press, he showed great interest and offered his professional assistance. Eventually, this culminated in tackling a four-color process job. Then we added a twist. In addition to a standard CMYK on white tees, we would attempt as an experiment CMYK in Plasticharge (chemically removes the dye in the garment and replaces it with color of the ink) on black tees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMYK_color_model. So, we deleted the Facebook, but will return with a more appropriate page and we're picking up the blog thread again. Anyway, the accompanying photos illustrate the steps to a fairly amazing print, if I may be so bold.
Color separation, screen preparation and press assistant: Ryan Biddle
Press calibration, screen registration and press operator: Ryan Hallee.
Photo one - source art (jpeg plucked from the Internet)
Photo two - Yellow layer 
Photo three - Magenta layer
Photo four - Hallee on press
Photo five - Cyan layer
Photo six - Black layer
Photo seven - Final print

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