Screen printing is a stencil method of print making in which a design is imposed on a screen of silk or other fine mesh, with blank areas coated with an impermeable substance, and ink is forced through the mesh onto the printing surface. Also known as Silk Screening or Serigraphy.

Based on the presentation and presentation on silk screen printing by Rena Karanouh, the technique that interests me the most is transferring drawing or sketches to acetate. As matter of fact silkscreen printing is a marvelous thing, with the use of it you can transform simple sketches or drawings into great pieces of art.

examples of silk screen printing:

We went on a fild trip to Sanita/Unipac/Endevco and learned about the way they print all sort of packages. I found it very interesting and was amazed by the numerous steps and procedure we need to go through in order to have good results. From decomposing the colors, to creating the plates, printing, cutting molds and folding the packages. My preference however is for poster fine art and book or magazine printing on materials like special paper or canvas.

A company in lebanon that specializes in professional printing in those fields is “53 dots”

Here are some examples of their work:

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I think letters are fascinating, each one of them is special in its own way. I love letters and typography, their structure, their potential in design and all of their variations.

My favorite letters in the alphabet are : W, Y and G because of their complexity and the way we can play with them.

Here are some examples were letters have been manipulated in an interesting way:

Chair alphabet by amandine alessandra

pop-up letters book

anatomical type

action types

heavy metal type

“Business Information Technology Application Software” is a french company in beirut, specialized in games development, interactive simulation and cartooning.

Two of the PHD doctors of this company came to give a presentation at LAU. I personally thought it was a very boring one because none of the informations or fields they discussed interests me and I thought they were very unprofessional, pretending to be part of an important thing.I even asked myself if they were really PHD Doctors???

The only things that captured my attention are the details in a video game like the switches between day and night, the fishes underwater with the air bubbles…

If i was to describe myself as a designer, i would say these things:

I basically like designs that are very simple,clean and clear.

I work most of the time with black white and one additional color depending on the project.

I prefer working on illustrator than photoshop and indesign.

I love working with type and newspaper.

I prefer concept to aesthetics.

My favourite projects :

Materials I would love to work with are newspapers and bubble wraps.

Here are examples of fashion items made out of these materials :

Icons, symbols and signs invade our world and every day life. We find them everywhere and they exist for almost everything !!!

Icons :

The smiley icons are my all time favorite, they exist to express emotions, attitudes, feelings, states of mind…

I think they are incredibly cute and fun.

Ideograms :

An ideogram or ideograph is a graphic  symbol that represents an idea, rather than a group of letters arranged according to the phonemes of a spoken language, as is done in alphabetic languages, or a strictly representational picture of a subject as may be done in illustration or photography. 

Phonograms:

Gardiner’s Sign List were he only lists the most common forms of Egyptian hieroglyphs, but he includes extensive subcategories, and also both vertical and horizontal forms for many hieroglyphs. He includes size-variation forms to aid with the reading of hieroglyphs in running blocks of text.

Pictograms :

badminton pictogram

Boxing pictogram

polo pictogram

symbols:

Out of the myths in the handout “Print Design and Environmental Responsability”, I think that myth 2, which mentions that “There is limited market demand for environmentally responsible design and print production” is true.

As matter of fact only a few companies and businesses use responsible design and print production because they are seen more as art then science and taken for granted. As matter of fact only a few are aware of the existence of ecological and environmental-friendly ways and even if they are aware the costs make them stay on the traditional ways that have bad environmental impacts.

the increase attention to environmental responsibility should be an opportunity for designers to be become critical advisors to corporations on how to reduce their negative impacts without compromising the imperative for product differentiation and promotion through design and printing, without it having huge differences on the costs.

Fumi Masuda is the director of the EcoDesign Institute, professor of the Design Department at Tokyo Zokei University , President of Open house Inc., member of the Japan Design consultant Association and founder of O2 Global Network in Japan. He devotes most of his time to a design consultant for smaller local industries and as a teacher at universities specializing in sustainable design. His company, Open House, develops electric gadgets, tools, home appliances and, like he says, “what you want me to….”

Fumi masuda’s concept of sustainable design:

Sustainable design is not design to sustain our society  because our society is not sustainable anymore. So we have to re-think and start again, to build something new. We should come back to learn from nature. The concept of waste is something that mankind has created. There is no waste in nature. Everything just goes in circles, everything is recycled, including us. So, it is our responsibility to reuse products again and again until they can not be used like a product anymore, but as a material. This is recycling. I am quite optimistic in this way. In Japan there are good efforts from big companies: Ricoh is recirculating the actual copy machines they made years ago and have re-appropriated and repaired them; Fuji is producing recycled film. That is what we have to do. It is not necessary to excavate natural resources anymore, there is enough material available to us already.

Sustainable design also referred to as “green design”, “eco-design”, or “design for environment” is the art of designing physical objects, the built environment and services to comply with the principles of economic, social and ecological sustainability. It ranges from the microcosm of designing small objects for everyday use, through to the macrocosm of designing buildings, cities, and the earth’s physical surface. It is a growing trend within the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, urban planning, engineering, graphic design, industrial design, interior design and fashion design. 

The needed aim of sustainable design is to produce places, products and services in a way that reduces use of non-renewable resources , minimizes environmental impact, and relates people with the natural environment. Sustainable design is often viewed as a necessary tool for achieving sustainability. It is related to the more heavy-industry-focused fields of industrial ecology  and green chemistry, sharing tools such as life cycle assessment to judge the environmental impact or “greenness” of various design choices.

Sustainable Print  and Package Design :

Christmas Card

Eco-friendly presentation folder:

• An earthy, elegant solution to presentation marketing
  
• Made of 100% post-consumer recycled chipboard
  
• Printed with low VOC-emitting, renewable vegetable-based inks
  
• It’s a cost-effective solution – priced equivalent to a PF-105 folder printed on a Group I-priced paper stock
• The perfect way to “green up” your presentations

The Uruku Lipstick package from Aveda and Estée Lauder .

Ben & Jerry’s Ice cream package

The HP Protect Messenger Bag 

made from 100% recycled materials, the customer takes home the computer in the stylish messenger bag without any packaging

Treepac is a new design concept for solving the problem of single use 

Eco-Friendly DVD Package

Sustainable Flour Packaging

These products show the capabilities of sustainable print, they are made of :

-New Leaf Paper 100% Recycled

-Soy-Based Inks and Varnishes

-Chemistry Free Plates

-Energy Efficient Press

-100% Wind Power