1. Producing Print Based
Media
LO1
Your name

2. To do
• Explain method in own words
• When it was invented/by who (if information is available)
• How the method works/what do you need to do to use this
method
• What does the method look like when used (include images)
• What are the costs involved with using this method
• How quickly the process can be done
• Provide images to illustrate discussion
• Reference at least one example with a image.

3. Hand Printing Methods

4. Etching
Etching was believed to have been invented by Daniel Hopfer around the end of the 15th
centaury. Traditionally etching used to use copper plates but now it is usually zinc. These
plates are then used to sketch a design and then coated with an acid-resistant substance.
This acid resistant substance is called the etching ground, and the design is drawn with a
sharp tool onto this. The ground is usually a compound of beeswax, bitumen, and resin.
The plate is then exposed to nitric acid, which eats away through the areas of the plate
unprotected by the ground (the part you have drawn on) and forms a pattern of recessed
lines. Ink is then placed on and the ink is held by the recessed line. The plate is then
applied to moist paper and the design transfers to the paper making a finished print.
Etching can be very time consuming and you need a steady hand to put the design onto
the plate. A printing press may be needed too for the harsh chemicals, always be careful
around these chemicals too but modern etching methods have reduced the need for toxic
materials being used during the process. It is not used commercially but is still used as an
art medium. Etching creates a engraving or intaglio effect.
This etched picture to the side is by William Hogarth called The
Enraged Musician (1741). It is etched and engraved on paper and
is placed in the Tate Modern at the moment. As you can see it is
very detailed and to get darker areas more stokes needed to be
etched in. This is a very high skill to have and makes art work look
very intricate and detailed.

5. Etching
Costs from modelshop.co.uk
Artwork set up (20 mins)- £16.00
Computer drawn artwork per hour-
£48.00
Hand drawn artwork per hour-
£48.00
A5 phototool (filmwork)- £32.00
A4 phototool (filmwork)- £48.00
A3 phototool (filmwork)- £72.00
Additional exposures- £8.00
5 - 10 thou brass
A5-£17.65
A4- £33.50
A3-£63.50
12 thou brass
A4-£19.50
A4-£37.00
A5-£70.00
Etching by Jacques
Bellange
“Gardener with
basket” (1612)
Looking at costs for etching now a days it is expensive and takes up a lot of time. There are many
different ways and outcomes you can choose from now ranging from different prices. (example price
below). If you were to do it yourself it would cost you around £100 to £500 to collect all the
materials. The outcome would not be as good unless you had a very steady hand, but even the
pressure would not be as powerful making the print not come out as good.

6. Linocut
Linoleum, the material used for linocuts, was invented in the 1860s, it wasn't used as a
medium for printing until the early 1900s. It was firstly used to make patterns on
wallpapers. Artists such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse have made linocuts. Now a
days linocuts are popular in teaching school children about the art of printmaking.
Linocut is a printing method using a sheet of linoleum, much easier than wood but this
can be used. Parts will be chisels or cut away, this will cut away the parts you want to stay
white, and leave the parts you want inked, this will create you printing block.
A very good advantage of this is that you have a linocut that can reproduce the same
image over and over again. This is great for numerous of prints,
the only thing that could slow the process down is applying the
ink, but other than that once the print is carved out it is a quick
process. This usually happens when the print is carved into wood
so the print does not get ruined. The texture linocuts come out
with are often rough and rustic. They are simple and easy to do if
you want a simple pattern. Letters have to be carved reverse so they can be printed. But
this method is simple and cheap and can be achieved at home or in schools.
Linocut can be printed in multiple colours if wanted to. This will take time and care to
ensure that the print is lined up correctly, if not you will end up with overlaps or shapes in
places you didn’t want them to be.

7. Linocut
Sybil Andrews (19 April 1898
– 21 December 1992)
Sybil Andrews created a
consistent body of dynamic
linocuts, for over 60 years,
that offered a new way of
looking at everyday life. In
the 1930s She developed a
very distinctive style, when
in a time that effects the
Cubism, Futurism and
Vorticism were all
influential in British Art.

