I learnt an unusual idea from Bhargav to earn millions

I was thrilled to hear this comment from one of the participants during my recent workshop on 19 to 21 August 2010 at DMI (Click here to view the photo gallery).

Bhargav Mistry at the recent workshop at DMI

Participants at DMI attentively listening to Bhargav's presentation

This time in my workshop at DMI the subject was to integrate process color screen printing with value addition especially on PP flute board commonly known in India as Sunpack.

I see lots of school & college going boys and girls have one portfolio bag for keeping their drawing and project work. Even my daughter has two bags. But all her friends including my daughter has a standard black color bag.

The idea of making portfolio bag on Sunpack strike my mind once when I went to drop my daughter at her school I saw not only my daughter but almost all her friends had some fancy stickers or wordings or paintings done on the boring black color standard bag because currently there are no options for the colorful youth.

In that case I thought its a good idea for companies to market their products like jeans, t-sirts, cosmetics etc. targeting youth. This way they can market their products every efficiently because the youth have more impact of such creative ideas and concept.

Also till today many screen printers prints on Flute boards (SunPack) day and night for making danglers, POP with cutouts but till today no one has thought exploring various other unique possibilities on SunPack mostly in packaging to generate more revenues and stay ahead of competition.

So in the recent workshop at DMI I demonstrated how to produce such high value PP flute bags with special effects. The name of the job was “JUMPING JEANS”. When it comes to special effect many printers only think of commonly used Spot UV (Gloss, Matt) and other varnishes on offset printed jobs and wedding cards.

DMI's creative bag screen printed on Sunpack (PP)

I had ordered this material duly CORONA treated from the manufacturer to print directly with UV Inks specially developed for PP substrate to give better adhesion. While screen printing with special UV Inks for PP, I experienced poor adhesion on the substrate. Later, I discovered the problem was due to old stock. This required re-treatment of CORONA but since I do not have the CORONA treatment facility at DMI, I screen printed a special transparent base coat to utilize the same stock.

Once you apply this base coat you can there after use any type of UV Inks or if you want to avoid the base coat in order to reduce one more printing operation then you may use a CORONA treatment machine to treat the material immediately before printing. This machine is a good investment for any printer who use UV Inks on plastics. Its also useful for offset printers too e.g. they can pass all their non-treated sheets and later stack on the offset press to print with UV inks for better adhesion.

Please note that even though you use CORONA treated substrates you need to use a specific UV Inks for that particular substrate. But there are special base coats for each substrate and once applied through roller coating or screen printing machine you can thereafter use any standard UV Inks.

I screen printed this transparent base specially developed for PP using a 120 mesh with a soft 65-90-65 shore hardness, triple durometer PU squeegee.

There after I screen printed complete image on 180 mesh count using 100 LPI fine dot screen because this bag will be viewed closely.

Once the screen printing was over, I printed abrasive varnish using 77 mesh count on a jeans texture to give the real feeling of the material.

DMI's creative bag screen printed on Sunpack (PP)

The front image was over printed with gloss varnish to increase the aesthetics using 165 mesh count.

On front and back of the bag I printed a strip of golden glitter to give a sparking effect. The glitter varnish was printed on a 24 mesh count.

On the rear side “Jumping Jeans” title with a stylish font over the Jeans texture was screen printed using bubble varnish using 77 mesh count to give a bubbling effect.

On the top and bottom portion I printed with wrinkle varnish to give a nice leather kind effect using 77 mesh count. It’s important that if you want to get a wrinkle textures you need a special UV Lamp.

By the was at Grafica, we also supply wrinkle lamp system along with our UV dryers as an optional.

The Grafica & DMI logos were screen printed with special metallic orange ink using 120 mesh count.

DMI's creative bag screen printed on Sunpack (PP)

On both the sides the enclosures were printed with golden pearl inks using 77 mesh. A UV matt varnish was overprinted on the golden pearl ink to give a water mark effect using 180 mesh.

The complete job was standardized using 65-90-65 shore hardness PU squeegee rubber because of the uneven surface of the flute.

VERY IMPORTANT: We pulled the squeegee parallel in the direction of the flutes because pulling across the flutes will dramatically increase the possibility of skin collapse between the flutes. This occurs because as the material is heated by the UV light it softens. If the squeegee is traveling with the flutes, it will be supported by all the flutes decreasing the likelihood of skin collapse. We also kept our squeegee pressure as low as possible to avoid crushing of the substrate.

