September 28th, 2019
Posted in Fine Art Printing | Comments Off on Custom Printing: Three Fine Art Printing Techniques
In addition to my work in the commercial printing field, I do art therapy work with my fiancee. We teach autistic students to make art. We do everything from drawing to painting to sculpture to custom printing.
In past issues of the PIE Blog I have written about a number of the techniques of custom printing that we have brought to our students, and in the last week I have been studying one that we have not yet used: collography. I’d like to briefly describe this technique along with another one I just discovered in researching Andy Warhol for a recent painting class. His technique was called “the blotting line,” and this along with his tracing work developed into the Pop Art custom screen printing for which he was famous. Finally, I want to describe “monotyping,” a third technique I plan to share with my fiancee’s and my autistic students. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Fine Art Printing | Comments Off on Custom Printing: Three Fine Art Printing Techniques
September 23rd, 2019
Posted in Book Printing | Comments Off on Book Printing: Thoughts on Designing with Photographs
A long-standing consulting client of mine designs print books for the World Bank, the United Nations, and other governmental and non-governmental agencies. She pays me to review her designs over the phone with her, page by page. She started as an editor, and over the years I have helped her learn to also be a print book designer. She’s very good. Sometimes I look at her work and say to myself, “I wish I had designed that.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Book Printing | Comments Off on Book Printing: Thoughts on Designing with Photographs
September 16th, 2019
Posted in Fine Art Printing | Comments Off on Custom Printing: What Is Collagraphy?
I’ve been looking for new art projects my fiancee and I can share with our autistic students. Having been in the field of custom printing for over 40 years, I’m particularly drawn to hand-crafted approaches to what have become the super-automated technologies of commercial printing. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Fine Art Printing | Comments Off on Custom Printing: What Is Collagraphy?
September 9th, 2019
Posted in Book Printing | Comments Off on Book Printing: Pearson Shifts from Textbooks to Digital
I spend a lot of time in thrift stores with my fiancee. She looks at the clothes; I go for the print books. In fact, I’ve collected quite a library of textbooks, which I have used since graduating from college to augment my education (and particularly my knowledge of commercial printing, art, and business). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Book Printing | Comments Off on Book Printing: Pearson Shifts from Textbooks to Digital
September 3rd, 2019
Posted in Book Printing | Comments Off on Book Printing: Finding Your Optimal Minimum Print Order
A commercial printing client whom I have mentioned before regularly reprints a series of color swatch books during the year. They are a bit like miniature PMS color swatch books, but their purpose is to help my client’s clients choose colors for make-up and clothing based on their complexions. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Book Printing | Comments Off on Book Printing: Finding Your Optimal Minimum Print Order
August 26th, 2019
Posted in Environmental Graphics | Comments Off on Custom Printing: The Place of Digital Printing in “Retailtainment”
On the one hand I like it when new words are created. I was a Literature major in college. On the other hand, I know to look closely when this happens. (An example is when Photoshop was turned from a noun—the computer program—into a verb, as in “just Photoshop” the image, meaning “Turn the fuzzy, low-res image into a crisp, press-ready photo.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Environmental Graphics | Comments Off on Custom Printing: The Place of Digital Printing in “Retailtainment”
August 19th, 2019
Posted in Book Printing | Comments Off on Book Printing: Ensuring On-Time, Accurate Delivery
“We uploaded the art files to the printer only a day late. Why can’t the printer make up the time? Don’t they want our business?”
A print brokering client of mine asked these questions recently, reminding me that their print books needed to be in the book distributor’s possession on time, and not even a day late. (To be completely honest, I have exaggerated my client’s actual questions a bit in order to make a point: Schedules matter.) Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Book Printing | Comments Off on Book Printing: Ensuring On-Time, Accurate Delivery
August 11th, 2019
Posted in Book Printing | Comments Off on Book Printing: Pearson Shifts from Textbooks to Digital
I spend a lot of time in thrift stores with my fiancee. She looks at the clothes; I go for the print books. In fact, I’ve collected quite a library of textbooks, which I have used since graduating from college to augment my education (and particularly my knowledge of commercial printing, art, and business). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Book Printing | Comments Off on Book Printing: Pearson Shifts from Textbooks to Digital
August 5th, 2019
Posted in Book Printing | 2 Comments »
I am a pushover when it comes to romance and swashbuckling. I must have been a pirate in a former life. So when I had the opportunity to join a Facebook group connected to a print book a client of mine was designing for a friend, I joined.
My client’s friend apparently is writing a book, a journal of sorts, describing his early life, many years ago, in the cannabis trade. Now I know this is less highly charged now, and I neither oppose nor condone its use, but this sounded like a good story. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Book Printing | 2 Comments »
July 28th, 2019
Posted in Integrated Marketing | 4 Comments »
Articles in the media touting the marriage of print and digital always make me happy. Not only because I’m a firm believer in the place of custom printing (and because I’m a printing broker) but also because these articles mirror my own experience. Print and digital amplify each other’s strengths. They don’t have to fight, and one doesn’t have to replace the other. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Integrated Marketing | 4 Comments »