These are posters created in celebration of Nakagawa Masashichi Shoten’s 300th anniversary. Nakagawa Masashichi Shoten is a long-established company known for manufacturing hemp cloth in Nara, Japan’s ancient capital.
We chose to print on paper (1170mmx1535mm) that is slightly larger than B0 size (1030mmx1456mm). The whole page was covered with the logo design, and then cut to create each of the B0, B1, B2 size prints.
To ensure that the smaller prints look natural and uniform when cut down to size, the logo was placed repeatedly on the page and made to look like patterns on wrapping paper.
The colorful colors were chosen after testing out hundreds of colors. In the end, 12 colors, which accentuate the interesting harmony between the traditional logo and pop art, were chosen.
Silkscreen printing was used to print the 12 colors. 12 colors=12 screens.
Because changes in the climate affect how much the paper shrinks, it is said that experience and skill are required for accurately layering each of the colors especially when printing a large colorful silkscreen. Being slightly off on one layer can result in a big misalignment on the final print.
As a matter of fact, we were told that a silkscreen printing job of this scale using multiple screens was a rare request even for a printing company that has been producing silkscreen prints for many years.
The vivid colors unique to silkscreen printing make this an eye-catching poster.