Job 0412 - on press, signed off
Emre Aksu
I design posters, identities and printed matter from a room above a letterpress shop in Karakoy. I draw it, I write the specification, and I stand at the press while it runs - which is the only way I know to be sure the yellow lands where I drew it.
- Working in
- Posters, identity, print
- Since
- 2016
- Usually
- Two inks, uncoated
- Studio
- Karakoy, Istanbul
- Booking
- From May
Who the work was printed for
Ten years of small clients who print things, and one printer who lets me stay late.
Nine plates on one sheet
Posters, identity systems and printed matter, imposed the way they went to press. Each plate carries its year and its inks.
Two plates, one sheet
A poster from the jazz season, separated into the inks it was printed from.
Plate one
Fluorescent yellow 803
The flat goes down first and dries for a day. It is the only colour on the sheet that has to be exactly right.
Plate two
Dense black
The bars and the letterform, drawn to trap 0.3mm into the flat so a shifted sheet still reads clean.
In register
Both, one pass each
Two colours, one sheet, no fourth-colour rescue. If it does not work here it does not work.
Nearly everything I make is a two-colour job. It is not a budget decision - it forces every idea to survive on shape and weight before it gets to lean on colour, and it means I can stand at the press and check a sheet in ten seconds.
Four things, done properly
Open one to see what is included and what it usually costs in time.
01 Posters and campaigns
A season, a run of nights, a week of films. I design the system rather than the sheet, so the twelfth poster is as good as the first and the client can paste them in any order. I go to press for every run.
02 Identity for things that get printed
Marks drawn to survive a 6mm foil block and a metre-wide sack. I hand over a system a two-person shop can run without calling me, including the boring parts: stamp sets, label sizes, what to do when the stock changes.
03 Books and printed matter
Annuals, quarterlies, manuals, swatch books. I set the grid so an editor can pour text into it at midnight, prepare the files, choose the stock and sit with the printer through the first signature.
04 Print production on someone else's design
Sometimes the design exists and the job is getting it made properly. I take files to press-ready, specify the stock and the inks, book the run and stand at the machine. Studios hire me for this more than they admit.
Six weeks, five stages
The same route every time, from the first conversation to a signed sheet.
Week 1
Brief and specification
We agree what is being printed before we agree what it looks like: format, stock, how many inks, how many of them, and what it has to survive. Half the design decisions are made in this conversation.
Weeks 2 to 3
Drawing
I work on paper and on the wall, not in a deck. You see three directions as printed proofs at real size, because a poster at 30 percent on a screen is a different object to a poster on a wall.
Weeks 4 to 5
Proof rounds
Two rounds, both proofed on the actual stock. Round one settles the idea, round two settles the details. Anything after that is charged, which keeps us both honest.
One morning
Press check
I go to the press. We pull a sheet, read the density, adjust and pull again until the yellow is where I drew it. You get a signed sheet back with the job number on it.
Week 6
Delivery and the files
The run is delivered, and you get the working files, the fonts you are licensed for, and a one-page specification so the next reprint does not need me.
Three faces, chosen once
I set almost everything in these. A specimen is quicker than an explanation, and it is how I would show you a face for your own job.
Passion One
DM Sans
Space Mono
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 & ? ! - / %
A memo, rather than a manifesto
Who you would be working with, and the three things I will not negotiate.
I trained as a typesetter before I trained as a designer, which is a slow way round and the reason I am comfortable in a print shop. I spent six years in a publishing house setting other people's books, then took the room above the letterpress downstairs and started taking my own work in 2016.
I work alone. That is a limit, not a boast - it means three or four jobs a year get my whole attention and everything else gets turned down. It also means the person you brief is the person standing at the press at six in the morning.
The one thing I will argue about is the specification. Choose the stock and the inks first and the design gets easier; choose them last and you spend the budget fixing it.
- 01 One job at a time I take three or four projects a year. If I am on press for someone else in your week, I will say so before we start rather than after.
- 02 Two inks unless there is a reason It is not a style rule, it is a discipline. If a job genuinely needs four colours we will use four, and I will tell you what it adds to the run.
- 03 I go to press Every run, without exception, and it is in the fee. A design signed off on a screen is a guess until a sheet comes off the machine.
Three people who came back
All three have since printed a second job with me, which is the only endorsement I trust.
We had been printing our season on whatever the previous designer left behind. Emre asked what the posters had to survive before asking what they should say, and the answer changed everything. Fourteen nights, one system, and the wall outside the club looks like a season now.
Turning up at six in the morning to read the density on our sheets is not something any designer we have worked with has ever done. Our press crew now ask when Emre is coming back. The annual is the best thing the museum has printed in fifteen years.
We are two people who roast coffee. We cannot reprint bags every three weeks and we said so. What we got back was a stamp set and a grid, and now we label a new lot in a minute without calling anyone. That is design that understands a small shop.
Awards, press and one lecture
Mostly for things printed in two colours on paper nobody expected to win anything.
Open a job
Three or four projects a year, booked from May. Tell me what you are printing.
Tell me what is being printed, how many of them and when it has to exist. If you already know the stock, say so - if you do not, that is what the first conversation is for.
Received, and logged as a new job number. I read everything myself and reply within two working days.