silk screen printing / GI Grand Corporation

“Ogaki Festival World Poster Exhibition” being held at the Japan International Poster Museum.

All the posters of designs gathered from all over the world are printed on the Mino Japanese paper of UNESCO intangible cultural property by silk screen originated in Gujo.

In charge of this silk screen printing, it is GI Grand Corporation, a printing company that has a factory in Gifu City.

The word silk screen has come to be heard well in recent years, but is not there many people who do not know in detail what kind of printing technique it is actually?

This time we will have a tour of the factory to the President Yosuke Toda!

Once you step into the factory, there is a faint smell of ink.

About six workers were silently working there.

First of all I showed you the part of the screen which is the origin of the word “silk screen”.

It was originally called “Silk Screen Printing” because the screen was made of silk.

I touched it, it’s very smooth fingering!

And then, attach this screen on a frame, and print letters and patterns with light.

In the past, they used wooden frame, but now mostly aluminum frame.

There is a small hole on the screen, it is a very simple mechanism to print through ink here.

Here is a machine called a stretcher to stretch the screen to the frame.

When sending air, the machine operates and it is structured to tighten the pin so that the screen does not slack.

Subsequently, the emulsion which become hard when it is exposed to light was painted to the screen, and a film printed letters and patterns is covered on the screen.

By applying a strong light there, the emulsion become hard without only black shaded letters and patterns , so the parts of letters and patterns  will be passed the ink.

It is said that “silk screen printing can print on anything but water and air.”

Paper, cloth, plastic, metal, etc, GI Grand can print on everything.

Requests from customers are varied, and often they are asked to do things they have never done before.

Toda’s policy is not to judge that he can not do it because he has never done it, he always think “Let’s challenge just because I have never done it!”

He said that he’d be happy if customers think “whenever I come here, they will manage to do it for me!”

On the 2nd floor the T – shirt was printed using the print plate.

One of the features of the silk screen is that you need plates as many as the color.

Since only one color can be used for one plate, they print it over and over again many times.

All workers do it quickly and deftly, this is also a technique that requires experience for long time.

For this poster, the four colors CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) are used.

 The order of colors to print also affects the color of the finish, but in what order of color they are printing is a company secret ……! 

Looking at the back side where the poster was made, the poster exhibited will appear more attractive. Please come and visit the hall!

GI Grand Co., Ltd.

address：6-53-2 Nishiuzura Gifu city