Design for web: Flat design

Flat design is a minimalistic design approach that emphasises usability. It features clean, open space, crisp edges, bright colours and two-dimensional/flat illustrations.

 This website is simple, although the text is rather large on the logo side. It gets it's point across. The flat design here is mostly applied within the navigation bar and this is shown to be a rather common element applied within the other websites. The use of the off-key black is a good touch, It's dark enough to draw your attention but not so much to draw you in too far.

This website makes full use of the flat design look, taking it so far it's used in the portraits of the men in the clothing section. They've used colour really effectively here, using the red to guide you up and down the website. 

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 The use of photography combined with flat design is really effective especially like the website about. The framing of the light blue line pulls it all together. Although they've only use the one colour it really works well.

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One benefit to the use of flat design is that it's very easy to create playful looking designs such as this while still remaining faithfully functional. This website worked that really well as seen above it used shapes on string you could throw about, all fill but the interactivity is what the main bit.

 T- The strong use of red and blue here are really effective, however like with all the rest what pulls it all together is the white. From looking at these websites it's evident that white is one of the main ingredients as well as fill colours, large or small.

 Off white is a colour used often to compliment the softer tones used of more vibrant colours such as the red and green here present.

Design for Print: Commercial Costings

Newspaper club prices:

Expensive for Traditional printing which I would suspect to be lithography? / Digital printing is used for the other newspapers which is a whole load lot cheaper.

Print in bulk it's going to be very expensive.

Obviously commercial print is going to cost a lot, but picking the most appropriate and cost effective method to print with. 

Each method and process obviously all have their pros and cons and knowing them is vital if you want to pick a process to print with especially if you’re going to be paying for it.

For example: Screen printing is very time consuming, with each colour having to take up a separate screen as well as it having to be done by hand. But once you’ve done the setup printing off lots of copies is incredibly fast and easy. 

While something like lithography is incredibly fast and cheap, unlike digital printing which is slow but high quality. 

When you do commercial print, you’re not just going to be paying for the print, if you were to say, stapled book, you will be paying for the whole process in creating it, not just for the print.

So that would make it more expensive then just a leaflet using the same printing method. 

Design for print: Survey

I created my questionnaire for people to answer on survey monkey, despite that I didn't really get many answers, I tried to contact Tom the admit but he refused to sent it around to the different courses so I couldn't easily get many answers. I did get 2 so it's something at least. 

What they say is that they'd like to basically know everything like screen printing, embossing laser cutting. A reference guide would be very useful and a glossary would be good too. Referral to the pack after graduation is something they'd use too.

Design for print: Finishing Methods

Laser cutting

Laser cutting is a precise method of cutting a design from a given material using a CAD file to guide it. There are three main types of lasers used in the industry: CO2 lasers Nd and Nd-YAG. We use CO 2 machines. This involves firing a laser which cuts by melting, burning or vaporizing your material. You can achieve a really fine level of cutting detail on with a wide variety of materials. Bare in mind that CO 2 lasers can’t cut metals and hard materials, they can however engrave them.

Die-cutting

Die cutting is a manufacturing process used to generate large numbers of the same shape from a material such as wood, plastic, metal, or fabric. The die cut shapes are sometimes called “blanks,” because they are usually finished and decorated before being sold. The process is widely used on an assortment of materials all over the world, and many manufactured products contain several die cut components, often assembled together in a series of steps to create a finished product.

Foiling

Foil stamping is a special kind of printing procedure where heat, pressure, and a metallic paper (foil) is used to create different shiny designs and graphics on various materials. Foil stamping gives the stamped design a shiny and incredible look and is increasingly becoming the preferred method of printing in many an industry.

Foil stamping is also referred to as hot stamping (because of the use of heat), foil printing, dry stamping, and leaf stamping. There are various types of foil stamping that can be used depending on your design needs.

Varnishing

Fine varnish can be sprayed on to the surface of card. When dry this gives a gloss finish and helps protect the printing underneath. The printing and colour work must be completed before this process takes place. Also, folding a package takes place after the varnish has been applied.

Different types of varnish are available. The most popular are oil and water based varnishes. In either case, the varnish takes at least two hours to dry. This may be a disadvantage especially if the card is being used for a package - as it means it can not be folded straight away.

UV-varnishing

Special varnishes dry almost straight away if they are exposed to ultra violet light. (UV light). The varnish is sprayed on to the paper / card in the same way as other varnishes. However, after spraying the card passes underneath UV lights which dries the varnish almost instantaneously. 

One disadvantage is that this type of machinery is expensive to purchase. However, it produces an excellent gloss finish to the card / paper.

