OUGD 504 - Studio Brief 1

After having found thermochromic inks, and thinking about other unconventional forms of printing, I began looking at latex scratch off overprint. This is the silver scratch off ink that is used on scratch cards. As both myself and Harrison were interested with this process we began exploring the internet in search of an alternative method to print it; conventionally it would be digitally printed onto a glossy surface.

'Synthetic latexes are used in coatings, such as latex paint, and glues because they solidify by coalescence of the polymer particles as the water evaporates, and therefore can form films without releasing potentially toxic organic solvents in the environment. Other uses include cement additives, and to conceal information on scratch cards. Latex, usually styrene-based, is also used in immunoassays.'

This is a project that was done for the university that involved the use of scratch off overprint, as seen in the top right and bottom left images; this however was digitally printed.

Although we couldn't find any information about it online, we discussed it with Simon and were informed that Luke, a previous student, was the person who produced the 'This Is Not The End' project, and had experimented with it before. We were unaware that in order to propose the idea originally they had to create a DIY version, this being what we had been trying to look into. We arranged a meeting and went to speak to him about it, during which we found out the secret to manually create a latex scratch off overprint layer. I also found many images that had also involved the use of scratch off overprint, all of which would've been digitally printed though. This does however still give a general idea of the creative possibilities of latex overprint.

This was a project that involved applying the latex overprint onto a CD sleeve, the results as shown above. As you can see, the silver overprint successfully hides all of the visual information beneath it until it is scratched away; this could be very interesting in terms of my concept based around exploration and discovery. 

In this project, based around the idea of censorship, the scratch off overprint has been cleverly incorporated within the actual concept of the piece. This is something that I would definitely consider within my own project, using the scratch off in order to visually demonstrate the idea of exploration and discovery.

I am now going to experiment with the actual process of applying and using scratch off overprint in order to understand how it works and thus successfully apply it to my final outcome. I will need to experiment with the mixing of ink as well as the substrates that it works best with.