Day 51

Jim showed us this great book

WHAT I DID

• Printed my band postcard
• Printed my pangram poster
• Received my internship completion certificate
• Saw a very cool printmaking book for kids

Pangram poster preview

WHAT I LEARNED

• Because it's so thick, cutting chipboard a little shorter can keep it from catching around the cylinder when printing
• Roll posters along the grain of the paper so that they will stay flat later

THE END

This officially concludes my internship, but I will post pictures of waiting-for-the-release-date posters and finished personal Hatch projects as the time comes

Internship complete

Day 50

So many rules

WHAT I DID

• Set postcard designs, the Evil Hatch Clown and a small version of Luana poster
• Sorted out rules (of the tangible, letterpress variety) in search of the perfect one for my postcard
• Finished setting a band postcard for personal project
• Proofed some Christmas card designs for the Country Music Hall of Fame
• Found out my postcard client is going to be having some logo changes, so the job was put on hold indefinitely; I was really excited about this design, but I imagine many good designs never get seen because of situations like this

Part of my postcard which may not actually get printed (but you can see the film blocks I carved in printed form!)

WHAT I LEARNED

• If you want to "stamp" type during the proofing process, it's best to put a piece of foam core or something cushy underneath so that you get a good print; the softness allows the type to print more evenly

Day 49

My poster at the Loveless Barn (mine is on the left, Brad's is on the right)

WHAT I DID

• Printed some retail posters (got to cycle through several colors– so much fun!)
• Worked a little on typesetting a postcard for myself
• Went to see Music City Roots at the Loveless Barn– very cool to actually see it after working on their poster

WHAT I LEARNED

• When cycling colors on the press, it's easy to go to darker values, but much harder to get lighter. Ex: if I tried to print yellow after blue, I'd probably have to clean the rollers or I would just keep getting green.
• Uneven rollers can cause loads of printing problems; if there's obviously nothing wrong with your type and things are printing funny, this could be the cause
• A dirty press bed can also be the mystery cause of printing problems

The aftermath of printing today

Day 48

WHAT I DID

• Trimmed down Grant/Gill posters and bagged them for client
• Called Sunday Morning Films client about postcard, waiting on approval
• Worked a little on personal projects

WHAT I LEARNED

• Always remember to include a Hatch tagline on your projects
• Print your poster a few times before bumping up type; sometimes it takes a few runs for the type to settle correctly
• My Christmas cards are in the Hatch online store now!

NEW PRINTS

Here's some of my favorites from the baby announcements I did this weekend on a variety of makereadies.

Day 47

Trim mark. You can see the grip marks on the edge of the paper, about to be trimmed off.

WHAT I DID

• Trimmed Lhoist posters and bagged them for customer
• Printed 300+ backgrounds for Vince Gill/Amy Grant poster
• Printed 300+ second color for Gill/Grant posters
• Pulled a proof of my pangram side project

WHAT I LEARNED

• Getting better at gauging the right quantity of ink for a job– still not perfect however, I tend to mix too little
• We have a handful of ink colors to start with when mixing a new one. Mixing color with Warm Red vs Rubine Red makes a HUGE difference in color

Day 46

Type for baby announcement

WHAT I DID

• Saturday workday! At this point we're allowed to come in on the weekend and work on personal projects
• Set type for a baby announcement for a friend
• Printed baby announcement on a variety of makereadies
• Set type for a pangram poster

WHAT I LEARNED

• Paper, like wood, has a natural grain– it's best to print with it rather than against it

NEW POSTER

Now that's it's safely past the show date, I can post this one. I printed a couple of these on makereadies and realized I liked the makeready version a bit better!

Official Tootsie's poster

Tootsie's poster printed on a yellow sunburst makeready

Day 45

Alco Graphics– lens flare not intended, I promise

WHAT I DID

• Picked up Lhoist logo plate from Alco Graphics
• Got confirmation for Vince Gill/Amy Grant poster
• Separated colors for Gill/Grant poster
• Printed second color for Lhoist poster

WHAT I LEARNED

• DO NOT bring the cylinder on the back press back too early; it will annihilate your poster! 

Day 44

Inking up a gradient block

WHAT I DID

• Printed Lhoist background block, a gradient in blue
• Watched the Veteran's Day Parade

This guy was giving it his all during the Veteran's Day parade

WHAT I LEARNED

• When printing background blocks (especially warped ones), it is often better to not tighten the quoins so that the block has room to move as it is inked/printed
• When printing a solid background, it is smart to center the block as much as possible on the page so that you have lots of room to play with the trim of your poster
• With gradients, you must pay attention to where one color starts and another stops, and also how smoothly they are blending. I've seen color areas marked off to the side with tape in lithography/silkscreen setups in order to keep things consistent; I imagine you could do the same with letterpress.
• Constantly keep an eye on gradients as you're printing, they easily become inconsistent

Day 43

Whole bunch of ands, all in a row

WHAT I DID

• Cut a couple linoleum blocks  of film strip borders for Sunday Morning Films postcard/finished setting type
• Pulled proofs for postcard, front and back
• Called client to discuss faxing the proof; realized the client was expecting a call before the design was even started!
• Mixed colors for Lhoist poster background
• Got surprise free tickets to the CMA Awards– most importantly, got to see Loretta Lynn in person!

