Work in progress

The upside of completing my MA earlier this month is that I have time to create new work and return to projects on I'd put on hold to focus on my major project. This image is part of a work in progress  for an experimental piece I am will print by combining silkscreen and etching techniques.

The original image is from The National Archive and is called 'Side view of a pig feeding' and is dated somewhere between 1869-1955.

Prints & Books

I started the Prints and Books blog around five years ago when I was setting up the Print Area for the BA Graphic Design course at University for the Creative Arts, Epsom. It was originally called the Print Area blog and was published on the course website.

Prints and Books is now independent from any institutions and websites but is still aimed at UK students as well as anybody interested in printmaking and bookbinding. I post about upcoming exhibitions and events, showcase artists, list resources, courses, promote competitions and opportunities and link to relevant websites.

There is also Pinterest account for Prints and Books which links to many tutorials, artists, studios and communities. The picture below shows a few of the Prints and Books Pinterest boards.

Work in progress: Keep on running letterpress and silkscreen print

Here is a sneak peek of my current project combining letterpress, digital design and silkscreen printing, this is at the pre-silkscreen stage of the process.

Pigment and papers research project

This is one of the outcomes from a research project I am working on. More to follow.

Click to see the details.

Malfunction glitch iphone case review

Last month I decided that I wanted a new case for my phone, and I really wanted to design my own, so I found Society6 and uploaded a few glitchy screen grabs from .avi files. I got a bit carried away and ended up drawing lots of little letters and making a completely different set of patterns and producing a range of cases, cushions, cards and other patterned bits. 

After much deliberation about which case to buy for myself I decided upon Malfunction as well as ordering a Leopard spots cushion.

I am still waiting for the cushion, but the phone case arrived this morning. I can't quite believe the quality of the case, the colours are super bright and really pop out, much more so than the images on the website. I was also concerned about the print quality of using an image zoomed in on a low resolution screen grab of a pixelated glitch, luckily it looks great.

The cases are made by Casemate and are much more sturdy than the last one I bought from the Apple store which snapped by the camera hole within a couple of months. I have uploaded a photo of the inside of the case which shows a thin gel cushion which is there to protect the phone.

My only complaint about the case is the fact it was sent from America, which meant it incurred a £12 charge for VAT and customs charges. Luckily I ordered it during a free worldwide shipping promotion so the overall cost wasn't too high, but it's still not nice to get an unexpected email from customs. The cushions do not incur duty charges, so at least I don't have to pay extra on my cushion too.

I am on the look out for a similar company to print phone cases within Europe so that anybody buying a phone case will not be stung with an additional £12. I think this will be hard because the quality of the Society6 cases are so good and I don't want to compromise the quality to make it a little cheaper.

[Update: 7 months of use later and the case is still just as good as when I first wrote this review and it has saved my screen from smashes and cracks more than once.]