Print Liberation!

Just so you know, at the Motmot shop we screen print all of our shirts ourselves: someone can come in pick a design and we print it on demand! It's just like ordering a pizza, or something. (You can also pick a design online and we'll print it on demand too!) I've been screen printing since I was in high school, trying to print my own Clash and Sham 69 shirts! Later on, both of us studied art and learned screen printing in college. Now, we have a shop where we print our designs, and we do everything ourselves. So, you could say, we've invested a lot of time and energy in learning the finer points of screen printing. And we get a lot of people asking how to screen print, and other people needing some help from time to time, which we're more than happy to oblige.

Now we've been thinking about making a MOTMOT guide to srceenprinting, for some time now, but we would need to sit down and actually write a book, and do the graphics, which is a daunting task. But until then, we've found an excellent resource, PRINT LIBERATION: The Screen Printing Primer, by Nick Paparone, Jamie Dillon, and Luren Jenison.

A lot of screen printing guides are either boring or difficult to understand because of difficult printmaker technobabble. But not this book, no way José! This book looks fantastic, with some really great illustrations and graphics. The book is well written and has many photos which actually show you how the process is done, which can really helps you understand the process. The book is aimed at beginners, but I found a few new things that I wasn't aware of, so it's got tips and tricks for the intermediate and advanced printer too! It's got a great list of resources and suppliers in the back! That said, we may, or may not, be carrying this book in our own shop in the near future, depending on, oh you know, this and that and which way the wind blows, but it's definitely worth picking up if you're thinking about taking up screen printing. Highly recommended.