Inspired by TCFT: We are going to Mash it up; How did we print it?
Jul 19th, 2007 by upsl
“These Come From Trees” label by Pete Kazanjy is an innovative experiment to create awareness about environment using the new media.
In our social media exploration, we are closely following the ‘Gurrilla Public Service announcement’ as part of our learning and inspiration. UPSL being an award winning pioneers in Label Manufacturing, we thought printing and distributing the labels worldwide will be the right salutation for the initiative. We are very inspired by the experiment on how a small label can create an impact and how the whole campaing is carried out( right from ‘Open Sourcing’ the artwork through Creative Commons - that is how we can print it!)
I as an intern learing this is a wonderful experience.
Here, I am going to give the steps in whole process of printing to make you aware of …
Image Rework
The Artwork was taken from the link thesecomefromtrees.blogspot.com. It needs to be reworked since the quality of the artwork was not sufficient for printing. This process is done in the versatile Adobe Illustrator. We went through a thousand types of fonts to match the used font and recreated the label. One single label of size 3× 5 inch [actual size], along with die line [a line which gives the shape of the sticker] and the cutmarks is pictured below
Layout Preparation
Since the size of artwork is 3×5 inch, it is not possible to print a single label per sheet in printing. So we need to keep ups [multiples copies of the label] in a single document, in order to print many labels in a single sheet. The size used for printing was 15 x20 inch. We got 8 ups for a sheet. The final layout was given in encapsulated post script format (.eps) and it will look as below…
We incorporated our logo and website address for self-pride…
Before printing, this document must be converted to film and then plate…
The further process will be in next post :)…
Film Processing
After finishing the layout, we took the document for RIP[Raster Image Processing]. It was done in application named HQ 510 . Through this software we can add eps, postscript and pdf files. As printing is done in 4-colour [Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black (cmyk)], special colour or single colour process, there is a need to take separate films for each colour. HQ 510 helps us to separate the colours and also special colours. We took single film in Imagesetter [Tanto 6870, the machine used for film exposing] as it has to be printed in special colour [leaf green]. Another film was taken for die making that is to the shape of the label as for ups.
The film is taken to the plate making department. The film is cleaned with CTC [carbon tetra chloride] to remove the unwanted dust and finger prints. We first load the ps plate of size 21×25.5 inch, on the plate exposing machine [Screen] then place the film on ps plate. First by vacuum option, machine removes the air between the machine bed, plate and the film. Then the plate will be exposed by passing ultra violet light for 5 minutes. The plates are developed through a solution prepared in the ratio of 1:3 [developer:water]. The unexposed areas are removed. Now the plates are ready for printing.
The printing is done on Offset machine with LeafGreen (Pantone shade 354C).
The printed sheets were gloss laminated through laminating machine.
Laminated sheets are punched through Kiss punching process to get the shape of the label.
Final Trimming
As the sheet has 8 nos., it is cut into two to get four nos per sheet.
With that the stickers are ready. How we are going to mash these up with SecondLife and other social media is going to be interesting. Whatch this space for more updates.
Sphere: Related ContentOne Response to “Inspired by TCFT: We are going to Mash it up; How did we print it?”
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I am a bit puzzled why your expensive and poorly-recyclable Pressure Sensitive Adhered, gloss-laminated cutsheet mostly becomes offcut on this project.
Your 15 x 20 inch PSA cutsheet is 300 sq inches, yet your eight 3 x 5 inch labels use less than 120 sq inches from each sheet.
It would seem that you could fit at least a 4×4 pattern of labels onto the sheet, doubling the utilization to sixteen labels per sheet.
Your printshop could have guillotined the stacked sheets to produce 3×5 inch cuts directly (radiusing the corners then acheived by beltsanding the stacked cuts); or perhaps they could have made up a new 4×4 knifeboard for their cutting press (that could then be thriftily utilized for similar projects).
Could it be that when contronted with a nonrecurring setup cost for a new knifeboard, you opted *not* to conserve over a hundred pounds of difficult-to-recycle paper?
Truly your labels are a lesson in economics/ecology.
PS Did your printshop get an ugliness on half the edge of each label from that self-sabotaging doodling between the ups?