OUGD 504 - Studio Brief 1

Within my Design For Print brief, I have decided to use the concept of exploration and discovery in order to create a book that demonstrates the creative possibilities of print. From looking at various types of processes and techniques involved within Design For Print, I have come across these examples of design that use thermochromic paint, or heat sensitive paint. 'Thermochromic inks take advantage of thermochromism, which refers to materials that change their hues in response to temperature fluctuations.' 

Despite being used in many novelty items, they also have a very useful and creative application too, including:  thermometers, clothing, paint, drink containers, toys, battery indicators, plastic products of all kinds and much more. There are two different types of these inks, which are thermochromatic liquid crystals, or TLC's, and leuco dyes.

 'Liquid crystals are exactly what their name indicates -- a substance that has many properties of a liquid crossed with structural elements inherent to crystals. Peer through a microscope at a liquid crystal and you'll see a fluid that exhibits evident textures. Liquid crystals are dynamic. Their properties change depending on environmental conditions; TLCs exhibit different colours in response to temperature changes. At lower temperatures, these liquid crystals are mostly in a solid, crystalline form. In this low temperature state, TLCs may not reflect much light at all, thus, appearing black. Apply warmth and increase it bit by bit, though, and you'll see the TLCs shift from black to just about every colour of the rainbow. This happens because as temperature rises, spacing between the crystals changes, and as a result, they reflect light differently.' 

'As with TLCs, leuco dyes are also micro-encapsulated into tiny droplets that are only about 3 to 5 microns in size, which prevents them from reacting with or being damaged by other chemicals. Usually, leuco dyes are coloured when they're at a cool temperature. Then, as heat rises, they become translucent, which lets them reveal any colours, patterns or words that may be printed on an underlying layer of ink. In other products, leuco dyes can be blended with another colour so that as temperatures change, a two-tone effect occurs. Mix blue with yellow, for example, and you have an ink that looks green at lower temperatures and yellow when heat rises. It sounds a bit magical, but there's some basic science behind the way the inks work. The teensy capsules contain a colorant, an organic acid and a solvent. At lower temperatures the solvent remains in a solid state, keeping the colorant and acid in close proximity to each other -- and as a result, they reflect light and create colour. As the solvent warms, the colorant and the acid separate and there's no visible colour, which in turn exposes underlying inks.'

When thinking about the two types of thermochromic inks that are available, I am very much interested in leuco dyes; this is a medium that reacts to heat by losing its colour. I think that this could be very interesting and I would love to experiment with it to see how I could apply it within my own designs, thinking about the idea of exploration and discovery.

Here, you can see that it has been applied to a book cover in order to hide certain information, which can be revealed by placing your hand onto the black. This is a very clever way of using this medium and is something that has influenced the way in which I want to apply this to my own practice. 

This was the first piece of design that incorporated the use of thermochromic ink that I had seen, and is the reason that I looked into this medium further. Here, it has been used on a business card for a photographer and represents the idea of making your own negatives. The way in which this medium has been integrated within the concept is something I find very interesting and increases the impact that the ink has. Based around my idea of exploration and discovery, I could use this thermochromic ink to possibly conceal information within my book, thus forcing the viewer to physically explore the page.

These are some more examples of thermochromic ink in use:

I also found this video that demonstrates how thermochromic ink works:

I then started to research this material to see how and where I could purchase some of it from. I came across this website, it is American and sells a wide range of screen printing powders that I could experiment with. I purchased some and explored the way in which it would work on various stocks and alongside various other print methods.