Foundation Press at Pop Recs, Sunderland

Last week Foundation Press were setting up and displaying risograph posters by Foundation Press and collaborators made for the upcoming gigs at Pop Recs in Sunderland.

I had participated in a couple of the sessions with Foundation Press to create the typography and the background imagery for the posters, and look forward to seeing the full range of designs over the next few months.

 

Colour blending with Foundation Press

Following on from the weekend typeface workshop at Pop Recs, I went to the home of Foundation Press in the National Glass Centre, Sunderland to join them for some riso printing.

Foundation Press are collaboratively designing printed posters for upcoming gigs and events at Pop Recs, the independent record shop / cafe / arts space / venue in Sunderland. They will print a new set of posters exploring the colour blending possibilities of risograph printers and hand-made experimental typefaces. 

Today we began making printing templates for the poster backgrounds using geometric shapes, patterns and colour blends. 

The risograph printer resembles a photocopier, and works in a similar way. A colour drum is inserted into the riso. The riso prints one colour at a time. A greyscale image is placed face down onto the photocopy bed, and the riso copier is programmed to make a master template. The image is transferred onto the roller, and then multiple copies can be made. Every time the colour is changed, the master template needs to be transferred onto the newly inserted roller. 

Riso works really well for layering different colours on top of each other, and it is possible to create interesting colour blends.

Here are some of my tests using 3 colours: teal, fluorescent pink and yellow.

We also tried some other designs.

Then began to incorporate the text that we had done at the weekend.

Some were more successful combinations than others.

Foundation Press Workshop at Pop Records, Sunderland

The weekend got off to a great creative start as I participated in a workshop run by Foundation Press. Foundation Press is an experimental printing press, operating as a space for testing collaborative approaches to printing and publishing. It is currently run by Debbie Bower, Adam Phillips and Joe Woodhouse with students from the Foundation Diploma Art & Design course at University of Sunderland.



This was the first of two workshops to collaboratively design printed posters for upcoming gigs and events at Pop Recs in Sunderland, an independent record shop, cafe, arts space and venue.

Inspired by simple but iconic text posters like those made by Colby Poster Printing Co in L.A – Foundation Press will print a new set of posters exploring the colour blending possibilities of risograph printers and hand-made experimental typefaces.



Our initial challenge was to come up with our own band name. There were a number of photocopied bits of text that we could cut up and mix with other words to form interesting band name suggestions.

We were then to create hand-made letter sets, using a cut and paste method with photocopies, glue and scissors. We each picked a set of images that had been photocopied, and with these we were tasked with creating an alphabet.

The selection of images included various food items such as vegetables, meats and candy-canes, hair, bears, clouds, bubbles and more geometric shapes like the set I chose.

This is how my alphabet turned out:

Here are some of the other alphabets created in the workshop:

 Using candy-cane and hair imagery

 Using images of vegetables

 Using an image of a bear

At the next session we will be printing from these typefaces and will experiment with colour blending techniques. I'm looking forward to some riso-action!

On Saturday 18th November the finished posters will be displayed along with cut-offs and experiments in an exhibition at Pop Recs.