!#8# Silk Screening Past to Present - From Ancient Japanese Silk to Bumper Stickers

!±8± Silk Screening Past to Present - From Ancient Japanese Silk to Bumper Stickers

The origins of printing are lost to history; some credit the Egyptians, or the Greeks. The earliest example of printing on record is the Chinese book known as the "Diamond Sutra" from 868 CE (Christian era.) Silk screen printing is the legacy of the Japanese form of stencil printing known as Katazome. Silk screening, also known as serigraph is a process that was patented by an Englishman called Samuel Simon. An American by the name of John Pilsworth took the process a step further in San Francisco, California by applying multiple colors and patenting this variation in 1914. It was during the First World War that screen printing began being used in an industrial capacity for producing flags, banners and advertisements. By this time there was the advent of photographic stencils which offered more adaptability and accessibility. Silk screening grew in popularity and became widely used for printing textiles, t-shirts and custom sticker printing. Screen printing has even been used in pop art, most notably by Andy Warhol.

The process of screen printing is simple, and depending on the desired effect, there are number of ways to produce an image. Originally silk screening was done with silk; this material was stretched taught over a frame. Since the 1940's synthetic materials like nylon and polyester have become the standard due to their low cost. The screen is then laid over the print surface; this may consist of cloth, paper, or some other material. In its simplest form, screen printing uses a stencil on top of the screen; ink is applied and then pushed through the screen and the stencil onto the substrate using a squeegee, thus producing an image. Another method is to use a light sensitive emulsion applied to the screen itself which creates impermeable areas through which ink cannot pass, in effect making the screen and the stencil one. The same process to apply the ink is still used regardless of what method is used to create the screen, the squeegee, or rubber blade pushes the ink through the screen to produce the image.

The silk screen method is inexpensive and easy to use, making it widely used in one form or another by multitudes of artists as well as companies. This method has been used for producing decals and stickers since the before the bumper sticker was even a true "sticker". It was a screen printer from Kansas City by the name of Forest P. Gill who created the modern custom stickers in the early 1930's. Silk screen printing is what has made what we all recognize as a sticker or decal what it is today. The legacy of the sticker will forever be tied to the process of silk screening. Silk screening gives the printer as much freedom to experiment as one could need, and at a low cost since there is no heavy equipment necessary. This is the ideal situation from which stickers of all variety began to be produced, and not just for commercial or political use, but for personal use as well. The basic format of creating a short message or clear symbol using one, two or four colors is perfectly suited to custom bumper stickers. This kind of inexpensive process allows for the kind of freedom of experimentation necessary when printing stickers, especially for stickers of a short run, or for producing variations in color of the same pattern.

For a process as simple as this to have a practical application on an industrial scale is not only what makes producing stickers for the masses possible, but for the masses to produce stickers on a small scale. The history that lives in the present in the form of the sticker is truly a marvel, the act of printing on silk, devised who knows how long ago, this ancient process that started in the Far East, taken to and developed in the West, is now a part of everyday life; to the point that people in every strata of society, business and conceivable niche have an outlet to express their message, to be seen and heard. This is what makes stickers and screen printing partners; as long as one exists, the other will have a place in the world.