Wednesday 13th October
This morning I had a look in the campus shop but also in a couple shops in town at some different paper options. I ended up picking out three different types to sample cutting. This afternoon I went to Cut By Beam Laser cutting studio where they helped me to cut some test samples for my publication before doing the final cuts next week. I have to cut the pages after printed them as printing on paper with holes on can risk damaging a printer.
Cover Design Samples
I was shown how to save my document in a way that could be cut, by outlining all the latter to make them shapes. I then had to export it into the program that the machines use. Learning what speed, power and distance the settings needed to be set to. You can see an image of the program and one of my designs being cut by the laser below.
Above you can see my two different design ideas for the cover. The grey on the second image represents where I wanted it to be cut. This is how I will show the laser cut parts on my document. Below you can see that design cutout too. I think I will go with the design shown below as its a bit more legible and simple without the words crossing over. The top left and bottom cutting samples are both done on different paper types. These papers are ideas for my cover. The are both an off-white slightly yellow tinges colour. I wanted to test them to see if it made a difference with burn marks that the laser leaves. The paper type didn’t seem to make a huge difference.
Content Design Samples
I also experimented with cutting elements for inside the publication. I cut these on the recycled paper I used to print my test pages on. I have decided I actually really like how the paper came out when printed on, with only my home printer. It laser cut nicely in the end too. Below you can see I found a solution to stop the burn marks that were on my first sample but not my second. I did this by cutting the paper on a sheet of wood instead of straight onto the metal grid in the machine. This is because the wood absorbs some of the heat where as the metal would just get hot and burn the paper.
As you can see the design above was my first design for the content page I realised it can be hard to line up the numbers with the words that precisely. The burn marks will also show badly on the other side of the page. Below is a second sample of the content page with the numbers moved so that they don’t have to line up as precisely. I then realised that when the number cut through it cut onto my introduction page. I need to make sure that when I design it I remember where the laser cut elements will flip over onto the other side of the page. For my actual publication I will have to move my introduction around so its not cut.
