Nano-Premier League (NPL) Road Shows at Nagpur & Indore

After my six successful NANO-PREMIER LEAGUE (NPL) Road Shows which I believe this is the World’s first of its kind campaign on advanced screen printing process & technology” which I started from June 2010 onwards.

I had two more wonderful experiences last week. Let me share with you.

Two new NPL Road Shows first at Indore on 30th September 2010 and second at Nagpur on 2nd October 2010, on the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, we also remember him as a Father of the Nation.

The first show was arranged on 30th September 2010 in Hotel Fortune Landmark, Indore, Madhya Pradesh with a houseful participation even on the curfew day, the day when the country was under tremendous pressure due to Ayodhya Verdict.

 

NPL Road Show @ Hotel Fortune Landmark, Indore, MP

 

Since Grafica’s road shows are always very thrilling to printers especially when they get to see lot of new creativity during our shows because we always go with varieties and creative samples. So by any chance printers hardly avoid to miss our road show.

So far, Grafica sold over 275 NANO-PRINT and 25 NANO-PREMIER LEAGUE as the despatch of NPL just began few weeks ago. The orders of NPL will cross over a century very soon. Hence it’s but obvious to have customers all over the country.

 

Ravi Patidar, Naturo Graphics, Indore

 

So in Indore we had Ravi Patidar of Naturo Graphics who produces textile transfers and was quite honest to share his experience about NANO-PRINT in front of all the participants. There were couple of participants who had attended my previous workshops at DMI. They too were kind enough to share their experiences about DMI Institute and our workshop programs.

 

Mukund Karia, Mukund Enterprises, Indore

 

One of the veteran dealer in Indore selling screen printing materials, Mukund Karia was very helpful to my team in making the Indore event a success even on the day of curfew.

Being a supplier of screen printing consumables Mukund Karia also felt the need to extend his support to promote Grafica’s NANO-PREMIER LEAGUE as there is rampant manual screen printing culture in and around Indore.

At the end incognito I salute for the sheer enthusiasm of printers in Indore who made it a point to attend my presentation and live demo despite all odds.

From Indore, I travelled down to Nagpur, which is also known as “The Orange City” on 1st October 2010. Since my second program was in Nagpur was on 2nd October I had plenty of time to write new articles and update them on our blog which I hope you must have read by now. If not then check out our Technical Articles

This second houseful show in Nagpur was arranged in Hotel Pride International. Very close to the airport.

 

NPL Road Show @ Hotel Pride International, Nagpur, MH

 

By the way I was not new to these cities since I had earlier organized screening of my educative film  “Screen on Screen” A film of advance screen printing process two years ago and some of the participants were already familiar with us and knew that if its Grafica it must be something interesting and serious. The response we received from the printers of Nagpur was overwhelming.

During my presentation, I invited many Grafica customer’s who were present during this show to share their valuable experience with Grafica. In-fact I was touched by the great feelings expressed by all of them who not only shared their experience about Grafica’s machines but also showered good wishes and praises about my institute DMI. Since some of them had attended my workshops in the past hence were kind enough to share honestly in front of the audience.

Frankly speaking all our NPL Road Shows are quite expensive first of all to organize in a good and decent hotels, take the entire team of 15 people to organize this show in a short span of time, arranging hotel rooms for everyone, transport the machines for demo, unload it and install, thereafter decorate for few hour, again dismantle, load and transport back to factory or move ahead to the next destination, over an above transport cost of the machine and travel cost of the entire team.

But I am not hesitated over the expense because I am sure the day is not far that all our effort will bring fruits to the entire screen printing industry in India and my dream to convert all manual screen printers towards automation will never only remain a dream.

I am thankful all our customers and participants for giving us their valuable time and to make this a memorable event.

To see complete photo gallery of our NPL Road Show click any name of the city mentioned below

INDORE | NAGPUR

Finally, I highly appreciate my team for their hard work and dedication in making all NPL Road Shows a grand success.

 

Team Grafica

 

One day exclusive workshop for 40 GIPT mumbai students at DMI on 18-Sep-2010

My one day DMI workshop brought lot of charm and confidence in the faces of 40 GIPT students.

