OUGD504 // Design for Print // Laser Cutting

As part of my publication the front covers of these were to be laser cut, so on Friday i completed the design and then laser cut this out using grey board and coloured stock. Along with this i was planning on using foil blocking, so i tried that out too.

LASER CUTTING
I used the design which i have shown in the previous posts for the front cover.

Images of the design being cut into the greyboard.

Once the design was cut out of the material, i pushed out the certain parts which were cut all the way through. Originally i was going to cut the full letterform shapes out of the titles, but when i looked at it i liked the effect of the engraving and when i thought about it i think having them fully pushed out too much colour would show through and look too much, instead of this way having small amounts but will actually help show the letterform, as the colour will be the counters.

Here i have placed the cut out designs over the relevant stock, just to see what it would look like with the coloured stock showing through, this is where i thought the idea of just having the counters cut out would be better and i think from looking at it like this i choose right.

The final design and actual front cover for my publications. Here i have cut the coloured stock to size and stock them behind the cut greyboard. I am really happy with the results of these and think that they work really well together, especially with the colour showing through the greyboard, the colours are bright and contrast the greyboard too. I also really like the effect of the burnt edges around the parts that have been cut out, i like this look to the material and it makes it look more like a printing technique and show the process within the actual material.

Things that went wrong

When i first did the publication front covers, i didnt realise that the type on the first document was a larger font, this wasnt that noticeable on its own but when they were sat together you could see the size difference. As i wanted it to be a publication that was on the back of each other, i thought it would be wise to make them the same, so i have redone that front cover and made them the same size.

Also i initially tried to engrave the title of the publication in the grey board to see how this would turn out and i didnt like this finish compared to cutting it all the way through. The engraving doesnt stand out as much and its not as defined as when you cut through the board. It doesnt look as neat as before. So i have kept to cutting through the grey board.