The Mishti Notebook

Screen printed notebooks inspired by the Sweets of Bengal, India.

The Mishti Notebook is a project close to my heart, wherein I experimented with screen printing techniques at the Print Labs at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. Dating back to the year 2012 when the NID Print Labs was first officially established with its unique branding. All the pictures of these wonderful sweets would make me extremely hungry during the research phase.

My mentor was the Head of Department of Graphic Design, at NID, Prof. Tarun Deep Girdher, an excellent human being whose work ethic, process, and discipline influence me deeply every day.

It also involved illustrations done specifically for screen printing based on the culture of ‘sweets’ or ‘mishtis’ that are so famous in Bengal. The final outcome was cream-papered notebooks that were screen printed and designed to showcase the myriad forms of sweets of Bengal.

Scope to Learn

Illustration, Screen Printing, Forms, Cultural Connections

Introduction

In the design project, I wanted to understand the process of screen printing and the development of artworks in accordance with the constraints of screen printing. Also, I intended to choose a topic that had a strong cultural connection with Bengal so that I could explore the cultural connections of my State. 

To try and understand the rich illustration forms of the sweets of Bengal. Finding connections between sweets in the rich literary collections of children's fantasy folk tales and the films of Bengal.

The Project Proposal

It was very important to have a proposal ready before any project. I realized this mapped to proposals or pitch decks for clients and organizations when I started working in the real world. Being a graphic design student, the layout and alignment had to be perfect along with real thought and words.

Research

I started with brainstorming on the theme of the illustrations by reading various books and having visual references of famous Bengali magazine covers like Sandesh magazine, a magazine for children with unique stories visually rich illustrations. I also viewed famous films of Bengal by the master film-maker Satyajit Ray where mishtis (sweets) played an important role. 

Movies like Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road), Gupi Gyne Bagha Byne (the most striking children's movie with elaborate sets and costumes way before VFX) had been instrumental in my inspiration process.

Artwork Themes

01. Exploring Patterns with Sweet Forms

Inspired by fractal art, I tried exploring the circular grid, wherein different forms of sweets were arranged in repetition to create illusions and textures. The forms of the sweets included nolen gurer sandesh (a sweet made of freshly procured winter jaggery) and molded with conch shell (shankha) shapes to emulate prosperity. Lengcha (oblong-shaped fried sweets) along with gulab jamuns (deep-fried and round) lavang latika (a sweet stuffed with khoya and sealed with a clove, with the outer shell fried in sugar syrup) and many more.

Learning for Screen Printing: The detailed pattern cannot be printed because of the intricacy. The design is too detailed to be printed on the mesh of screens.

02. Exploring Sweets in Films like Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road)

‘Pather Panchali’, made in 1955, also known as the ‘Song of the Little Road’ is a beautifully woven film by the master filmmaker Satyajit Ray. Here I thought of exploring a famous scene of Pather Panchali, wherein the Moira (sweet seller) visits the distant village of Nischindipur.

The village is the abode of the protagonists of the film Apu and Durga both brother and sister who belong to an impoverished family and cannot afford to buy sweets no matter how delicious they are to taste. The scene shows the brother-sister duo following the sweet seller through a dense forest before he enters a palatial bungalow of an affluent family to sell sweets. Watch the sweet seller scene from Pather Panchali here.

Learning for Screen Printing: More the colors more time needed for perfect registration and accuracy.

03. Exploring Sweets in Children Fantasy Films like Gupi Gayen Bagha Bayen

Gupi Gayen Bagha Bayen Part 1: In this movie, the climax is a war scene between two kingdoms and the two main protagonists of the movie i.e Gupi and Bagha stop the war with their magical powers by making roshogollas rain from the sky. Watch the scene from the movie here.

Learning for Screen Printing: This was an achievable artwork on screen as it used 3 colors: orange, green, and black. The content of the illustration was vague since the context could only be understood by Bengalis who have seen this famous film. Hence, a more general artwork concentrating on the forms of the mithai's were to be taken into consideration.

04. Exploring Sweets in Khirer Putul

Khirer Putul is a children's fantasy novel written by Shri Abanindranath Tagore in 1896. It is a simple and touching tale about the sugar doll, the fate of Duorani and a tricky and extraordinary monkey. I sketched out some illustrations from some scenes in the story.

05. Exploring Sweets in Festivals like Durga Puja (Bijoya Dashami/Dussehra)

Vijayadashami, also known as Dasara, is one of the most important festivals celebrated in various forms, across India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Dasara/ Dussehra is derived from Sanskrit Dasha-Hara meaning “remover of bad fate”. It is also referred to as Navratri and Durgotsav. It is also written as Dashahara, Dussehra. I wanted to concentrate on the activity wherein married ladies feed the Goddess sweets to seek her blessings and bid her goodbye so that she can come back next year. 

Learning for Screen Printing: 2 color screen print experiment is possible.

06. Final Artwork: Exploring Mishti Forms from Bengal  

At the final stage, I concentrated to work on artworks wherein the interesting and varied FORMS of the mishtis come out and grab the attention of the users. So I used a Rotring pen and black ink on normal cartridge paper.