The last Saturday, 18th September I really missed to welcome 40 enthusiastic students accompanied by three faculties from GIPT Mumbai who had come to my institute DMI to see the real world of advanced screen printing in action.

In my absence my team made the students feel comfortable with the facilities. After the warm up all students gathered at DMI’s auditorium where they were briefed about the DMI’s activities by Shailesh Yeole, DMI’s Faculty & Shripad Bhatt, Editor, Grafica News.

Later when I reached, I was told by my colleagues that their enthusiasm did not fade away although they had got stuck in the severe traffic jam and persistent rain further delaying their arrival by an hour. That’s because they were sure of the kind of knowledge that they were expecting to gain at DMI.

Some of these students were a part of my houseful seminar that I conducted at GIPT’s campus in February this year, following which the final year students 2009-10 had attended one day orientation workshop at DMI in March 2010. (Click on the following links to see complete photo gallery of Bhargav@GIPT & GIPT@DMI)

So the beneficial effect of DMI has been spreading among the students community, WOW… That’s because I heard from some of the students that in print technology institutes they were never exposed to advanced screen printing technology the way it is demonstrated at DMI. Even my faculty who graduated from a printing technology institute always tells the same story. This is miserable what is happening in many reputed instates especially when screen printing is so popular in almost many industry.

I think the technical education think tanks in India should really make an immediate analysis of the printing education offered in various institutes which is MINUS advanced screen printing but touches upon only some basic outdated elements of screen printing… very sad especially when the Indian screen printing is adopting automation in a big way and the need for trained screen printing professionals is shooting up. In the recent past, there has been a growing trend of offset printers embracing screen printing, whereas the printing institutes emphasizes more on offset and other printing technology.

As an entrepreneur focussed in the development of screen printing industry I cannot simply wait for some change to take place in the printing education…. So I am determined to take screen printing education to a greater height through my own institute DMI. I am receiving tremendous response from various institutes who are willingly sending their students for training at DMI and I am proud of this development.

Coming back to Saturday’s program at DMI, the morning session was taken over by my faculty.

As I mentioned earlier that these students were not new to me and DMI since they had also attended my seminar at GIPT campus at Mumbai in February this year. So, naturally the students who are studying in the final year of their printing course, felt more comfortable with me.

The students were stumped when they were taken into our gallery where an array of screen printed samples were displayed, right from a simple labels and stickers to high end automobile decals, ceramic transfers, screen printed T-shirts, packaging, special effects, micro embossing…

When they were told that those were the screen printed samples…. they went crazy to touch and feel with great detail and my faculty got surrounded to get in-depth explanation on almost every screen printed samples…. with some straight questions… how it was done, what inks used, what mesh used, how it is possible to screen print such jobs etc…

This way the students and the three faculties from GIPT also got fully engrossed with such creative screen printed samples and we then compelled them to move first towards the screen making department.

In the screen making department they were explained the difference between various types of fabrics (nylon and polyester; white and yellow fabric) the mechanism to stretch the fabric on a fully automatic pneumatic stretching machine; how the fabric is stretched step by step and how the tension meter is used to check the tension of the mesh; how to apply the adhesive etc.

Later screens were prepared in front of them using various machines and equipments like fully automatic emulsion coating machine, screen exposing, screen drying etc.

I was told many of the students even noting down names of various chemicals, screen making procedures etc.

As I had busy schedules in the morning, I came in the afternoon. I was quietly observing the post lunch session which included special effect printing and CMYK screen printing on various machines at DMI.

Such was their enthusiasm… Checkout the photo galley because sometimes photo speaks more than words.

After their short and hectic practicals, I took over the session for a short presentation on advanced screen printing process. Later, I also made a presentation on “Emerging Technologies” a presentation sponsored to DMI by a close friend of mine “Mike Young” who is also one of a senior most member of the academy “ASPT”. His presentation is so great that it becomes easy for me to proves them that screen printing has a promising future for all print technology students.

After seeing both presentations, they expressed their willingness to pursue career in screen printing. I could see their urge … and although I wind up my session, few students prevented me by ending the session just like that and said :Sir we want to say few words about our today’s experience.” Two students came forward to speak about their feelings and experience they got in one day… and I was touched by their love and affection once again.

