chooprint giclee print journal

Sites I like

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Scaife) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:50:00 +0000

I’m interested in records as objects and I like record sleeve design. I don’t mean album covers but the generic seeves of the record company that non-picture sleeve singles were sold in. I came across a website I found very interesting called record envelope. The site has images of lots of record sleeves mostly from the sixties and seventies. I like the way that the designs are all built around a circle placed central to a square, and how they use that in one way or another.

Some of the designs, such as one for a German label called Amiga, build the design around the circle and then others will intersect it and use it as a disruptive element (the Vocallion and Kent sleeves for instance).

Another site I like is grain edit. Lots of interesting graphic design stuff.

New Homepage Layout

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Scaife) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 08:47:00 +0000

I’ve finally posted up the new css version of the homepage, which I’ve been working on for a while, not least because I’ve had to learn css layout to do it. Anyone interested in the more technical aspects can follow this link: http://www.glish.com/css/

The homepage has been through three versions so far - the first two were built using html tables and flash. The beauty of laying out with css is that it cuts down on the code which underlies your web page thus making it more efficient (i.e, it’ll load into the browser faster) and it is much better for people who use screen readers etc to navigate the web.

I’ve also cut out the flash content because it might look nice but doesn’t actually add any usability advantages to the site.

Now I’ve learnt enough css to lay out the homepage I’ll be working my way through the rest of the site, as I find time to do it.

noreply@blogger.com (Lyn Medcalf) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:45:00 +0000

Last week when the October issue of Elle Decoration dropped through the letterbox I grabbed it with even more enthusiasm than usual. Speed reading through I found one of Ian's prints, 'Cylinders' on page 136. It felt good... we had hoped that we might get something in, having been asked to send a print into the Elle Decoration offices in early August. But until you see the issue itself you never know.

We are now watching the numbers visiting chooprint.com to see if it has generated any extra interest. We had sent two press packs into Elle Decoration before they telephoned and asked to see 'Cylinders'.

Ian's 'Orange Circles' was in the September 07 issue of Grand Designs. That generated sales as well as extra site traffic. More recently we have had images in two local magazines Living South in June and Rise in August . These also came through press packs that we have sent out. Well worth the effort.

A Bit of Background....

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Scaife) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 07:48:00 +0000

Chooprint came about originally because we became excited by the possibilities of digital printmaking. Lyn and Pedro were doing a postgraduate course in digital artwork and animation, and the design office I was working in had a large format digital printer capable of producing large areas of flat brilliant colour. I became very interested in how I could apply it to my own artwork. I also liked it because it’s a semi-industrial modern process - similar to screen printing which I’ve also worked in and found very satisfying.

One thing I didn't realise at the time is that art produced on a high quality inkjet printer has a name - giclée. Follow this link for more information: www.giclee-information.org/giclee_history.html

The first decision we had to make was what size of prints we wanted to produce and which model of printer to buy. There was an overwhelming (and confusing) choice on offer. We decided to buy a Hewlett Packard Designjet 130, capable of producing A2+ size prints, on paper up to 300gsm, which seemed reasonably priced at around £1000, and was well reviewed. This later turned out to be a mistake which I’ll go into further on.

We tried several different papers and settled on Somerset Enhanced Velvet 225gsm. After experimenting with different settings and output from different file formats we found that the best most predictable results were achieved using Photoshop native (.psd) or tiff files.

We’ve all developed our own ways of working - I tend to work on my ideas initially in a sketchbook which I’ll then take into illustrator. Once I’ve got an artwork which is ready for output, I’ll open it up in photoshop and save it as a tiff file. From there I’ll produce a series of A4 size proofs output from the printer, tweaking the colour settings until I’m happy with the result.

Another early decision was to use a website to show and sell the work, which seemed appropriate given the digital origins of the prints. Putting the work on a website also allows us to show the work how and when we want to - effectively running an online gallery.

I put the website together and we decided on a name - chooprint.com - chosen for it’s quirkiness. The website went online in early 2006.

The problem with the Designjet printer emerged a few months after we bought it, and was down to the type of ink used in the machine. What we didn’t realise to begin with is that there are two different types of ink used in inkjet printing - dye based inks and pigment inks. Dye based inks give a more brilliant colour but are less stable than pigment inks - the Designjet uses dye based ink.

There was a noticable fading in the prints after a month or two, and the tendency to do this seemed particularly strong in colours towards the reddish end of the spectrum. We made enquiries to see if the problem could be resolved by using a different paper type, which led to us doing our own lightfastness tests - mostly through exposing printed samples to direct sunlight and comparing the results. In the end we made a decision to swap the Designjet for a printer which used pigment inks.

Ultimately, we decided, prints output using dye based inks would not be considered true fine art giclee prints. We sold our original printer on ebay and bought an Epson 3800 large format printer, which is the printer we currently use.

noreply@blogger.com (Lyn Medcalf) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:55:00 +0000

Chooprint.com is an online gallery selling giclee prints. We, Lyn Medcalf Ian Scaife and Peter Currey, began working together on chooprint a couple of years ago. It was a simple idea to set up a website to sell our own prints and possibly in the future to sell other artists work.

I don't think any of us anticipated the amount of work and energy we would need to put into chooprint to get it up and running. It has been, and still is, a helter skelter of a learning curve. It has also been really, really enjoyable.

First entry

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Scaife) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 10:37:00 +0000

This is my first entry, to make sure it all works. More to follow shortly...