There after we fabricated the bag to make the final product.

This job was screen printed live with various special effect during our recent workshop at DMI on 19 to 21 August 2010.

Since last two session M. P. Raghav Rao, GM, Technical & Manufacturing of FujiFilm Sericol India Pvt. Ltd. has already associated with me in my workshop to talk about last trends in Ink technology.

Raghav Rao with Bhargav Mistry

This time we had a special appearance from Adobe System India Private Limited, Akhil Kuruppan (Regional Sales Manager – West, Creative Business) & Rajesh Patil (Manager – Creative Solutions). Adobe already one of the sponsors of DMI’s educational activities for design software support. So in this workshop upon my request they both came to see what content I cover up in my workshop as far as Photoshop and Illustrator is concern. Rajesh Patil who is also one of the GIPT mumbai student with an experience over a decade in pre-press and design softwares will be joining me in some of my fourth coming workshops at DMI. He will mainly focus of Adobe Creative Suites and topics related to printing technology.

L to R: Bhargav Mistry, Akhil Kuruppan & Rajesh Patil

In our next job workshop you will be able to see more creative ideas on packaging with special effects. As the wedding season begins we are also creating a unique wedding box with cards inside never seen anywhere… because unusual screen printing happens only at DMI…

So to learn more and earn more register for my next workshop at DMI…

For registration log on to http://www.graficaindia.com

Adobe Illustrator CS4 Tip – Layer Groups in Illustrator?

Question:
“In Illustrator, why can’t I combine individual Layers into a Group folder like in Photoshop?

Answer:
“Illustrator’s Layers panel may not have Layer Groups, but you can do something very similar to what you like doing in Photoshop. To give it a try, open a new document (File>New) and click twice on the Create New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers panel, so that you have a total of three Layers. Click on each Layer listing in the panel, one at a time, to draw some objects on that Layer. Now, click on the top Layer listing in the panel and Shift-click on the bottom Layer to select all three. Look under the Options menu of the Layers panel and choose ‘Collect in New Layer.” All of the Layers will be collected into a new Layer. This is really quite similar to a Photoshop Layer Group.”

Let’s group…

Bhargav

Adobe Illustrator CS4 Tips

Question: 1
Is there a quick way to find the center of your Artboard in Illustrator?” and the answer is, Yes!

You can actually mark the center of your Artboard, by double-clicking on the Artboard tool. In the Options window that opens, check the Show Center Mark option in the Display section, and press OK. This creates cross hairs to mark the center of your Artboard. If you change the size of your Artboard, the cross hairs will automatically recenter themselves.”

Question 2:
Is there a Quick Way to Draw a Diamond Shape?

Yes, you can draw a square by holding down the Shift key while clicking and dragging with the Rectangle tool (M). Is this a way to draw a diamond shape with 90° corners? You know, kind of like a square that’s been rotated 45°.

Give this a try. Select the Ellipse tool (L), then click and drag while holding down the Shift key to draw a circle. Then press Shift+C to access the Convert Anchor Point tool and click on each of the four anchor points in the circle to convert them to corner points. This will convert your circle into a diamond with equal corner angles of 90°.

Hope this tip may help you somewhere.

Have a knowledgeable day.

Bhargav
11:50 pm

Lights Camera Action and the training begins

Meet my 6th batch of students starting their new journey in screen printing getting advance training on modern machines at DMI.

Twelve students from Don Bosco School of Printing, New Delhi and one student from GIPT, Mumbai are currently undergoing one month’s rigorous training in advanced screen printing process at DMI under my guidance. This fresh batch began their journey from 12th May 2010.

Principal of Don Bosco, Fr. Noble George, manager Fr. Reji Tom Antony and placement officer Mr. Michael were all instrumental and supportive behind them to take an advance study on screen printing process under my guidance in my institute DMI.

All the students from Don Bosco have few things in common to share here. They have just completed their ITI in printing technology. Most of them come from a average family background.

It is really hard to believe that these students got convinced to join DMI even before seeing the roofs of my institution. That indicates the growing popularity of DMI which has today successfully completed over 3 years and 6 months in teaching advance screen printing in various applications. Till now thru DMI I have trained more than 1200 professionals and 90 students including this batch.

To their great surprise, these students got a unique experience to participate in DMI’s workshop which was held on 13 to 15 May 2010. This 3 days of workshop at the beginning of our course really helped them in getting insights about screen printing. They also got chance to exchange ideas with many printing professionals who participated in this workshop.