To my surprise, although their term ends only in the first quarter of 2011, some of the students registered their name for DMI’s short term training.

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

Role of advanced screen printing in packaging

Hi Folks,

Recently I was invited by “Modern Packaging & Design Magazine” which is published by Infomedia 18 Limited to write an article on the role of advance screen printing in packaging as a guest columnist.

Many of you might have read my article if you are receiving their magazine, but if you have not read till now then here’s it…

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TECHNICAL ARTICLE, By Bhargav Mistry, MD, Grafica Flextronica & DMI
Published in Magazine “Modern Packaging & Design” Vol. 6, No. 1 | Jul-Aug 2010
(Copyrights remains with the publisher)
Screen printing process evolved over the years. Today, it offers ample innovation & creativity, thus playing a major role in packaging because of the availability of advanced screen printing machines, UV technology coupled with availability of innovative special effects inks.

Screen printing is a simple yet attractive process. The main reason is that in screen printing, the purpose and the art is to transfer something, almost anything more or less liquid through a screen!

It harnesses the natural phenomena of mechanical movement, flow and the interaction of liquids and solids. In screen printing, it is possible to attain controlled film thickness up to 300 micron. Besides, the printing medium – ink – can be almost any material that can be suspended in a fluid and which has a particle size that is ideally one third of a mesh opening.

Also, the visual impact that screen printing process can create is simply marvelous. The durability of the inks, the vibrancy of the colours, especially considering the harsh outdoor weather conditions for outdoor applications (sunlight, rain, snow, wind, etc) and its vast flexibility, all contribute to its unique capability. Screen printing is possible with any ‘semi-liquid’ product (various inks and dyes) on a number of rigid, semi rigid or soft substrates. Thus, these characteristics make it the most versatile printing process available.

Advantages of screen printing process

* High rub and scratch resistance, which is mainly required in industrial printing

* Vibrant colour

* Due to availability of high quality screen printing inks with better light fast pigments, 3-5 years of outdoor life for any kind of applications can be achieved

* Wide range of substrates of various thickness, size and shapes can be printed easily

* Good ink film and mechanical stability allows to screen print on complicated and rigid substrates.

* Knowledge and process calibration provides high dimensional stability

* Screen printing enables to achieve a degree of flexibility that is unavailable in other printing process

* Flexibility of short runs to large industrial volumes

* Inks are available as per application

* Possible to print on fragile matters

Advanced printing technology

Quality in screen printing seems to have come a long way. Today, with automatic precision machines, it is possible to get a result that years ago would have been a dream.  In the last decade, from a predominantly manual printing process there has been a big shift from manual operations to semi-automatic and NOW fully automatic printing machines. There are more numbers of screen printing machines sold today than it was five to ten years ago  because it not only involves low investment which is a big advantage for those wanting to join the screen printing business, there is also scope for creativity. The screen printing technology today is faster, better and cleaner.

Despite any type of screen printing press can be used (including manual and semi-automatic), the best press for that kind of work remains for me the cylinder press with automatic feeding, for reason quite often combination with offset, of speed, productivity and quality of result. And, for the same above reasons, the UV technology is also the best available one in the present and the future, both for technical and environmental reasons.

UV Curing depends upon the type of UV ink of varnish and of the thickness of the deposit: it is useful to know that in UV systems, a varnish even thick of several mm, will cure easily and instantly. For example, for metallic inks or some other printed chemicals, it have to be tested and set at very different speed and UV light intensity.

Complementary role

Screen-printing is a fantastic technology that is used by many industries with so many old, new and not yet discovered applications – both flat (plastics, cloth, metal, thin to thick papers, sunpack/sunboard, rubber, leather, wood, glass, ceramics, etc) and non-flat substrates, by using appropriate machinery and inks.  Further, this process is also widely used for printing packaging boxes, duplex and sapphire mono cartons, labels and cards, UV effect on packaging materials for cosmetics, toothpaste, jewellery … the list is endless.

Special effects!

