Artomatic newsletter by B and B

When specialist screen-printer and graphic resource centre Artomatic decided to release its first newsletter, B and B designer Emma Bristow seized the opportunity to try a material she’d never used before: Tyvek.

The sheet looks and feels a lot like paper, but is, in fact, made entirely of polyethylene fibres and has been used for projects as diverse as bags, envelopes and tags as well as for a dress for designer Hussein Chalayan.

‘People either love it or hate it: I love it because of its distinctive weave of fibres and because it doesn’t tear – making the newsletter an item that people could keep. It also demonstrates Artomatic’s commitment to experimenting with printing on unusual and different materials,’ says Bristow. A lightweight 65gsm sheet was used.

‘The design is a huge open-out newsletter and poster, by the artist Noki, which can be folded-up and sealed to make it easy to send by post. Because it doesn’t take happily to four-colour printing, the newsletter is based on a typographic design, but there is a poster image of a woman’s face on the reverse. The two sides of the material are quite different – one is dark silver and the other a grey-white.

‘In the early stages we tried a fluorescent ink as the second colour for the poster, but that produced an odd chemical reaction giving an uneven finish, ordinary inks gave a more consistent result.’ The newsletter was screen-printed by Artomatic. n