With the rapid development of the commodity economy and the improvement of people’s living standards, screen printing is more closely related to people’s lives. It is expected that China will become the world’s largest screen printing market in the 21st century.

Screen printing has its own unique advantages: less investment, low cost, easy to master technology, easy to promote and develop, widely used in various signs, commercial advertising, road signs, curtains, curtains, celebrity calligraphy and painting and other fields. Compared with any traditional printing method, it has incomparable advantages, it has strong competitiveness and vitality, and the prospect of screen printing will be bright.

The relationship between screen printing and graphic design

Modern screen printing technology is to use photosensitive materials to make screen printing plates by means of photo-engraving. During printing, through the extrusion of the squeegee, the ink is transferred to the substrate through the mesh of the graphic part to form the same graphic as the original.

Graphic design aims at information dissemination, takes visual communication as a way, and uses visual communication media and technology as a medium to create and combine symbols, pictures and words to convey the visual representation of ideas or information. Screen printing is widely used in various fields of graphic design: illustrations, posters, business cards, binding, covers, merchandise signs, etc.

In the 21st century, with the advent of “paperless and no print” digital media, the boundaries of media execution techniques for graphic design began to blur. As the execution method of traditional media, printing technology is still active in specific fields, and as the main method of media execution, it is much loved by graphic designers from all over the world.

The application of screen printing in graphic design

1 The status of screen printing in graphic design education

Screen printing is an indispensable course for graphic design education in the world. Graphic design education courses in almost every country in the world include printing technology, and screen printing courses are indispensable. Nicholas Drowsell said: “In my studio teaching it is always possible to put the term projects into practice, to print as much as possible in our hand workshop, it is important for us to master all the printing techniques .Students must be exposed to the real things of handicraft. In our school, traditional handicraft skills are still carried forward. We have bookbinding, typesetting, offset printing, screen printing … studios, with excellent instructors.”

In China, at the end of the 20th century, with the return of a large number of “returnees”, the European and American graphic design education experience was introduced into China. Many graphic designers have tried to use screen printing to make works, established screen printing studios, opened Screen printing course.

Throughout the history of graphic design, it is not difficult to find that printing and graphic design have an indissoluble bond. As a modern graphic design education, it is necessary to set up a unique printing technology course of screen printing.

2 Screen printing is the media execution technology favored by graphic design companies and designers around the world

Design is the combination of technology and art, and is the product of the commercial society. In the commercial society, a balance between artistic design and creative ideals is required. The common hobby of graphic design designers Ibarra and Bywalski of the famous American “Aesthetic Workshop” is screen printing. Their works are mainly limited edition screen printing concert posters. All their posters are hand-printed. Although they got their hands dirty during the entire printing process, they not only challenged themselves in terms of design, but also came up with the most creative ideas in printing. They were experimental. The attempts eventually brought them one unexpected success after another.

Forry Bell, the famous Dutch graphic designer of “Leather Boots”, said: “The printing method has a great influence on our works. We like to cooperate with screen printers to print those beautiful colors and strong picture effects.” Because of the introduction of screen printing, Japanese graphic designers began to specify standard colors, which greatly helped the rapid development of Japanese graphic design.

Although China’s modern graphic design started relatively late, the exploration of the application of screen printing technology in the field of graphic design has not been interrupted. silkscreen poster artwork.

It can be seen that screen printing, as a printing technology medium, has become the most extensive media execution technology for designers in the field of contemporary graphic design, integrating science and technology, artistic creation, personal style and design concept.

3 Screen printing is widely used in the field of modern graphic art design

For screen printing, it has a picture effect and texture that cannot be achieved and compared with any other printing medium. In terms of the size of the work, it can achieve eye-catching visual effects in a large size that exceeds other versions. In the use of color, it can be expressed to the fullest with the help of screen printing technology, so that the charm of color can be fully displayed; in terms of shape and structure, it provides graphic designers with more free expression space, making the design more “” Drawing”. It can achieve high-quality surface and texture through paper, and can print graphics with rich colors, and the color of the paper surface can not fade for a long time. Seeing the color on the surface of the paper extending to the extreme can bring great visual touch and pleasure to people. The mark itself is a visual beauty, and the intimacy obtained by touching the subtle texture of the mark is very important to the printer.

4 Application of screen printing in graphic design

The graphic design process must go through creativity, completion and production of finished products. So far, most of the tasks in the field of graphic design must be finished products formed by means of printing and reproduction, and can really be counted as the final completion of the “graphic design” task. Therefore, the design process is divided into “design finished draft” and “printed finished product”. Different finishing techniques determine the “interest” or “style” of different works. And different production (printing) technical means have added new “production interest” or “style” on top of the features of the works formed by the “finishing means”. American designer Dan Griezka said when digging through the work, “The poster’s images and text are hand-drawn naturally on a clay board by reverse drawing. Then I added a little ink and wiped it. Bright, make the picture more vivid and active. The title letter is also roughly sketched, so as to leave room for improvisation in the final drawing.” When he was satisfied with the result of his improvisation, he worked with the printer to study how to Choose colors for each ink, register (sometimes a little deliberately off), determine transparency, blur, and more.

Screen printing is more suitable for expressing monochromatic overlapping sets of originals with crisp text and lines, and it is also suitable for expressing color originals with high contrast and clear layers. Every piece of color and every line should stand up to scrutiny and have more visual tension. The advantage lies in giving full play to the rich layered, changeable and translucent beauty and “imprint” produced by its uniform and tidy color surface overlap, gradient and color combination. Woody accurately reflects the most exciting and impromptu jazz and artist feelings on this poster. The intricately intertwined colors and shapes show a strong artistic sense of art. The screen printing process is accurate, The unrestrained precision of the work is astounding.

Compared with other printing methods, screen printing is more suitable for short-run printing with small quantity, easy operation and low cost. Screen printing can freely integrate various techniques and materials.

In a word, the modernity, ontology, and artistry embodied by screen printing technology in graphic design applications far exceed other printing technologies. Only on the basis of fully understanding or mastering the technical and artistic characteristics of screen printing and fully participating in the printing practice, our graphic designers can continuously create unique and shocking screen printing graphic design works.