In this world of shopping and mall culture, buyers are attracted by the packaging they can see and/or touch. Before that tryst with packaging, they also carry the memories of advertising (both print and electronic), outdoor posters, etc. As they walk into the shop, first they are also confronted with eye catching POPs and POS posters, placards and other marketing gimmicks. Ultimately, the packaging in a shelf carries its look, its power of attraction for the consumers, and eventually the feeling of touch, or we can rightly say, today packaging is all about sensation – look, touch, feel, smell.

So, special effect screen printing is a great way to excite consumers. The range and variety of effect is extensive and it provides the marketer, print buyer and designer with a number of exciting possibilities they may never have thought were viable.  This is because of the latest developments – machines and inks.

The most promising is the use of a wide range of ‘special effects’ thanks to the think tanks in the screen printing industry driven by FESPA, an international association of various national printing associations including India. FESPA spent a lot of resources to make a special book named “SENSATIONS” that shows many of those screen printed special effects.

The packaging can be printed through many techniques: offset, flexography, screen and digital printing or other. However, only screen printing allows to add those “special effects” enhancing the final product due to its versatility. These possibilities, combined with off set, digital, flexo or classical screen graphic, open a huge niche to many screen printers who will be able to offer customers truly enhanced and unique products and images to increase sales.

This is obtained by the addition of some surface effects that will catch one or several senses of consumers: The view or look of packaging which makes a initial difference – it is like first impression is the last impression … but now consumers want to touch by the feel of it and sometimes, why not rub and smell it. Amazing though, several of these effects can be used on the same item (multiple special effects, like we try at DMI institute). It can also replace, often at a lower cost, some other technologies such as hot stamping, doming, silvering under vacuum.

Specialty Inks & Varnish

The print buyers these days want something different from their competitors and are prepared to pay a fair price for that. They will accept a much higher price if the printers bring a very special enhancement of their product packaging image. So, one of the most interesting niches in the graphic screen printing fields is the printing of special effects, using UV special effect inks.

The inks available in the market range from luminescent to tactile, from glitter to mirror. The impact they can add to designs is breathtaking.  Screen printing effect can enhance any marketing campaign and may give it that extra competitive advantage. One may also enhance the effect with ink or an overprinted varnish. Varnishes have become a popular finish on wise labels especially because it gives the graphics a much greater richness of colour.

A gloss varnish over a matte surface is a more subtle approach that inspires curiosity. One sees a shape under the light or notices a smoother feel against a more resistant matte solid area. Similarly, coarse, high luster effects are created with thick coatings of varnishes that have large particle sizes. It is a striking way of printing reversed out images of icons or logos, an ice effect or extremely fine line patterns. A wrinkle effect can be created when a UV varnish is cured under UV-A light.

There are thermo-chromic inks. These are sensitive to temperature change and can be used for time temperature indicator labels. Irreversible ink types, which do not change back to the original colour, indicate if perishable goods have been stored for too long or at to warm a temperature.

Packaging for the blind

For blind people, the “Braille” texts on labels or packaging are printed. Here, a thick varnish screen printed is widely cheaper than micro-embossing through die-cutting or embossing technologies. Embossing is a slow and expensive technique (for the tool itself). It can be easily replaced by screen printing of thick UV varnishes.

Security

The security feature of screen printing is immense. This feature can be used to protect the brand against counterfeiting or tampering. RFID labels are used to provide security and efficient tracking and tracing of products, cases through the supply chain.

I have a customer of mine in Mumbai who is into packaging (with offset and screen printing unit) whose clients are happy that he offers something different every time because of UV special effects which they feel a luxury value addition especially in case of cosmetic, and such luxury product packaging. He strongly feels that UV special effects are not only luxury value addition for customers but a ‘safety net’ as well. Because of the very nature of special effects, it will help the companies in protecting their brands from duplication.

RFIDs

One fantastic application of screen printing is the printing of both antennas and transmitter/receiver in RFIDS : Radio Frequency Identification.  This is beginning to replace at short and medium term the classical barcodes that need to be caught at very short distance. The printing of those items, both on or inside of the packaging itself or on a special label to stick on or in, is ideally suited for screen printing in that sense that it is the best technology to print the conductive silver, carbon or nano-particle inks for the antennas or receptors.

