Relief Printing for Graphic Design History

The second workshop for my class on Graphic Design History focused on using traditional relief printing techniques. Our assignment was simply creating an illustration with a word included.

For the materials, I used a Speedball Lino Cutter, a Speedy-Carve block, and a Speedy-Cut block. Because the printing process took place in class and we only had two times to complete the project, we didn’t have the time to test out our prints. The first attempt, I did Bird, which is a reinterpretation of Charlie Parker with Strings album cover. The final result didn’t have enough details; therefore, I tried something different.

For the second round, I chose Miles Davis’s iconic pose and placed type behind him. For the background I added lines to give the design more details. Because I couldn’t test out the print so I went on create another piece just incase the Miles piece didn’t workout.

For the third time, I used an existing illustration of a lady in ao dai (Vietnamese traditional dress). To make it different from the original, I did a reverse printout. The unintentional effect is the ink leaving white dots on the canvas, which look like stars.

I ended up submitting Miles Davis as my final piece because the details turned out well as I had expected. It was a fun workshop.