In September 2020, St. John’s College was grateful to be awarded funding by the Ian Karten Charitable Trust to purchase equipment and resources for the Inklusion print room, on-site at the college in Brighton.
Bernard Akehurst the Print Shop technician says: “Since our most recent funding from the Karten Trust, we have been able to vastly expand our learning opportunities. More products, more varied projects, and more student engagement.”
Inklusion website
Development of the Inklusion website www.inklusionprint.co.uk was a key part of the project. Brighton-based Creative Blend helped to establish the site and maintain it for us.
The Inklusion print shop produces and sells everything from mugs, t-shirts and cards to bags, jigsaws and art prints.
“Now that we have the website, students can follow the whole process, from design to production and despatch. They take the product photography, edit and upload to the site, with customer information, pricing, and stock levels.”
Student designs
Hoppy Birthday, by James
Fox and Sloth By Alice
West Pier, Brighton by Patrick, Luke, Sam and James
Ricoh Ri100
Our students really engage when using the new DTG (direct to garment) printer.
Designs they have made, using various art techniques, are scanned in and, via Photoshop, printed onto t-shirts and tote bags.
Curio cutting, embossing and etching tool
Several of our greeting cards have a customisable element.
The students collect the relevant information from the customer order that comes through the online shop and design the piece needed on the specialised software. They then print and load the cutting mat into the cutter.
The card is then made up using double sided sticky pads to add a 3D effect.
Graphtec 7000-60
Single-colour designs are put together on the Graphtec Studio software and exported to the Graphtec 7000-60 Vinyl Cutter Plotter – below.
Some students are really engaged, when using this equipment. It is quite mesmerising to watch the blade going to and fro.
After the vinyl has been cut, it has to be weeded. A lot of our learners enjoy this part of the process, finding it calming.
The intricate nature of the picking and the concentration needed to pull out the waste material, necessary to reveal the design, is a great aid to focusing for many of the learners.
The patience needed helps them in other sessions, as well and improves their overall learning.
Cap press
The finished design is then transferred to the garment, in this case (below) a baseball cap, but often it is work clothes, aprons or fluorescent tabards.
Screen printing
The repetitive nature of the task, along with the very tactile element of screen-printing (below), is very popular and is a great way of engaging some of our less creative students.
Conclusion
The positive impact made by opportunities offered by the equipment and technology your generous grant enabled us buy has been of enormous – for all our students. Everything from initial idea through marketing and sales, down to the packaging and happy dispatch outings to the post office, has given our learners the chance to enthusiastically participate and learn vocational skills that will benefit them long into their futures.
Thank you from all the learners, trustees, and staff at St. John’s for all your ongoing support.
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- This article was written by the Karten Centre
- Featured in the Karten Winter 2023 Newsletter
- This article is listed in the following subject areas: Centre News