‘Substitute substrates’

Continuous advancements and developments in polymer technology, expertise and cost-effective manufacturing, plastics is replacing traditional materials in many fields (environmental conditions apply!). These include : PVC, Polypropylene, HIPS, Lenticular Films, Polycarbonate etc. Polypropylene Sheets are extensively used for blister packaging, cardboard boxes etc. Polypropylene finds application in Disposable Containers,  Embossing, Gift Box Making out of clear sheets, Freight Packaging, etc. The trend these days is to use a substrate with a low density which also makes it affordable. PVC Sheets and Polypropylene Sheets are the best suited for screen printing. Polypropylene as a material is very eco-friendly and can be easily recycled. It is accepted and widely used all over the world for different applications. It is preferred by screen printers because of its low density and very economical cost. Similarly, PVC for screen printing purpose is a very good option. A good quality PVC sheet makes a good surface for a screen print because it has a pre-coating on it; even if the material gets old the coating is never hampered.

Perfect expertise needed

The main problem is of course the adjustments of registers, knowing, for example, in offset if each sheet printed simultaneously in four or six colours is perfectly registered, it can be some differences from one pallet to another. In case of UV spot effects, the register problem is crucial and requires a perfect control of the different elements of the image.

Some special effects will have to be entirely designed or separated from parts of the original image: this means that either a studio or an individual that created the image and/or yourself are able to prepare the needed proper part of the file: this is of course very important. In PDF, the problem of layers and transparencies can be difficult to solve: it also depends upon the quality of the files received from the customer or its studio.

As those effect will quite often have to be overprinted on inks and/or substrates printed with other technologies (offset, digital printing, flexo, hot-stamping, foils, etc.) a huge care must be taken. For example, even, for a simple high gloss spot varnish above a classical offset print on paper or board, be sure that the offset inks are over-printable: this means that they must not contains any wax, or worth, silicones, or of course that the so classical automatic powdering has been eliminated by the offset printer through a careful automatic brushing.

Patience please

Screen printing is now quicker, cheaper, produces better quality images and offers a number of special applications. But advanced screen printing with high level of automation is not everybody’s cup of tea. Having advanced machines in place is not sufficient to run a profitable screen printing business. There is no profit “from the press of a button” like in digital printing arena. There is no short cut. Because not only does the set-up process take considerably longer than other techniques, but being able to truly master printing high quality images using the screen printing process also takes much longer, because there are a number of variables involved.

Today, there exist different systems designed to help the screen printers to achieve better result. But it revolves around the simple concept or standardisation of the entire screen printing process.

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I hope you must have enjoyed reading…

Special regards,

Bhargav

14 point to become successful in printing

Hi folks,

Received a nice SMS from one of my friend which had a good management lesson so I thought to share with you because most of the time we loose our temper for no reason. But now you got the solution.

A profound and breakthrough thought:
“If U can’t change the ‘Person’
Then
‘Change’ the person..!!

Also few important points to share with all my students because I am noticing this as a regular problem with all the new comers. So kindly read them carefully because these points may help you to be a successful person in life.

1. Take up printing as your profession only if you love it. It’s a grueling life and only one’s passion to become printer can overcome that. Remember that initially you may need to sacrifice quite a bit, especially your personal life.

2. Printing is nothing but fine art according to me. Printers, on other hand, is that much more. It is a way of life. You need to constantly look for new techniques, ideas and innovations.

3. A successful printer always prints for himself and for his satisfaction.

4. You need to maintain and sustain the efforts and results; and this requires years to resolve, dedication and hard work not just in printing but in every profession.

5. Talent does not matter much, yes frankly I believe that talent is overrated concept. You can cultivate your skills. Anyway, talent is not much use without the other ingredients – hard work, keeping oneself focused and staying motivated.

6. There are talented printers, there are hardworking printers, there are smart printer and there are printers who are great in getting access. However, it’s rare to find someone who possesses all these qualities.

