Spot colour.

"CMYK or process color printing is contrasted with spot color printing, in which specific colored inks are used to produce the colors appearing on paper. Some printing presses are capable of printing with both four-color process inks and additional spot color inks at the same time. High-quality printed materials, such as marketing brochures and books, may include photographs requiring process-color printing, other graphic effects requiring spot colors (such as metallic inks), and finishes such as varnish, which enhances the glossy appearance of the printed piece"

-Wikipedia

Ok, so from what i've gathered, a spot colour is a specifically mixed ink or varnish that would replace the CMYK plates. This would be a cheap process as only 1 colour would be used, as apposed to the the 4 in CMYK prints. You can use as many spot colours as you like, but it can become expensive when using a lot.

Beamish.

http://www.beamish.org.uk/

During the holidays I took a visit to the Beamish museum. It's a village living in 1913, and it really is massive, you get a tram to get around it all. But most of all it's completely full of lovely advertisements, and I mean full, they are everywhere you look.

I have 100's of photos and would love to upload them all but I'd be sat here all night. So here's just a few.

In the town there was a newspaper shop, and above that was an old print room. It was heaven. I wanted to pick everything up and take it home with me. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to have a go of any of the machinery, but they did do a demonstration showing how they printed their posters, business cards etc, and even how they printed photography. It's amazing how machinery that old still works brilliantly and can produce something really beautiful.

It really was a brilliant day out and would really recommend people on our course to go. Maybe we could organise a trip or something?

A walk in the park.

I haven't edited this picture or anything, and it was taken with a digital compact camera so I really was that close! It wasn't taken for any particular reason, I was just shocked it was coming so close. I just thought I would share it's lovely smile with you all.

Yeah, I have no idea what this thing is. First time i've ever seen one. Apparently it's a type of caterpillar. It was a nice colour anyway.

More to come...

Egypt.

This is the sign for the hotel where I stayed. Both text says the same thing, but in different fonts, it was really interesting to see how they change the style of their language.

New camera.

After saving up for some time, and with advanced birthday money, I was finally able to invest in a much wanted digital SLR camera. Its a Canon EOS 450D and I love it. As soon as I got it I was itching to take some photos.

Really happy with it, and exited about being able to use it next year.

Fun with the Lazer Cutter.

After chasing people around all year, I finally had a little play with the lazer cutter, actually that's a bit of an understatement, I spent about 2 hours, maybe more, on the lazer cutter and it was great fun.

I've cut out some letters in the typeface, Georgia. I had to make them small as I didn't have that much material to play about with (I used all the scraps), but they're great!

I even made myself a key-ring with my name engraved on it.