Screenprinting with Second Block

One of the greatest pleasures of working in the design industry is getting the chance to work with other creatives on a regular basis. As a designer, you never stop learning, and quite often, you learn a lot just from being in the presence of someone with even the slightest difference in perspective than your own. While working on a recent project, I got the opportunity to work with Josh Sager of Second Block Studio on a run of screenprinted posters. 

Nice thick stack of French Speckletone paper, freshly printed.

I met Josh while studying Graphic Design in college a few years ago. He was a web instructor at the school I was attending, and his passion for his craft was always contagious. He's certainly one of the hardest-working folks I've ever met, but it seems somewhat effortless... Having a passion for your work doesn't wear you down quite like it should. He, and his wife Rachel, the other half of Second Block, are both the "jack-of-all-trades" types. Design, illustration, teaching, speaking... they do it all. The team, in collaboration with Will Rutherford, even self-published an illustrated book this past year. Needless to say, the project was a great experience.

My involvement in the project ended with the artwork, and a little help cutting some paper. Luckily, always ready to share his knowledge, Josh was more than willing to have me visit their studio and learn a bit more about screenprinting. For being a long-time collector of posters, the printing was something I had never done. Over a few beers from East End Brewery, I got a nice first hand look at the process, as well as a handful of insider tips and tricks. And of course, as tends to happen when two design-lovin' fools get in the same room, there was plenty of nerd talk.

I can't thank Josh enough for sharing his wisdom, and I am looking forward to working more with Second Block Studio in the near future.

In the meantime - make sure you go to Handmade Arcade this Saturday, December 8th at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh. Lots of nice folks will be there slingin' handmade goods, Second Block included. So swing by, grab a few stocking stuffers for a loved one, and support a great group of people.

Second Block on the web: secondblockstudio.com

Second Block on the Twitter: @Second_Block

Flirt with trends, dont be trendy.

While I normally try to avoid trends completely, sometimes a project calls for a design style that falls in line with what currently happens to be trendy. Other times, you purposefully want a trendy look in order to compete, such as in fashion... because obviously, what is in style right now is what sells product. No one is making much money off bolo ties these days, are they? 

But problems arise when popular aesthetic changes, and your work becomes dated. This is especially apparent in the tech and web industries in my opinion, simply because those industries are advancing at light speed (Someone, please invent a spaceship that can go light speed).

So what's the trick to appearing fresh when you launch a project, but having your hard work stay relevant for decades? Flirt with the trends, but dont be trendy.

By all means, use that color that everyone loves right now. But while you are at it, open up an old design book. Study the GE logo. Study the Nabisco or the AT&T logo. Learn the masters. When you understand the principles of a timeless design, it doesn't matter what the current trend is. A great design can be used in any setting and take advantage of any trend. Sit down and actually thinking about what it is that people like, rather than just giving it to them no questions asked. A thoughtful designer can always find a way to capitalize on what is popular without sacrificing those tried and true rules. It's all about figuring out what people really want. When you hit the mark, they won't even notice that your work isn't trendy, nor will they care.

Copyrights

Stealing artwork is nothing new by any means, but recently, I've seen a number of high profile designs get blatantly ripped off by not-so-subtle thieves. Unfortunately, the way that copyright law is written in the US, it is very hard to protect your own artwork, as long as the thief is either in a different industry than you, or if the theft does not bring much profit. In each of the three cases I've seen this month, the circumstances were quite different. In the first, involving a local screen-print shop and a large media company, a newspaper had taken an illustration drawn by the screen printers, removed the logo, and was printing that same illustration on free handouts to the public.

In a second instance, an extremely popular video game company published an illustration that was stylistically similar to a very famous poster designer, and actually used one or two of the exact same elements from the artist's most famous poster.

And finally, in a third case, a well-known illustrator found one of his pieces (originally drawn for a HUGE athletic brand), traced to nearly 100% accuracy for sale on a stock-vector graphics site.

As far as I know, in none of these cases was any legal action taken. And while some folks are up in arms about how artists need to fight for their copyrights, unfortunately it is usually an impossible battle. In every case here, the thief was actually a much larger company, complete with much larger legal teams, that could easily bankrupt any self-employed artist through the long drawn-out process it takes to fight these things. Additionally, is it really in our best interest to fight such thefts? Maybe we, as artists, are better off in a world where stolen art is not only brushed under the rug and ignored, but commonplace. Of the millions of companies in the world, what are the chances that the last logo you sold to a client is somewhat similar to a design someone else created years ago? How many folks would be left in our industry if every single design we tried to publish, or every idea we tried to convey, or every style we used had to be 100% original?

The bottom line is that we, as artists, borrow things. Since there isnt a clear line drawn in the sand between borrow and steal, it is hard to ban one thing, without banning the other. So I applaud artists who continually let their artwork to be stolen, and take it in stride. It is going to happen to all of us. Someday, something you have done will be stolen, or borrowed by another artist, or at the very least, your work is going to inspire someone else's work. I'm sure it is infuriating, or even frustrating, that some people can't do their own thing. By all means, send a seize-and-desist over that blatant theft... but then take a good hard look at your own work, and realize how you got to where you are today thanks to the work of others.