8. Comparison
Both linocut and etching needs time to sketch out the
pattern needed, they are both very similar in this way
but linocut is much more simpler and safer as it doesn’t
need to be soaked in acid or use a machine to press the
ink into the paper. The linocut print can be used again
and again and can also be printed in colour. Etching is
more expensive but will give you a better finish
altogether. Lots of detail can be seen with etching but
with linocut it is usual a block of colour.

9. Mechanical Methods

10. Letterpress
Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing using a printing press invented by
Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. The process involves using a large plate, usually
wood or metal, with back-to-front letters in all different sizes placed onto the plate to
make words. Originally it was done by hand but now it is mechanically done by lasers
cutting the text into the plate. After the plate is created, ink is added to the plate, the
areas with no ink on do not print and act as spacing for the letters. When the ink is placed
onto the plate a sheet of paper is placed on top. The letterpress machine uses a rolling
wheel to move back-and-forth across the paper, leaving an impression.
Before this was invented all books, newspapers etc. were all hand written. With this
invention the plates could be repeatedly pressed onto many sheets of paper giving
everyone the same text in each book and this helped the levels of literacy improve all
across Europe.
The first print Gutenberg did was of the bible, so everyone had the same copy of one of
the most important books in the UK and because it wasn’t expensive he was able to bring
books to common people so everyone could learn how to read and write.
Now a days letter press is still used to make large copes of work. It is also used a lot on
wedding invitations and small images can also be letter pressed along with the text now
making the card look fancy and professional.

11. Letterpress

12. Rotogravure
Rotogravure printing starts off with the design being sketched onto the surface of a metal
cylinder. this process is a lot like etching. Ink is then places on the cylinder where the
design has been etched into. The raised areas are cleaned to make sure there is no ink on
them and then the paper is pressed against the ink cylinder and transferred to the paper
with pressure.
Rotogravure can produce fine, detailed images. It can be costly when using it for short
runs, so a larger run would be most cost effective because the cost of setting it up is large.
Once the plate have been set up though they are very durable and the quality of each
print will not degrade. It can print in colour, this may take time but it is able to do it by
using different colour inks.
Rotogravure is a very popular printing process because of its ability to print on a wide
variety of surfaces e.g. paper and plastic. It is very good for printing labels for things such
as plastic bottles and packaging. Lots of manufactures use this method of printing for
large amounts of prints because it will be the most cost effective and give the best quality
to their product.
Huge machinery and harsh chemicals do need to be used in this printing process meaning
it is only really able to be used on a commercial scale.

13. RotogravureProcess Outcome

14. Comparison
For both procedures, once the plate is set up each of them
are effective and can be used again and again. Setting up
the plates for both letterpress and rotogravure can take
time and this is the most time consuming part for both of
them. They both produce good quality products but the
rotogravure gives an even better quality product. It also can
be used again and again and the quality will not go.
Rotogravure is only cost efficient with large orders and has
to be done with large machinery in big warehouses, while if
you wanted to do your own card invitations you can buy a
small print press and do it yourself.

15. Digital Methods

16. Photocopying
Photocopying was invented in the 1960s to make office and
education work simpler. This is how it works…
1. Charging: A cylinder drum is electronically charged by a
high voltage wire or a charge roller. The drum has a coating of
a photoconductive material that becomes conductive when
exposed to light.
2. Exposure: A bright lamp illuminates the original document,
and the white areas of the original document reflect the light
onto the surface of the drum. The areas of the drum that are
exposed to light become conductive. The areas of the drum
that are not exposed to light remain negatively charged.
3. Developing: A toner sticks to the areas that are negatively
charged.
4. Transfer: The resulting toner image on the surface of the
drum is transferred from the drum onto a piece of paper with
a higher negative charge than the drum.
5. Fusing: The toner is melted and bonded to the paper by
heat and pressure rollers.

17. Photocopying
Now a days photocopiers can
print in both black and white and
colour. They are able to zoom into
specific parts and change the
colour of the page and do lots
more. They are very good for
copying text but sometimes
struggle to copy images. Each
photocopier is already set up for
your benefit so it is very time
manageable. Each print is
relatively cheap if the machine is
already installed and they are
good for lots of prints or a short
amount too.

