Ink Traps and Pals (2021)

I have somewhere in storage commercial print training docs which talk a lot about how to adjust print media for different forms of printing technology (flat bed, continuous feed, offset) to account for ink bleed. Where the picture is on the paper, and how much other ink is around it can play well or badly, depending.

Print was a black art and the printers unions maintained an iron grip on the mysteries. If you did one part of the chain you didn't tread on another parts prerequisites or perquisites.

I was only doing silkscreen at uni for fun, back in the 70s and 80s. We had to work quite a lot to come close to commercial quality because ink, viscose as it may seem in the tube, is remarkably mobile under pressure. It goes places you hadn't planned. If you want your agitprop to work well, you have to try hard to control this stuff.