Logos Graphics

Thanks to everyone who came out for our intaglio salon last Saturday — it was our largest salon yet!

Here are two upcoming classes in March. Both were among our most popular in 2009:

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Pre-Press for Letterpress Class
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
7-9 pm
$35

Press Sheet Layout

Come find out how to reduce your film and plate costs with our prepress and file preparation tips! In this class, find out the most cost-effective way to prepare your files for plate production, saving you both time and money.

We’ll cover digital layout schemes, handling Photoshop images, type, and little-known tricks for creating letterpress-friendly designs.

This class is a great opportunity to check out our Heidelberg Windmill letterpress. Participants will be eligible for a 15% discount on their next film or plate order from Logos Graphics.

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Introductory Heidelberg Windmill Letterpress Class
Saturday, March 27, 2010
11 am – 3 pm
$75

Heidelberg Windmill

We welcome you to join us for a one-day introductory Windmill class! This is a wonderful opportunity to learn the set up and printing basics for the Heidelberg Windmill letterpress.

We’ll include tips and tricks for make ready, inking secrets, and printing onto a wide variety of papers (including envelopes!).

Participants will have multiple opportunities to set up and run this fantastic letterpress. Class size is limited to 6 people.

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For all upcoming classes and free salons, please see our Winter/Spring 2010 schedule. For more info or to register, please send us an email. Payment may be sent online via Paypal or by mailing a check (made payable to Logos Graphics).

Here is our Winter and Spring 2010 Salon and Class schedule. Salons are free and open to the public, and classes require registration and payment of fees via Paypal or check. All events are held at our studio in San Francisco. For more information or to sign up, please send us an email!

Intaglio Plate

Intaglio Salon – free!
Saturday, February 20, 2010
2 – 4:30 pm

Come witness the beauty of intaglio! We will explore large-scale printmaking using our Sturges etching press, image setter film positives and KM73 plates. We’ll discuss different etching inks and their application while printing onto Rives BFK paper.

Pre-Press for Letterpress Class
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
7-9 pm
$35

Press Sheet Layout

Come find out how to reduce your film and plate costs with our prepress and file preparation tips! In this class, find out the most cost-effective way to prepare your files for plate production, saving you both time and money. We’ll cover digital layout schemes, handling Photoshop images, type, and little-known tricks for creating letterpress-friendly designs.

This class is a great opportunity to check out our Heidelberg Windmill letterpress. Participants will be eligible for a 15% discount on their next film or plate order from Logos Graphics.

Introductory Heidelberg Windmill Letterpress Class
Saturday, March 27, 2010
11 am – 3 pm
$75

Heidelberg Windmill

We welcome you to join us for a one-day introductory Windmill class! This is a wonderful opportunity to learn the set up and printing basics for the Heidelberg Windmill letterpress.

We’ll include tips and tricks for make ready, inking secrets, and printing onto a wide variety of papers (including envelopes!). Participants will have multiple opportunities to set up and run this fantastic letterpress. Class size is limited to 6 people.

To register, please send us an email. Payment may be sent online via Paypal or by mailing a check (made payable to Logos Graphics).

Job Planning for Letterpress
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
7-9 pm
$40

Have you ever wondered about using different papers? Or been confused by paper grain direction and its influence on printing? This class will cover a host of basic job planning strategies, from choosing the appropriate stock, laying out efficient press sheets, comparing increased letterpress plate costs versus printing multiple-up forms, etc. A must for both the beginner and advanced printer alike.

PCBA Salon: Screen Printing Tote Bags – free!
Saturday, April 24, 2010
1-4 pm

Come join us for an afternoon of free screen printing in anticipation of this year’s Pacific Center for the Book Arts Printers Fair.

We’ll screen print tote bags for sale at the fair. If you bring your own paper grocery shopping bags, you can screen print a few for yourself to take home too. You’ll have fun at this fast and easy process, and meet other PCBA members in this Saturday afternoon salon.

Pre-Press Class for Letterpress
Saturday, May 30, 2009
3-6 pm
Special low rate: $35

Windmill Zerts

Come find out how to reduce your film and plate costs with our prepress/file preparation tips! In this class, find out the most cost-effective way to prepare your files for plate production, saving you both time and money. We’ll cover digital layout schemes, handling Photoshop images, type, and little-known tricks for creating letterpress-friendly designs.

This class is a great opportunity to check out our Heidelberg Windmill letterpress. Participants will be eligible for a 15% discount on their next film or plate order from Logos Graphics!