18. Laser Printing
Laser printing is very much like photocopying but it uses a laser beam to charge the
specific parts of the cylinder that then allows the powdered toner to stick to the
negatively charged sections. And again heat and pressure is then used to stick the ink to
the paper.
The machines that produce laser prints will usually be small and cheap to run therefore
are good to have in an office, but they can sometimes have a problem with printing large
areas of the same colour. Although laser printers are faster than ink jet printers and cost
less some photo specific printers are better suited to printing photographic reproductions.
Depending on what you want to print depends if the laser printer will be better.
They can print in colour but are only limited to four colours.

19. Laser Printing

20. Comparison
Laser printing is cheaper and good to have in a small
office as long as you are not printing large blocks of
colour, but photocopying is great for copying pages of
text and sometimes small images. This is great for
educational purposes. Neither of the printing processes
are too expensive once the machines have been
installed. Depending on what you need to print/copy
will depend on which one will benefit you the most. For
example if we say you needed a quick quality copy with
a small area of colour I would use the laser printing
method.

21. Print Methods Situations

22. To Do
• For each of the following scenarios, you need
to decide on the best printing method to use.
• You need to explain your choice of method
considering technical and aesthetic qualities,
cost, speed and the skills and knowledge
required.

23. 100 high quality wedding invitations.
• Your client wants very high quality wedding
invitation and is prepared for them to cost a
lot of money and take time to produce. The
invitations will be on high quality paper. The
invitations will only have text on them.

24. Decision and justification
The printing method I would use would be Letterpress. Sometimes it can take time and
cost a lot of money if you want fancy writing etc., which I assume this client would want.
The letterpress print would leave her with high quality wedding invitations if done right
so hiring someone to do this would be a good idea. 100 copies is not too many nor too
few and would still give the client the same copy over the 100 invites in a high quality
standard.

25. 50 special edition greetings cards.
• Your client, a talented local artist, wants to
produce small print runs of greetings cards.
They do not want to use electronic printing
methods. They need a cheap and simple
method of printing so they can produce small
runs of different designs but it needs to look
arty and handmade when it’s finished.

26. Decision and justification
For this client I would use Linocut printing. It can be done at home easily and it is very
low on cost. The method is very simple but creative and will look arty and handmade
once finished. The design can be easily cut out and using ink or paint the design can be
printed down. You can re-use the linocuts so they can be placed on the other cards or
you can make a different design because the material used is not rare and can be picked
up from art shops cheaply.

27. 3000 flyers for coffee shop.
• You client has a one week only special coming
up and wants 3000 basic, single colour flyers
to promote it. As the flyers will be given out in
the street they only need to be cheap, in fact,
the cheaper the better. They also need to be
produced quickly.

28. Decision and justification
I would use Photocopying for this client. Photocopying is quick and very cheap if you
already have a photocopying machine installed. Photocopying does not have a problem
when printing just one block of colour, unlike laser printing. A basic design can easily be
copied from the original. The only problem it may have it printing 3000. this is not a large
problem, just it may take an hour or so to complete. But you, yourself do not have to do
anything, just wait until all the prints have come out and hand them around the streets.

29. 100 copies of the village news letter.
• The parish council want to produce a monthly
news letter for the village. It will be a single
side of A4. It will mostly contain text but might
occasionally have a black and white picture. It
will be given away for free so should be cheap.
The council would be interested in printing it
themselves to save money.

30. Decision and justification
Photocopying the original print 100 time will save you time and because it will be given
out free it will keep the cost as low as possible. Even if you do not have your own
photocopier local shop, schools and library's will have one you can use. The black and
white small image will be able to be produced, not at the same quality of the original but
they will be able to be copied through. This is a quick and cheap method especially if they
have their own photocopier, which I expect from a parish council.

31. 10,000 copies of a fashion magazine
• WM Fashion want to produce a new catalogue
to send out to its current customers as well as
its existing ones. It needs to be high quality
colour printing but it needs to have a low per
copy cost.

32. Decision and justification
Here I would use Rotogravure. Although it is not cheap when printing a few copied but
with 10,000 copies needing printing it will most likely be cost efficient for them. All of
the prints will give the same high quality standard that the first one did to the last print.
This print is very good for magazines etc. because it can be printed onto any material and
will not effect the quality. This is the only printing method that you can choose what type
of paper you want and still get the same quality standard. So this would be the best for
this company because it can print lots of copies quickly and efficiently and is cost
efficient.