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Or, I should say, my first successful gocco print.

It had taken me a while to decide to invest in a Gocco printer. Riso, the makers of the Japanese home screen printing kit stopped production in 2005. I eventually took the plunge and purchased PG-11 kit on Ebay from Japan.

My first attempt was frustratingly unsuccessful. To make your master screen Gocco requires you to use a print made from carbon ink. I tried to make my master screen from a photocopy which attached itself after exposure (even using the blue filter). After more internet research it seemed that people had less problems using a laser printer. Following their advice my second attempt was a success.

Advice and lessons learnt

I read quite a lot about people getting patchy prints and not using enough ink. I may have over inked a little and my first design required a lot of coverage. From this I learnt..

It may sound obvious but it can get messy, at least messier than instructional videos may lead you to believe. For the mess have to hand; turps, rags and newspaper.

Ink got past my screen and onto the printer body. I used a philips screwdriver to remove the see-through plastic plate to clean it, using cotton buds (q-tips) to get into the smaller spaces.

Have spare jars for excess ink. Old clean spice jars would be ideal.

The final product

For this first attempt I tried to keep things simple. One screen for the print, using two colours. I am looking forward to experimenting with a two screen print using the PG-11 registration plate.

After seeing my Micheal Lewis of MIKMIK Studios‘ Gocco prints I asked him where to purchase the card that he used (for his beautiful prints). The 250gsm Bier paper is manufactured using a combination of leftovers from the brewing industry: beer labels and malt/yeast/hops fibres. Available from the Green Stationery Company.

Prints are available in my new Maraid Etsy shop.

After making a couple of pieces from my collection into wallpaper for my computer I thought it might be nice to make more and to share.

Morphy Richards Astral Refrigerator

• 1024 x 768
• 1280 x 800
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• iphone

Polish Zwiedzajcie Zoo Matchbox Label

• 1024 x 768
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• iphone

Japanese Street Map Matchbox Label

• 1024 x 768
• 1280 x 800
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• iphone

Marshall & Snelgrove Department Store Hat Box

• 1024 x 768
• 1280 x 800
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Beethoven Penguin Score Book Cover

• 1024 x 768
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Christmas Wrapping Paper

• 1024 x 768
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Polish Electrical Matchbox Label

• 1024 x 768
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Vintage Balloons

Vintage Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade photographs (via notcot.org).

The Desktop Wallpaper Project

Bobby Solomon of Kitsune Noir shares desktops that his favourite designers have made for the project

Tin Tabernacles

I loved looking through these photographs but kicking myself for not photographing a lovely corrugated iron church on Isle of Arran last year. (via I Like)

Disassembled Household Appliances

These photographs are strangely satisfying (via Douglas Wilson)

Cetebe - beautiful polish sewing cotton labels

More great Polish ephemera and design from PanTuNieStał

Polaroid SX-70 Ad

Fantastic Polaroid Ad by Charles and Ray Eames (via The Mid-Century Modernist)

I’m a little fascinated by British wrestling posters at the moment. I think this one illustrates how fantastic they are.

• British wrestling posters flickr set

For those who have found Maraid Design via the lastest issue of McSweeny’s - welcome. Their quarterly concern is illustrated throughout with labels from my collection.

For loads more labels visit my Flickr pages

Anne, curator of Nothing To See Here, describes the destinations featured on the website..

“Places that still have a certain charm, a bit of je-ne-sais-quoi about them. They’re a little bit special. No Been There, Done That, Bought The T-Shirt kind of places here. They won’t cost much (if anything) to get in and you’ll come away feeling a little bit richer”

I often come away from somewhere thinking “this would be perfect for Nothing to See Here”. This is the first time I have submitted a post. Red Rock Cinema, Reykjavík is certainly a special place and worthy of a mention.

I’m really happy to have one of my website designs featured in the new book The Web Designer’s Idea Book. Put together by Patrick McNeil the creator of the ever handy designmeltdown.com. It features the website I made for photographer Peter Byrne.

I took a two day screenprinting class at Northern Print in Newcastle. Although slightly disappointed with the final prints it was really nice to be designing something for myself and using ideas that had been stored away for some time.

Birds 1. Inspired by a trip to The Stewarty Museum, Kirkcudbright. View in full.

Igloo Chistmas Cards