We are happy to announce our upcoming Summer 2009 event schedule at Logos Graphics. This summer we will jump into more letterpress and screen printing fun!

For the very first time, we are also hosting free Salons that are open to the public! Through our Salon series, experienced printers and novices alike can come and enjoy an introductory demo of a printmaking process in a relaxed atmosphere. We’ll have a chance to meet you and show you our workflow through different printing methods, and through your feedback be able to better tailor our summer classes.

Depending on the response to our Salons, we may schedule more summer classes. As always, we welcome your suggestions for class topics. If you would like to register or discuss a class idea, please email us!

Salon 01: Screen Printing Aprons

Saturday, April 25, 2009
3-6 pm
Free!

Our first Salon is a casual gathering two weeks before the PCBA Printer’s and Book Arts Fair. We will screen print onto 100% cotton canvas aprons for the fair, covering the basic process of setting up a screen printing press for textiles, inks and appropriate squeegee techniques.

The aprons will be available for sale at the fair on Saturday May 9, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm at Fort Mason in San Francisco. More info on the fair is available at the PCBA website.

Salon 02: Screen Printing with Torn/Cut Paper Stencils

Saturday, May 16, 2009
3-6 pm
Free!

Our second Salon provides an excellent introduction to screen printing onto paper. We’ll have a live demonstration that includes tearing and cutting paper stencils, applying them to screens, using water-based inks and special squeegee techniques. This is a great option for those who favor quick, chance-based art forms.

Letterpress Recession Buster!

Saturday, May 30, 2009
3-6 pm
$35

Come find out how to reduce your film and plate costs with our prepress/file preparation tips! In this class, find out the most cost-effective way to prepare your files for plate production, saving you both time and money. We’ll cover digital layout schemes, handling Photoshop images, and little-known tricks for creating letterpress-friendly designs.

This class is a great opportunity to check out our Heidelberg Windmill letterpress. Participants will be eligible for a 15% discount on their next film or plate order from Logos Graphics!

Introduction to Paste Papers + Simple Accordion Books

Saturday, June 20, 2009
10 am to 5 pm
Cost = $50 (includes materials fee)

Paste papers are a fast way to whip up non-representational work onto paper. In the morning, we’ll show you how to make simple paste papers using a range of acrylic pigments and paper colors.

In the afternoon, we’ll take the paste papers from the a.m. session and create simple accordion book structures for you to take home, further decorate and share!

Introductory Heidelberg Windmill Letterpress Class

Saturday, July 18, 2009
10 am to 5 pm
Cost = $75

After some consideration, we’ve decided to create a one-day introductory Windmill class! This is a wonderful opportunity to learn the set up and printing basics for the Heidelberg Windmill letterpress. We’ll include tips and tricks for make ready, inking secrets, and printing onto a wide variety of papers (including envelopes!). Participants will have multiple opportunities to set up and run this fantastic letterpress. Class size is limited to 6 people.

Have you ever battled raggedy edges in Adobe Photoshop? When preparing your digital files for letterpress plates, the pixelated fringe surrounding type or graphics can make your printed piece look rough and uneven. Here are some tips for transforming those jaggedy edges into smooth, professional results.

Bitmap (Raster) vs. Vector Art

First of all, let’s define the functions of standard graphic software. Many designers and letterpress printers use Adobe Photoshop to create digital files for letterpress, where ragged edges tend to appear. Why does this happen in Photoshop, and not in Illustrator or InDesign?

The answer: Photoshop is a bitmap (also referred to as raster)-based program. It uses pixels to assign and manage both color and detail information. Because Photoshop works with a fixed number of pixels, the quality of a file is dependent upon its resolution (e.g., a higher resolution file = a higher quality print). However, when type or images are modified in Photoshop, fine details are often lost or compromised — that’s when fuzzy or jagged edges can emerge.

Unlike Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign are vector-based programs based on mathematical calculations that represent letterforms and images. Thus, type and graphics can be resized and printed while maintaining the same crisp edge quality.

Best of all, it’s a cinch to compose and format your page layout in InDesign. Within an InDesign document, you can create text blocks as well as place native Illustrator (.ai) and PDF files, all without compromising final output quality. Both Illustrator and InDesign can also generate PDF files which are convenient to show to your clients as soft proofs.

Scanning

Now that we’ve established the differences between software applications, let’s see how we can capture the best scan from your scanner.

When scanning images for letterpress, it’s best to turn sharpening off and increase the contrast between the image and its background. This prevents images from picking up small artifacts (such as white cavities in solid areas) and translates into a cleaner scan which is easier to edit in both Photoshop and Illustrator.