Spot-varnishing

A special effect that puts an overprint varnish only on specific areas of a printed piece, spot varnish is often used to make a photograph pop off the page, highlight drop caps, or to create texture and subtle images on the page.

Embossing

Embossing refers to the creation of an impression of some kind of design, decoration, lettering or pattern on another surface like paper, cloth, metal and even leather, to make a relief. In regular printing or an engraving, plates are pressed against the surface to leave an imprint. In embossing however, the pressing raises the surfaces adding a new dimension to the object.

Lamination

Lamination is a process of protecting documents through applying film of plastic on documents. It is a good way of protecting documents from damage and also from wear and tear. Laminated documents are waterproof and tear proof.

Debossing

There are several debossing techniques. A blind deboss is used with screen-printing or foil stamping. With the screen process, the art or design is first printed onto the material and then the outline of the print is debossed using a die exactly registered to the silk screen print. In foil stamping, the foil is transferred to the material using a special die and then the same die is used to deboss the area. Debossing is less complicated than embossing, and when done in conjunction with silk screen printing, it results in a colourful and more detailed rendering of artwork and lettering.

Design for Print: Stock & Substrates Considerations

Carton board
A material of defined thickness and weight made from one or more layers of fibrous cellulose material to form a rigid or semi-rigid construction.

Cartridge paper
Paper made from chemical woodpulp having good strength and a rough surface.

Duplex board
A multi ply construction of a board made predominately from mechanical pulp but with a bleached chemical pulp liner.

Is paper biodegradable?

Wood-fiber based paper is made with cellulose derived from the plant’s structural material. Just as a log will rot if left to the effects of nature, paper made from woody material will likewise degrade. All will biodegrade. If the paper contains any human made plastic fibers, it will be resistant to biodegradation because soil organisms are unable to break down the stronger chemical bonds present in synthetic materials.

Coated paper

Coating is a process by which paper or board is coated with an agent to improve brightness or printing properties. By applying PCC, china clay, pigment or adhesive the coating fills the miniscule pits between the fibres in the base paper, giving it a smooth, flat surface which can improve the opacity, lustre and colour-absorption ability. Various blades and rollers ensure the uniform application of the coating.

Different levels of coating are used according to the paper properties that are required. They are divided into light coated, medium coated, high coated, and art papers - art paper is used for the high quality reproduction of artwork in brochures and art books.

Uncoated paper

Not all paper is coated. Uncoated paper is typically used for letterheads, copy paper, or printing paper. Most types of uncoated paper are surface sized to improve their strength. Such paper is used in stationary and lower quality leaflets and brochures.

Laid paper:

Laid paper is a type of paper having a ribbed texture imparted by the manufacturing process. In the pre-mechanical period of European paper making (from the 12th century into the 19th century), laid paper was the predominant kind of paper produced. Its use, however, diminished in the 19th century, when it was largely supplanted by wove paper. Laid paper is still commonly used by artists as a support for charcoal drawings.

Matte paper
Unlike glossy paper, matte paper produces nice quality prints but does not have that vibrant color finish. Matte paper is not vulnerable to being marred by fingerprints and it produces a non-glare photo. Types of matte inkjet paper include photo quality matte, premium (professional) grade, double-sided matte, and semi-matte.

Gloss paper
Glossy photo quality paper is designed to make printed photos look sharp, vibrant and more like a traditional photograph. Handling of glossy paper is important as the paper can quickly and easily be marred by fingerprints and dirt. Glossy photo paper comes in several varieties including a specialty color protect or color life paper, semi-gloss and premium (professional) grade.

PCW paper (Post-consumer waste paper):

Post-consumer waste is a waste type produced by the end consumer of a material stream; that is, where the waste-producing use did not involve the production of another product.

Quite commonly, it is simply the garbage that individuals routinely discard, either in a waste receptacle or a dump, or by littering, incinerating, pouring down the drain, or washing into the gutter.

Post-consumer waste is distinguished from pre-consumer waste, which is the reintroduction of manufacturing scrap (such as trimmings from paper production, defective aluminum cans, etc.) back into the manufacturing process. Pre-consumer waste is commonly used in manufacturing industries, and is often not considered recycling in the traditional sense.

Glass:
Glass allows for a lot of different uses such as engraving and shaping It's very versatile and great for packaging.

Frosted glass:
Frosted glass is produced by the sandblasting or acid etching of clear sheet glass. It has the effect of rendering the glass translucent by scattering of light during transmission, thus blurring images while still transmitting light.

Foil bag:

Aluminum:

Wood:

Rubber:

Vinyl: