First Poster Run

We decided to knock out a run of posters to start informing the locals about our new Cabal. We went for a partially hand-drawn/partially Photoshop'd design, printed on to A2 paper. Three colours for the craic.

The vacuum table is great, but it's noisy enough to alarm the dog and disturb the humans. Are you just as well off with tape and spray adhesive? Probably. You just need more time on your hands.

(Poster artwork and poorly-lit photos by Rhona Flynn at Print Cabal.)

We're working on pricing for posters, trying to make it as cheap as possible, because we really like screen-printed posters. Turns out paper is made from trees and costs money though, so we're having to shave a few cents off the beer budget to make it feasible for all you famously cash-strapped musicians to afford the service. We'll keep you posted.

BigScreen!

We have two fairly big screens here that make banners, flags, totally oversize tshirts, big posters and artwork all decidedly possible. One is a nice wide 43 mesh for printing on fabric, and the other is a yellowed 120 for paper prints. They're pretty big. This big:

Did we mention we like oversize prints? Probably. Well these screens have a maximum print area of 80cm x 45cm, and it's hard to help yourself from playing with them.

So, to burn a big screen you need a big acetate. Or, three acetates, some patience, and some cellotape.

Obviously when it comes to printing with this thing, the carousel is out of the question. We did our test-run just laid on a tabletop. No clamps or anything. Pure gnarly living-on-the-edge stuff, innit.

 And there you have it. Go big or go home.

Smiley Dogg

We got to do another hand-sketched print recently too, this time for Smiley Dogg Tattoo in Cork.

The artwork is by Beggy Bex (aka Smiley Dogg tattooist Kuba).

Printed on black tshirts and vests, Smiley Dogg availed of our 'no extra charge' deal on colours, and got the same design printed in four different colour inks - including a pretty sweet mellow lime colour that we custom mixed just for them.

Each shirt/vest also had a nice little print on the back with the shop name, again drawn by hand.

You can pick up one of these shirts through Smiley Dogg - and go check out the BeggyBex page on Facebook for more of Kuba's artwork and tattoos.

Printing with Fire

We printed merch recently for Cork City Firebirds, Cork's roller derby league.
The logo (designed by Holly Burgess Graphic Design) presented a problem in terms of traditional screen printing. Screen printing is generally a flat, colour-separated printing process - where each colour is printed as a separate layer, using a separate screen.
The Firebirds logo however, has this whole fiery, fuzzy, blended-colours thing going on:

So, we decided to mess around with it. We burned a nice fat, oversized logo onto one screen. After that, it was just a matter of dolloping (technical term) some yellow, orange, and red inks on, and having some fun.

The result was some that were just like the logo, with the hazy mix of colours blending out gradually from red to yellow. 

And then some with this really great flame effect from the mixing of inks. 

Sure, we could've made them all look the same, but the Firebirds liked the variety, and so did we.

They also had a different shirt printed too, with their team motto 'A Little Violence Never Hurt Anybody' printed in a custom-mixed red/orange ink.

These oversize prints really eat up the ink, especially when you're blending colours, but it's worth it. As your mother used to say, Go Big or Go Home.

Check out Cork City Firebirds on Facebook or on Twitter at #FirebirdsDerby

Holy Cow! We're workin late again!

Late night at the studio knocking out t-shirts for Holy Cow Tattoo in Midelton. 

Running down the last few prints round midnight, any ol' caffeine will do...

Sweet little crest on the front, white ink on black t-shirts. 

Nice full-size back print too, another hand-sketched drawing by Ross Daly at Holy Cow. This print is directly from the sketch - you can still see the light and heavy weights of the pencil in this detail of the print. Photoshop is awesome, but we love hand-drawn designs too...

Cheers to Ross Daly & John Taylor at Holy Cow.
You can get one of these shirts for yourself directly from their shop.