One69A

SO me and a few people on my course were given this opportunity with this company One69A in Salford at Islington Mill. Jermyn who actually came in one tuesday at uni to talk about the stuff he did was really interesting, and kinda got me game to go and help out a little bit every week. They are a screen printing based company.. I've never done screen printing or actually known what the process involves, but I really wanted to have a go. We got a group of us together who met up with Jermyn one Thursday to discuss projects we could do for him. As for a start there were various different products he wanted us to research which were- caps, stickers, labelling, packaging etc. Me and Emma chose to research into caps and what different caps we could screen print onto, how expensive each cap would be, what materials could be used, and the processes into it. We had a look at other screen printing companies to see what prices or what else they offered. I thought it was quite handy getting first hand research done for a company, and seeing the science behind each process. After the initial presention of our work, we then went in a few times to the mill and helped out a bit by cleaning the screens with this special chemical which smelt quite nice but also irritated my legs which left rashes and a burn (which we were warned about, but I didn't really think about it) the chemical was really hard to get off your hands as it was kinda like a waxy substance (even though I was wearing gloves.) Anyway what the chemical did was take all that nasty stuff off the screen which doesn't come off with a normal power spray. You leave it on for about 10 minutes then power spray it all down. They always had people popping in and out all the time and I got talking to a few of the guys who worked there. Everyone is really friendly and helpful which makes the working environment totally relaxed, especially in aid with the odd beer every now and again. I eventually went on to do my own screen print which was of Captain Spaulding from House of a Thousand Corpses. It was Sam's idea to print it onto T-shirts but it's better to use the ink as much as possible as not to waste it, so I had a go and did my own T-shirt which I then gave to my boyfriend for Christmas. I had designed an illustration of a robot destroying a city which I was going to give him, but I eventually ran out of time.

Me doing my first ever screen print.