OUGD504 - Study Task 3 / What is design for print? workshop part one

How can we try to determine the 6 elements of designing for print?...

• Format
• Colour
• Production
• Process
• Finishing
• Stock

Format

• The scale and size of resolutions and how you work with it and apply designs to it.
• Eg, books, posters, packaging, environmental, business cards
• Considerations of surroundings

Colour

• CMYK/RGB
• Lithograph
• Formula colour, four plate process
• Consider how it looks on screen as well as printed (RGB/CMYK)
• Pantone matching
• Ittens Colour Theory
• Difference of colour/quality in digital and screenprint
• Cost of printing - black and white, screen/digital, four colour/formula colour

Production

• How the resolution is being made
• Final medium
• Screenprint/digital print, bookbinding, making the resolution

Process

• Ideas, experiment, development.
• The final outcome is affected by the process.
• The process is affected by the choice of stock.
• Process includes design decisions such as resourcing and booking print slots.

Finishing

• Thinking about the distribution of the resolution - where it is going to be applied - mass production, outside, billboards, vans etc
• Practicality and cost
• Finishing techniques eg, foiling, embossing, debossing, spot varnish, guilding, screenprint etc

Stock

• Stock affects costs, scale and texture.
• It can also affect your tone of voice, for example stark white paper has a more clinical feel, while hand made paper with pressed flowers is more feminine and rustic.

We can not entirely determine what is involved in these 6 elements because they are forever overlapping and interlinking but exploring their meaning and what they involve will help us to begin to understand and use these terminologies more systematically.