7. Concentrate in quality rather getting quantity. Keep patience because that’s the key towards success.

8. Never get tired of failures, keep experimenting and develop new ideas.

9. Competition is healthy:
Once I was waking on a beach early morning all alone. I was assuming my waking speed was very fast unless someone overtook me.

Competition in business or amongst students is the same because it make you realize what you are and where you currently stand, competition alway strives you to deliver your best.

10. Academics are important:
Education helps you understand the basic of social behavior and also teaches how to write and talk, which is very important to launch a new career.

11. Experience is the best teacher
Read a lot. Develop a systematic reading habit in your life. But remember that experience is your best teacher, especially when it come to printing. You need to carve your own space in the organization, which happens only with time.

12. One should alway have some hobby in life. All successful person in life has one.

13. Adopt a GURU
It’s unfortunate that India does not have a history of printing education. To overcome this problem, I recommend you should assist someone. Your GURU will not only guide you and help you develop your skills, but also let you access high-end equipment.

14. If you respect your colleagues, seniors and customers, you will be respected by them.

So, relax and enjoy this beautiful rainy Sunday.

Good news and ideas are on the way so keep in touch.

Bhargav

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

Convert an ordinary job into extraordinary piece of creativity thru screen printing

DMI's Creative Folder

First the impression what one gets by looking at this folder is innovation. That is how I use special effect techniques by using screen printing process.

This folder is designed and printed jointly by me and my 6th batch of students as their project work. It was printed on laminated foil with 16 special effects UV inks and varnish including process color CMYK screen printing. I used 100 LPI screen to print very fine halftones.

Practically and commercially this may be not economical as a regular job unless some premium customers demand for it and ready to pay the price. But my point was to show how speciality inks can makes a normal product to an extraordinary piece of creativity folder. I am sure there is a market for high end corporates who wants to use it for their conferences etc.

I started first operation using Matt varnish which was to be printed below CMYK flower image.  The reason we printed on Matt Varnish to is give a soft metallic effect which reflects from the foil.

There after I printed CMYK process color UV inks. The image was also over printed with a gloss varnish to give a SPOT UV effect only on the flower.

Then I printed solid black leaving some fonts reverse to give a foil stamping effect. On the solid black and some part of silver foil was printed with 3 different micro embossing effects using only one screen at one time. Also some parts of black was overprinted with transparent ink with rainbow color glitters to get some sparkling effect.

Some portion of black was also overprinted with wrinkle varnish to give a leather like effect. There was also the title of the folder “INNOVATION” was printed with thick varnish using 150 micron stencil on a 24T polyester mesh to give an embossing effect which we always call as ticky in Indian language.

The logo of Grafica and DMI was printed with special metallic orange for giving a vibrant look of the logo.

Since the folder had one side foil laminated so to add dramatic effect on the other side I printed solvent based pearl two tone ink overprinted with light yellow UV ink to add some sort of soft designing which can also be called as water mark.

I am sure its very difficult to get the same effect by offset or any other printing process considering the richness of multiple effects.

The advantage of screen printing process is that you can convert an ordinary product to an extraordinary high value product with the availability of speciality inks and varnish thus you can also produce jobs in small quantities with very high profit margins.

This is an classic example what I produced in making this folder but such effect and design can be implemented in packaging in a very effective and large scale using fully automatic screen printing lines where you can also achieve higher speeds.

DMI's Creative Folder

Digital Printing & Proofing Tips

After returning from FESPA, Munich I just had couple of days left to prepare for my workshop at DMI. There after I had to finish my long new presentation for our unique road shows. These shows are organized by us (GRAFICA FLEXTRONICA) to launch our unique NANO PREMIER LEAGUE series in various every cities of India.

Till now with my team I completed 6 road shows, 3 in Maharashtra (Nashik, Aurangabad & Pune) & 3 in Gujarat (Surat, Ahmedabad & Rajkot). All shows were jam packed and very much interesting and had many uniqueness. I shall post full report with photos of my workshop and these road shows soon. Just to give an idea every city we had over 100 to 150 printers but Ahmedabad had a rocking figure 275 printers. Isn’t it amazing. Every where for me and for printer it was a WOW feeling.