The following was the result of the initial artwork that I had scanned. Initially, I thought I will keep the border as black, but after having a review with Tarun, he suggested me to make the color palette more warm and appealing and take out the taste and form of the sweets. So I decided to change the outline color of the forms of sweets to a reddish-brown.

Learning for Screen Printing: 3 color screen print experiment with a special process of spot UV. 

Color Separation: Making positives for Screen Printing 

The Final Artwork is a 3 color file for screen printing. Notice the yellow, orange, and maroon colors as 3 separate screens. Bharat Bhai from NID Print Labs helped me a lot to separate the files. In screen printing since colors are printed singly, one on top of the other, so 3 files need to be given to the printers to develop positives. Positives for screen printing are transparent films on which the artwork is printed (each color separated) so that it can be exposed for the screen later for screen printing.

Learning for Screen Printing: Colour separation for artworks and handing over the correct files to the printers with an accurate resolution to develop positives for screen printing.

Making Endpapers for the notebooks  

To add more context, I included a short purpose of the project on the endpapers along with the artwork and colophon. I designed artworks for the endpapers and experimented with printing them on colored sheets matching the cover papers.

The endpapers were digitally printed to be inserted into the notebooks.

Label Iterations

Print Production

Having the positives ready, I worked with NID Print Labs for exposing the screens and the for printing the first color: the yellow of the artwork. I want to especially thank Tarun and the entire team at N.I.D. Print Labs, Paldi, Ahmedabad ( Shirish Bhai, Bharat Bhai, Patel Bhai, Sachin, Hardik, Sandeep) for the production to be possible and my first-hand knowledge in screen printing. The entry of new printing machines into the print labs after ages was a true blessing and a continued effort of the graphic design faculty. As Tarun said, that it's a blessing so use it responsibly.

Screen printing essentially involves 4 simple steps:

1. Exposing the Screen.

2. Mounting the screen.

3. Checking for perfect registration.

4. Printing with the squeezy.

MIXING THE ORANGE INK: The ink contained in the orange tin (Sana inks) available, right behind Shree Darshini ( NID’s favorite South Indian eating joint) at base of Ellis Bridge, was too dark for the color I was looking at. So we mixed Sana Yellow + Sana Orange to get the desired shade.

The trick to getting the right orange (lighten) was to add yellow to the orange and not the other way around.

Print Production in Pictures

Screen Setting

Clamping the Squeezy

Checking Registration

Cleaning the Screen for the first application of yellow color

Application of first yellow ink onto the screen

Mixing the orange inks for the perfect color

Application of the darkest maroon ink on screen

Checking for the perfect registration

Printed covers drying on racks

Spot UV Printing

I decided to use the same screen for the dark brown ink for the spot UV printing as this was the last effect for the cover. The gloss UV ink added a shine to the cover of my notebooks. The transparent gloss/ matte UV ink is great for accentuating areas in any artwork.

UV Inks. The availability of various UV inks in the market exudes various textures like ripple and grainy effects on paper and gives a shiny effect to specific print areas.

The Final Notebooks

Conclusion

The learnings from the Design Project were quite varied starting from time management to understanding various illustration techniques. Iterating multiple times across the design process from constructing artworks to actual execution of the prints were my key learnings. Various experiments of overprinting and spot UV techniques, understanding inks and registration as well as operating the machines at N.I.D Print Labs made this project really exciting. 

The opportunity of being the first student to be allowed to use the new screen printing machines that were installed at the N.I.D Print Labs was only possible due to the warm support of my guide Tarun Deep Girdher. I would like to thank all my graphic design classmates for their critical feedback and help of running around to buy papers and inks.

Lastly a very big thank you to everyone at N.I.D Print Labs because of their immense help and support. Bharatbhai, Sirishbhai, Patelbhai, Sudarshanbhai, Sachin, Sandeep, and everyone else without whom this project would not have been possible.

Takeaways & Learnings

Hope this article is of help to anyone starting out with screen printing and illustration and wants to understand the design process more deeply. I re-surfaced this documentation from an old hard disk (this was from a time cloud services were not available for any storage). I am glad I could preserve the design process and the learnings. If you have a strong process then its more likely for you to get a more robust result or solution to the brief or problem. This project made me really confident about the digital to print translation.

There are other things like cost and unit price involved when you do large scale projects and usually small print runs like this are only possible when you have a screen printing lab set up at home or at your educational institute. But when you have to deal with large scale branding projects, the knowledge of printing is crucial.

Procuring the right papers and inks from the streets was an enthralling experience. Cutting up large sheets to optimize for sizes and book covers from the paper stockers helped to minimize cost during my learning days. The running around across the streets of Ahmedabad to collaborate with the ink suppliers and paper suppliers shows that design is all about collaboration and understanding the process till the end job gets done. This is the richest way to learn.

Some of you might be wondering how this might help digital designers? For me, whether I am designing for digital or print, the design process is always more enriching than the end result. This is what I reflect on and learn by repeatedly iterating over time.

Reflecting on how graphic design and print education will change during these testing times of the lockdown. How designers and clients can feel the tangible feeling of print that evokes emotions which is tough for a digital design to emulate.

For more projects and learnings, visit https://mrinalinisardar.com/. Drop me a message on Linkedin, Instagram, or Twitter to stay in touch.