Let me introduce all these upcoming heroes to you one by one. Their names and other details are mentioned in the caption of each photos.

Rishu Patrick (21), Josephnagar Village, UP

Sunil Kumar Bhatti (22), Rampur dist, UP

Rinku Singh (21), Behrampur-Buzurg, UP

Sibin David (21), Born in Kerala, settled in Faridabad

Samuel Mattu (25), Amritsar

Nelson Kujur (25), Chhattisgarh

Simon Masih (21), Haryana

Babychen Sebastian (28), Varnapura, Kerala

Sagar Hembron (19), Meerut, UP

Pranav Nitesh (21), Muradabad, UP

Albert D’Costa (23), New Delhi

Thomas Pal (19), Ludhiana

Nitin Kamble (36), GIPT Student, Mumbai

DMI also helps these students to get good offers, so if any one wishes to recruit these highly trained technicians under my guidance than please let me know. We shall make sure to send them once they complete their training.

Finally, may I request you to please send them encouraging wishes so that they are charged up till they complete their training at DMI.

Have a encouraging week.

Regards,

Bhargav

I happy to know DMI’s growing popularity globally

DMI_Workshop_13to15May10

This time I had participants from Bahrain which indicated the growing popularity of DMI all over the world. I was happy to receive Philip Eapen K and his colleague P. Madhusoodan Prabhu from Dar Akhbar Al Khaleej, Bahrain.

This time I printed a calendar on a transparent plastic sheet which I called it as a falling calendar. The design was such that as you turn from Jan till Dec it complete the whole fish aquarium because each month we printed some elements with special effect and metallic inks. Due to transperancy of plastic one could easily see the prints underneath which clears my concept of falling calendar.

In process color screen printing we printed a image of Santa Claus with 100 LPI which you will see in my workshop photo gallery as few participants holding it to see the uniqueness of CMYK screen printing.

Santa Claus screen printed during DMI workshop in 100 LPI

Some participants expressed their unfading contentment after attending DMI’s novel workshop and said to me that for the last seven years he was into screen printing and only doing simple jobs due to lack of knowledge but after my workshop he vowed to change his attitude and I liked his spirit.

He also informed me that he will start experimenting on critical jobs because he has learnt many difficult techniques in a very simple manner from me in my workshop.

More than half of the workshop participants stayed back on the last day till late evening for the launching ceremony of world’s first 5-in-1 NANO-SCREEN MAKER, NANO-Sharpener and a presentation on Grafica’s super saver combination package NANO PREMIER LEAGUE (NPL), a complete in-house screen printing solution offered by my company Grafica. The presentation was made by me which compelled some participant to book the package even though they did not come with such planning to purchase any equipment.

My company managed to book 27 Nano-Premier League package on the spot.

DMI’s next workshop is scheduled from 1st to 3rd June 2010. This time we are going to print folders with special effect. This effect are very useful for printers who are into wedding cards business. Even industrial screen printer would enjoy this coming session because I have completely revamped my presentation with more video illustrations with many new topics which will help them to screen print better.

Have an enriching day.

Bhargav

Adobe Illustrator CS4 Tip – See Your Separations Right In Illustrator

I was training a group of advanced computer graphic artists, who were new to Illustrator. In a discussion about print production, one artist said, “In Photoshop, I can turn off or on various combinations the CMYK ‘plates’ in the Channels panel. I find it useful in seeing how much of a particular color is being used. I know there’s no Channels panel in Illustrator, but is there a way to turn plates on or off?”

“Yes, I answered, in CS4, there’s a new panel called Separations Preview (Window>Separation Preview), which allows you to do just that. It’s also a great way to avoid mistakes and surprises in your Illustrator art. Just recently, I found a CMYK object in a 1-color logo that I designed. When I turned off the CMYK plates in the panel, part of my logo disappeared when viewing just the PMS Spot Color. Even if I looked at a proof, this probably would have slipped by totally unnoticed.”

Adobe CS4 - Illustrator - Separation Preview

Abobe CS4 - Illustrator - Separation Preview

Abobe CS4 - Illustrator - Separation Preview - CYAN

Abobe CS4 - Illustrator - Separation Preview - MAGENTA

Abobe CS4 - Illustrator - Separation Preview - YELLOW

Abobe CS4 - Illustrator - Separation Preview - BLACK

I hope you will like this short tip.

Good Night…

Bhargav
11.47 pm