Getting Creative

Over the past few weeks in FCP-land, we've been getting a bit creative. Each Friday for the last three weeks have been dedicated to learning a new skill and it's been a lot of fun.

First of all, we learnt how to do mono printing. This is a really easy process and all you need is:

• Acrylic paint
• A roller (or two)
• Newspaper
• A sheet of acetate 
• A few A4 sheets of paper or a magazine 
• A cutting mat and scalpel

We started by lying down some old paper, making sure that the table didn't get too messy, and then placed the acetate on top. Next, we chose our colour of paint and squirted a small amount onto the acetate, before spreading it across with the roller. 

As we were focusing on typography at the time, we cut out some stencils for our initials. This is completely up to you but a good starting point; however a magazine is also a good place to find different fonts and shapes. Once we'd got our stencil ready, we placed it down onto the paint, and then followed this by placing a sheet of paper (plain A4, a magazine page, or whatever you have) on top. You can either use another, clean, roller to make sure all of the paint gets in to contact with the paper or, like I did, just use your fingers. 

The final outcome looks really effective if you've used a sheet of paper that has something on it, like a magazine or newspaper. If you want to have the paint in the shape of the stencil, use a scalpel to cut out of the image, and place the surrounding paper on to the paint instead of the cut out. 

I loved doing this, because it doesn't matter if you get messy and things don't quite go to plan - it's all just experimenting! My favourite outcome is the 'YES' print, because the typography really stands out, as does the pink paint on the dark background. 

The next process we learnt about was the old-fashioned printing press, and we got to experiment, again, with our initials. The guys from Pop Press in Nottingham came in to talk to us and teach us how to do it. They were really informative and it was so interesting to learn that some of the letters have been around for hundreds of years. 

We pressed our letters on to the back of the business cards that the tutors had printed out for us. Therefore, this workshop acted as a first experiment towards making our own business cards for out self promotion project. 

Admittedly, this is my least favourite technique because it was one of those things that you kind of had to get right first time and there wasn't much space for messing up. 

Pop Press is located on St. James Street in Nottingham, NG1 6FG, and I think you can book letter press workshops. Their work is professional and so cool, and the process itself is very interesting - I'll link their website here. 

Our third and final workshop was book binding, where we learnt how to create booklets through different folding techniques and how to stitch a book together. 

It turns out that book binding isn't my forte, but once you get the hang of it, it is actually a simple process. We learnt the 'beak' technique and were also given instructions to the 'trouser' technique and a concertina-like technique, but unfortunately we ran out of time to have a go at these. 

We were advised to purchase a bone folder and if you're thinking of doing something like this, a bone folder is a must. It makes folding so SO much easier and creates a cleaner fold. You also must make sure that you have a proper bookbinding needle and thread, as they're thicker and a standard sewing needle and thread just won't make it through. 

Having a different workshop each week made the course a lot more fun, and even though the mono printing was my personal favourite (and definitely the easiest), I really want to carry on practising and experimenting with bookbinding. It's always good to have some different skills under your belt, and even if I don't make hand made books for the rest of my course, I like the idea of being able to make little notebooks for presents and friends and family! 

Georgia.xo