RISO Print Gocco

Recently I was looking for some custom journals for a gift on etsy, which is a fabulous website for handmade and vintage items. I came across some really fun moleskine journals, see these examples above. One of the best things about etsy is that usually they write about there process of creating items and a lot of the journals I was looking were made using Print Gocco. I had never heard of it before so I did a bit of research. If you click on the link it will tell you everything you need to know, but here is an excerpt of the basics. 

Screen printing is versatile medium in which you can create anything from a simple t-shirt to a complex, multi-layered fine art print. Screen printing is easy, but can take up an inconvenient amount of space. So with the Print Gocco, you can screen print at home using only a small machine. It's made only by a single company, Japan's RISO, and uses proprietary supplies so you need to think about shipping costs. It's compact enough to use in even a very small apartment, so it's a great solution for people with limited space... as long as you don't mind that it makes small prints. 

How does it work? Print Gocco is a small version of a few elements commonly used in screen printing: the hinge clamps that hold your screen and the exposure unit that frequent printers use to create their screens. The screens themselves have several layers, one solid. The ink goes between the layers, and pressure is applied, causing the ink to squeeze out and onto your paper.

Over the last few years, Print Gocco has become one of the most talked-about tool for artists and crafters and I can see why, because the Print Gocco allows you to screen print many mediums and enables the artist to make quality prints themselves. You can print on cloth, make your own customized cards and journals and many more uses.

There are a couple different types of machines that Riso sells, depending on the print size that you want and the quality of the machine. I found some listed on ebay and the smallest models which are the P5 (which is orange) and the B6 (which is light blue) seem to range from about $78 for a used P5 model to over $200 for a brand new B6. Another model, the PG10 or PG11, make the same size print but are a little more durable and have some added features that make multi color print much easier. These models usually sell for $169 and up. The largest model is the B5 and has a much larger printing area, but usually costs a lot more in shipping. I found one of ebay for $249, with $130 in added shipping costs.

All in all, buying a print gocco machine is a bit of an investment but can yield some really cool results. If you are in to print making at all and like to sell your wares, I'm sure you could make your money back in no time. I think it would be a really fun thing to get into, but for me I am going to wait a bit to actually get a machine. 

I sent in some custom designs to be made into journals by a guy on esty so I am really excited to see the final products when they are done. I'll post the results here so you can see how they turn out.

Fabrics!

I love to reupholster furniture and I've been looking for some good fabric wholesale websites.  You used to be able to get fabulous fabrics by the yard from pottery barn on sale for as little as $3 a yard, but they don't seem to go on sale all that often anymore.   Warehouse Fabrics has some great upholstery fabric for about $6.95 a yard.  But the thing I am most impressed with is their yardage estimator, which helps you know how much fabric you need for whatever you are upholstering.  Great find and I hope to have a project soon to try out their fabrics, but I already have two chairs to finish up in the garage.   

A couple upholstery tips, make sure you use a fabric that will be easy to piece together on a chair, stripes are really difficult, patterns are great if there is no real upside to the pattern otherwise pay close attention to the pieces you cut out.  Although I picked out a mostly white pattern above, I don't recommend using it for furniture because it is very difficult to keep clean and can fade and shows dust and dirt.  I think it would be great for a throw pillow though.  My favorite way to make a throw pillow is to buy two fabric napkins from pottery barn or world market and sew three sides together inside out, then reverse, stuff and hand sew the four side.  Then you have an easy and fantastic throw pillow that can bring life to any room!    

Yardage Chart         Yardage Calculator

Can I help?

I love helping people make things more beautiful, whether that is helping design something, moving furniture around, or dressing up my roommate.  ;)
I can see why graphic designers get jobs on referrals, your work speaks for itself.  If it appeals to someone then it is only logical that they would seek you out to make their ideas come to life.
My sister and brother in law are part-time photographers.  I love how they work together and combine their skills to take pictures that are worth remembering.  They are going to be photographing a high school prom soon and so I helped my sister design some tickets for the event.  It is mostly her design, I just helped throw in the know how.  So I thought I'd post it for you.  The finished ticket will have a perforated side so they can rip of the side for the ticket stub.

Inspiration

As a designer I pull inspiration from a lot of different places, book covers, patterns, color combinations, fonts, posters, nature, textures, painting, art history, buildings, and on and on... I collect ideas from the internet, take pictures of things that I like, save bits of paper and color swatches, and tear out pictures from magazines. A friend of mine even picks up flyers and fun designs to help inspire me.
For this blog background I took some of my inspiration from a book cover that I found. I loved the colors and also wanted to give my blog a vintage look as well as a bit of whimsy.
Another piece to the puzzle that inspires me and contributes to how I design are photoshop brushes. There are so many available for free on the internet and they help enable my imagination to come to life on the screen. In a future post I will share with you some of my favorite links.
There is inspiration everywhere, you just have to be aware of it.  Where do you get your inspiration from?

sagmeister design

What's in a name...

This blog is basically a creative outlet for me, for fun ideas, thoughts, and anything I find intriguing or beautiful. I love designing and creating so sometimes I will post projects that I am working on, but I usually have far to many ideas to carry out so I will post them here. Hopefully you can enjoy what I enjoy, otherwise you probably shouldn't be reading my blog. ;)
I chose the name Strawberry Isle for my blog because when I was little I lived in a cabin on the beach in the woods, my dad and I would get in our little rowboat and row out to an island that had wild strawberries growing on it. It was like this beautiful sanctuary that belonged to me, my own island. I would dream of wonderful stories and imagine beautiful things and those are the things I would like my blog to be filled with. These two paintings are two of my very favorite, both are by Monet, The Boats Regatta at Argenteuil and The Cliff Walk. I've seen the originals of both paintings, one in Paris and the other in Chicago and I have to say that the experience of standing in front of the original painting is well worth a trip to the museum. The texture and colors express the soul of the painting and you can almost feel the touch of the master's brushstroke. I love the movement of these paintings and the importance of light. I actually painted my own copy of The Boats and loved the process of recreating the masterpiece. I hope to paint The Cliff Walk someday. Maybe I will document the process here.

The Cliff Walk       The Boats (Les Barques)