In the mean time just enjoy this video tutorial from Dr. Russell Brown who is one of the chief engineer and scientist of ADOBE. In this tutorial he has cleared all doubts about digital printing and proofing.

Printers today gets digital proof either from their customer or they do it in-house using EPSON or HP digital printers for matching our screen prints.

So its important to understand the color management issues using analog vs digital technology.

Download these 2 videos which shall help you to generate correct proof using accurate printing parameters.

Printing to the Epson Stylus Pro 3800

Printing to the HP Photosmart Pro 9180

If you are on our database you shall soon receive our e-news. If you are not getting it regularly every month than make sure you register thru our website.

Have a cheerful and informative week.

Bhargav
00:50, 19th July 2010

Students training in action

My new batch of students completed their one month’s training which involved many creative projects.

DMI Students - Batch 6

All projects, right from designing to printing were independently executed by them under our guidance.

DMI Students - Batch 6

DMI Students - Batch 6

DMI Students - Batch 6

DMI Students - Batch 6

DMI Students - Batch 6

DMI Students - Batch 6

In process color screen printing they were also trained how to use the densitometer in production effectively maintain correct press parameters to get consistent dot percentage as per the proof.

DMI Students - Batch 6

Various trouble shooting techniques were taught, like how to eliminate moiré in screen, how to linearize jobs in process color screen printing to get correct output, how to get rid of squeegee lines etc…

DMI Students - Batch 6

All arrangements are been made for their placements. I wish them all success in screen printing.

I thank Don Bosco’s principal Fr. Noble George and his entire team for inspiring this batch and keeping faith and trust in DMI’s activities.

Looking forward to welcome my next batch of students from various other institutes.

Finally getting ready for FESPA exhibition in Munich after completing my 3 road shows in Maharashtra (Nashik, Aurangabad & Pune).

In FESPA Munich I have a joint conference with Michel and I am quite exited about that. I will also see my Guru after a long time especially after his cancer surgery.

I will make all possibilities to post day-to-day proceedings about FESPA.

DMI students’ series of industrial visits begin

DMI’s 6th Batch of students first two industrial visits.

My fresh batch of students at DMI recently concluded their two industrial visits at Ace Printers and Tarun Printing Works, Mumbai on Saturday 29th May 2010 as a part of the DMI’s curriculum activity.

DMI Students Batch-6 Industrial Visit 29-May-2010 at Ace Printers

DMI Students Batch-6 Industrial Visit 29-May-2010 at Tarun Printing Works

At DMI they already get hands on training on all advance machines using latest techniques under my guidance but the purpose of their industrial visits is just make them fascinated seeing various applications and richness of our screen printing industry. More over industrial visits gives them a feel of how people manage to get quality even in busy production. It also helps them to understand how the jobs are printed, what type of problems they face and how they resolve it and how they minimize rejections, etc.

The students were taken to Ace Printers, owned by one of my very close friends Kamlakar Wadekar, and a valued customers of my company Grafica.

Kamlakar Wadekar explaining about print finishing at GIPT Mumbai along with Bhargav

Kamlakar has kept special place in his heart for printing students and whenever I organize campus programs at various institutes he many times accompanies me to share his decades’ of rich award winning experience in UV spot, print finishing and special effect screen printing.

DMI Students Batch-6 Industrial Visit 29-May-2010 at Ace Printers

DMI Students Batch-6 Industrial Visit 29-May-2010 at Ace Printers

Since Kamlakar was out of India, his production in-charge, Mahadev was very helpful in showing the entire gamut of production at Ace Printers. The students were first shown Spot UV job on Grafica’s semi automatic screen printing machines and then on a fully automatic cylinder press. He was amongst the first to acquire Cylinder Press from my company Grafica. Today, I am proud to say that Ace Printers is the only production house in Mumbai whose capacity has crossed over 45,000 sheets per day.

DMI Students Batch-6 Industrial Visit 29-May-2010 at Ace Printers

My students could also learn many trouble shooting skills in important parameters required in print finishing from Mahadev. More importantly, they witnessed how reams after reams of jobs arrive from various offset printers and sent back quickly with bare minimum rejection maintain strict deliver schedules.

