Assignment 05.03: State Pride Shirt

Goal

The goal of this assign­ment is to develop a dis­cern­ing aware­ness of the con­cep­tual, visual and tech­ni­cal attrib­utes asso­ci­ated with screen printed media.

Objective

The objec­tive of this assign­ment is to cre­ate and print an edi­tion of five, a 2–3 color shirt rep­re­sent­ing a home state (or coun­try) that uti­lizes design ele­ments or styl­is­tic attrib­utes for aes­thetic reinforcement.

Background Reading

Safety Notice

  • Do not look directly at the ultra­vi­o­let light
  • Safety apparel required: gloves, safety glasses, ear plugs, respirator
  • Safety Data Sheet (SDS) Index

Assignment

State (or coun­try) pride shirts are col­or­ful, stereo­typ­i­cal expres­sions of the indi­vid­u­als upbring­ing. States have motifs, sym­bols and insignia of all types. Pop­u­lar cul­tural expres­sions and imagery are also avail­able. Often, these items are freely avail­able or with­out strict copy­right. Cre­ate a com­po­si­tion that explores the pos­si­bil­i­ties of screen printed media through a restricted use of color, lay­er­ing, neg­a­tive space and visual hier­ar­chy. The solu­tion must be include some type of vec­tor or pixel based imagery and typog­ra­phy, but no restric­tions are given for type­face selec­tion, size or place­ment as long as it is prac­ti­cal to the max­i­mum print­able size.

Screen print­ing is more of a binary medium than many other forms, such as draw­ing with char­coal and pen­cil, or design­ing in a full color envi­ron­ment. Pru­dent and judi­cious use of flat color, as well as the approx­i­ma­tion of grad­u­a­tions through an illu­sional process, is vital to a suc­cess­ful print.

These tech­niques influ­ence the con­cep­tual and aes­thetic deci­sions with cre­at­ing effec­tive visu­als. This project may also use tools for tonal con­trol: halftone screen­ing (dots); Sto­chas­tic screen­ing (ran­dom) com­bined with line art solids (thresh­old or posterization).

The use of flat (spot) col­ors and/or line art, is essen­tial, though lim­ited use of gra­di­ents is per­mis­si­ble. Full color (CMYK) solu­tions are not allowed, but any color hue is per­mis­si­ble as long it fits within num­ber of col­ors. Explore over­lap­ping col­ors, abstract shapes and imagery or use fig­u­ra­tive and ges­tural forms. Final solu­tion may fit into a clas­si­cally inspired or mod­ern abstract category.

Part One

Brain­storm sev­eral con­cepts and col­lect any nec­es­sary source mate­ri­als. Research the cho­sen state, his­tory, peo­ple accom­pa­ny­ing activ­i­ties, ter­mi­nol­ogy, and sub­cul­tural para­me­ters. Expe­ri­ence or the review of sim­i­lar loca­tions will pro­vide insight to com­mon solu­tion attrib­utes. Resist the temp­ta­tion to make a solu­tion so sim­i­lar it is cliché but strive incor­po­rate exist­ing col­ors, imagery, logos and iconic imagery to develop a solu­tion that is not too diverse it mis­com­mu­ni­cates. Pre­pare sketches and/or a dig­i­tal proof of your best con­cepts. Once approved by the instruc­tor, cre­ate art­work for review.

Part Two

Using pro­vided tem­plates, pre­pare art­work for proof­ing. The fol­low­ing art­work files should be saved in PDF format:

Part Three

Once art­work is approved by the instruc­tor, sub­mit files for print­ing final film positives.

Coat and dry screen using tech­niques demon­strated in class. Print or pre­pare final proof and color sep­a­ra­tions. Dig­i­tal sep­a­ra­tions must be pro­duced dur­ing assigned time peri­ods by the instruc­tor or lab per­son­nel. Repeat part two as often as nec­es­sary for each color.

Expose and wash out screen using tech­niques demon­strated in class. Repeat part three as often as nec­es­sary for each color.

Part Four

Print a total of three prints using tech­niques demon­strated in class. Clean up ink and reclaim the screen in prepa­ra­tion for the next project. Repeat as part four as often as nec­es­sary for each color.

Warn­ing: Do not allow ink to dry in the screen. Doing so will cause per­ma­nent dam­age to the screen.
Warn­ing: Do not allow emul­sion remover to dry in the screen. Doing so will cause per­ma­nent dam­age to the screen.

Technical Specifications

  • 10 x 12 in. artwork
  • One color maximum
  • 25 line screen size for imaged based gradations
  • ART 304 Google Dive

Assessment

  • The fol­low­ing rubric posted on D2L will deter­mine assign­ment score: Assign­ment 05.03: State Pride Shirt

Techniques

Brain­storm­ing, con­cep­tual devel­op­ment, draw­ing, dig­i­tal image devel­op­ment, emul­sion coat­ing, expo­sure, washout, reg­is­tra­tion, print­ing, cleanup, reclamation

Supplies

Art­work, com­puter, appro­pri­ate soft­ware, film pos­i­tives, screen, emul­sion, expo­sure unit, washout booth, print­ing press, squeegee, paper, emul­sion remover, scrub brush.

Deadlines

As defined by cor­re­spond­ing cal­en­dar item, drop­box, dis­cus­sion or con­tent topic description.

Printing Deadlines

Mon­day, June 15, 2020. Assign­ment Given.

Tues­day, June 16, 2020. Parts One and Two due.

Wednes­day, June 17, 2020. Part Three due. Screens prepped, exposed, washed out and drying.

Thurs­day, June 18, 2020. Part Four print­ing based on schedule.

Fri­day, June 19, 2020. All Parts due for review in class and in appro­pri­ate D2L dropbox.