Us in CMA attire, Brad @ press

Carving film blocks

WHAT I LEARNED

• Always touch base with your client before beginning a design; you never know what has changed since they placed their order (there has been a 5-7 week wait time for production during my stay)
• How to use a proportional scale (in this case, to know how much to shrink down a logo when making new magnesium plate)

Meet proportional scale

Day 42

Brainstorming image ideas

WHAT I DID

• Put away type
• Got a new job– a postcard for Sunday Morning Films, a short film company
• Researched client/sketched out ideas for imagery
• Started setting Sunday Morning Films postcard

This will probably be making an appearance in the postcard

WHAT I LEARNED

• Practiced setting a smaller format
• Standard postcard size is 6"x4.25"

Day 41

New batch of archived plates

WHAT I DID

• Archived some plates that were finished being printed
• Finished setting Vince Gill/Amy Grant poster
• Proofed Vince poster
• After work, but sort of related: Went to see The Time Jumpers at Station Inn and was surprised to find out that Vince Gill was playing with them– I'll consider it research.

Shelves upstairs

WHAT I LEARNED

• How to properly archive plates
• How the plate system upstairs is organized
• I'm a Vince Gill fan!

Day 40

Hair cut time in the back today

WHAT I DID

• Put trim marks on the Bluebird posters
• Got a new job– Vince Gill & Amy Grant's 12 Days of Christmas at the Ryman
• Got asked a surprisingly hard question– what color to print next on a red Santa poster? Per Brad's recommendation (and a lot of doubt on my part), the result was purple!
• Printed some red and purple Santa posters

The surprisingly awesome purple

WHAT I LEARNED

• Purple and red work surprisingly well together, even in a Christmas situation
• Learned this a while back, but totally worth pointing out: the spacing underneath an "N" is larger at the bottom than on top; they are very often placed upside down

Upside-down N alert!

Day 39

Printed this little guy today

WHAT I DID

• Finished the Bluebird Cafe posters– printed 400 in 2 hours! One of my favorites so far, pictures to come once I get approval and such
• Printed for almost exactly the same length of time it took to listen to Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour #32 (The Moon) and the Essential Bob Wills

Inside the toolbox of a man they call Danner

WHAT I LEARNED

• Every little thing can make a difference when it comes to how fast you can print– I inked way less during this color, so I printed faster, but I had workups every few inkings, so that slowed me down a little bit. 
• Even something small, like moving your stack of paper closer to where it gets grabbed by the press can save a lot of time in the long run (especially with large quantities!)

Day 38

Inevitably, I get these track marks from the press on me when printing– EVERY TIME

WHAT I DID

• Printed the second color for Bluebird cafe posters
• Set up press and did makeready for the final Bluebird color
• Did a mini intern interview with Bethany for a presentation Jim will be doing at Wayzgoose, a printmaking gathering held at Hamilton

WHAT I LEARNED

• When setting up your posters to print on the press, if you keep a couple picas extra at the top, you can trim off the "bite" marks the press leaves when it clamps in your paper
• One of the intern questions was "What do you plan to do with your Hatch experience?" and my gut answer was "Start a small independent print shop." Now that it's on tape (or SD card, rather) I'm pretty sure I'm held to it, right?

Day 37

Been hanging out with this guy all day

WHAT I DID

• Started color separating Bluebird Cafe posters
• Printed background block for Bluebird Cafe posters

How much ink does it take to print a full-sized background block on 400 sheets of ink-thirsty chipboard? Well, a little more than this much.

WHAT I LEARNED

• How to operate at top speed on the back press
• The longer you print, the faster the press will move
• If the press moves too fast, it will slam as it hits the end of the press
• To prevent slamming, bring the cylinder back before it reaches the end of the press
• Because the brakes are currently out of whack, you can also "manually" break the press by holding onto it as it comes back
• Chipboard tends to curl back and get caught on the cylinder; you can catch it yourself if it starts to do this

Day 36

You can see where cracks are forming in this old 5

WHAT I DID

• Mixed inks for Tootsie's
• Printed the second color of Tootsie's poster
• Repaired some very old and brittle '5's

WHAT I LEARNED

• The more paper you put under type to bump up the pressure, the bigger chance there is for workups
• How to deal with fragile type
• First off, be aware of any fragile areas as you print
• There is only so much you can do about fragile type; you can't prevent all splintering
• If a large section cracks off, it is sometimes possible to repair it by using wood glue then weighing it down as it dries
• Lighter, lower quality wood can be a prime candidate for splintering and cracking