Just to get a feel, they also tried to experience on various Grafica’s machines at Ace Printers to match their operator’s speed of 900+ impressions per hour on a semi-automatic press, it was really exiting for them with fun.

DMI Students Batch-6 Industrial Visit 29-May-2010 at Ace Printers

DMI Students Batch-6 Industrial Visit 29-May-2010 at Ace Printers

DMI Students Batch-6 Industrial Visit 29-May-2010 at Ace Printers

DMI Students Batch-6 Industrial Visit 29-May-2010 at Ace Printers

Mahadev also displayed and explained a large collection of their special effects screen printed samples.

From Ace Printers, my students with DMI’s team moved to Tarun Printing Works where they saw scores of award winning samples of t-shirts. They were lucky to meet my friends Bharat and Tarun Sethia, the two front wheels of Tarun group of companies. These Sethia brothers are just wonderful in their creativity producing value added t-shirts. I really admire their guts and dedication for producing world-class innovative designs in t-shirts printing. I feel proud having these two brothers in our screen-printing industry. Hats of to them…

Bharat (2nd from Left) & Tarun Shethia (1st from Right) with Bhargav, Michel Caza & Charlie Taublieb at FESPA 07 Delhi

I facilitated this visit especially because Tarun Printing Works has earned the distinction of winning maximum awards (national/international) in garment printing, scoring over 100+ awards so far. My students felt quite lucky to visit such a wonderful garment printing company.

Awards Gallery of Tarun Printing Works

At Tarun Printing Works, students could see their large printing unit occupied with several fully automatic t-shirt printing machines plus the entire screen making unit strategically placed for easy operations. I was pleased to know that my friend Bharat Sethia also spared some time explaining my students about the techniques used in their marvelous award winning jobs.

DMI Students Batch-6 Industrial Visit 29-May-2010 at Tarun Printing Works

DMI Students Batch-6 Industrial Visit 29-May-2010 at Tarun Printing Works

On Monday when I saw my students’ contented faces, I curiously asked them to share their experience of first two industrial visits and all of them just said one thing WOW and thank you SIR.

You know, whenever I meet printers they always complain me about non-availability of trained screen printers. But when it comes about sharing their knowledge and showing their production unit to the students, frankly many reputed screen printing companies show their evasive attitude.

In this regards I must thank Kamlakar and Shethia brothers who have been always supportive to DMI since its inception for DMI’s industrial visits. I admire their understanding.

I request all my friends in this industry to please come forward for this noble cause by allowing students to visit their plant and help them to gain more knowledge about screen printing process and its application or else this might lead to sending wrong signals to the print technology students there by discouraging them to enter in screen printing.

Do not forget that we are all collectively responsible for our growth.

Mean while let me remind about three important events.

1. DMI’s next workshop is scheduled from 1 to 3 July 2010 and this time I am going to show many techniques in screen printing with video illustrations. So if anyone who has missed may kindly register soon.

Deadline 15th June 2010

2. Hurry up for Print Week awards as there is a great change to win Grafica’s wonderful creation NANO-PRINT, Today I am proud to say that we have SOLD OVER THAN 150 NANO-PRINT’S so far. This product is changing the image of our screen printing industry, helping screen printers to grow with quality. Download Print Week 2010 Awards Entry Form

Invitation for NANO-PREMIER LEAGUE (NPL) Road Show

3. All India road show of NANO-PREMIER LEAGUE (NPL) will kick start from 17th at Nashik, 18th at Aurangabad and on 19th at Pune. The road show will have live demo of all NANO series produced by my company, followed by workshop on advance screen printing. So those who are within the reach of this cities may please register soon (its free) to understand the features and cost of NPL. Find out more in the recent Grafica News – Jun 10

Educative Film on Screen Printing by Bhargav Mistry organized by SPAI

4. Finally I am going to present an Educative Film of advance screen printing process in Mumbai city on this Saturday, 12th June 2010. This event is organized by SPAI & FESPA and my company is one of a sponsor of this event. If you have still not registered kindly do it quickly because only 2 days are left and registration is compulsory, to register email info@spai.in or call (022) 66939747 or 9820625691

Have an introspective week.

Bhargav
11:47 pm