Here’s an example of how a scanned image looks, the first without sharpening and the second (bottom) with sharpening. Notice the small white cavities in the second image:

Using Illustrator’s Live Trace tool

Once you have scanned your image, how do you refine those uneven edges? Here’s a sample image that we scanned in grayscale mode at 350 dpi (top image); below is the same file, after it was run through Adobe Illustrator’s Live Trace tool:

Here’s how you can clean up those ragged edges:

• Open your file in Adobe Illustrator (CS3 recommended)
• Select the desired image or text using the Direct Selection tool (open arrow tool)
• Go to Object > Live Trace > Tracing Options
• Under Tracing Options, you’ll see a variety of options for our process. We’ll use the Threshold tool (on the left side of the Tracing Options dialog box, under Adjustments) to determine what we keep and discard of the image as it converts the bitmap information into vector art.
  
  
  
• Play with different Threshold values to see how much detail you lose or hold; each image will vary. Check the Preview box to the right to see the transformed image.
• Once you are satisfied with your image, you can scale it up or down without losing any detail. However, avoid decreasing the overall image size by more than 15% to prevent loss of finest detail.
• If using InDesign, you can simply place your modified Illustrator file in its native format (.ai). Otherwise, you can use the native Illustrator file or save it as a PDF file for plate-making purposes.
• *Article update (04/02/2009): For those without Adobe Illustrator, try out the free online vector program, Vector Magic, which can convert your photos and other bitmap-based images into vector art: www.vectormagic.com.

It’s warming up, and our Summer 2008 class schedule is now here! From June – August, we’ll be holding classes for intaglio, screen printing and letterpress. To register or find out more info, please email class@logosgraphics.net. All classes will be held at Logos Graphics. Here’s the scoop:

One-Week Summer Intaglio

• Wednesday, June 25 from 7-9 pm;
  Saturday, June 28 from 1-5 pm
• Cost: $85 + $15 materials fee
• Intaglio class syllabus

If you’re a photographer or printmaker, come to this introductory course and learn about the beautiful, easy and non-toxic process of intaglio. We’ll dive into each step of the intaglio process with the chance to make and take away fine art prints:

• Optimizing your digital photo files for photogravure
• Preparing ImagOn for copper plates
• Exposing the plates for printing
• Etching press fundamentals
• You’ll also get the chance to flex your freehand skills with alternative, non-photo techniques like toner wash-based printing!

One-Week Summer Screen Printing

• Wednesday, July 9 from 7-9 pm;
  Saturday, July 12 from 1-5 pm
• Cost: $85 + $15 materials fee
• Screen Printing class syllabus

Fancy making your very own shirts, bags, or posters? Try your hand at screen printing! We’ll cover essential foundation skills for screen printing using water-based inks. You’ll also have the opportunity to experiment with both paper and textiles.

Saturday Letterpress Sessions

Our popular Letterpress class series continues this summer, this time with specific topics requested by clients.

We teach a variety of “outside the manual” letterpress workshops, each conveniently held on a Saturday. Students who enroll in all three workshops qualify for a 15% discount on total fees.

Workshops include:

• Digital Pre-Press

  Saturday, July 19 from 1-5 pm
  Cost: $85

  This class is targeted at letterpress printers who use photopolymer plates, graphic designers and those who seek advanced digital pre-press production skills. We’ll show you the best way to lay out your digital files to be made into plates, efficient methods for converting bitmap type and graphics into vector outlines, and typographic fundamentals specific to letterpress.

  Students of this class qualify for a 10% discount on future plate orders from Logos Graphics.

• Black vs. Black

  Saturday, August 2 from 1-5 pm
  Cost: $85

  The perfect black can be elusive to letterpress printers! Come and solve the mystery between different black inks and their responses to a range of papers. We’ll compare sized vs. unsized papers, and use a densitometer to examine edge sharpness, ink strength, and film thickness between different black inks.

• Job Planning 101

Saturday, August 9 from 1-5 pm
Cost: $85

Have you ever printed a job and then found that you’ve accidentally (or unwittingly) skipped a step in your job planning? Come to this class of essential, but often underlooked, job planning skills.

We’ll cover everything you’ll need to know to successfully execute your next job and maximize your (often limited) budget too.

You’ll learn how to properly choose and trim the right paper, layout digital type and graphic files for film and plate-making, determine the appropriate press sheet size, set up complex jobs (double-sided, tumbled or work-and-turn print jobs), as well as set the order of printing multiple pieces. A must for all printers.