cookie collaboration!
It appears that I am in some kind of psychedelic cookie phase of my life. I realize this is the third time I have made similarly colorful cookies and then told you about them (remember this? and these?), so my apologies for presenting you with repeat material. However, in my defense, I am not sure that there is such a thing as too many cookies. Especially ones that channel a kaleidoscopic energy similar to, say, the rainbow leopard from 90’s Lisa Frank swag. In fact, I would even argue that the world is a better place with cookies like these in it. Sure, maybe more of us have diabetes and cavities in said world, but at least they’re fun to look at and have nothing to do with cupcakes.
The project this time around was a collaboration with myself and the extra talented and also fun to look at Brian Standeford. He designed and screen printed the packaging for the cookies which I made to provide sustenance (and perhaps a spike in blood sugar) to some photoshop students at BlogShop’s Seattle session this weekend.
It was an adventure in screen printing and CMYK-inspired cookie design. Read more to see how we did it!
Our adventure starts at the Vera Project silkscreen studio where Brian burned the screens that we used to make the packaging.
First, Brian put a thin layer of the special photo emulsion on both sides of the screens. The emulsion is light sensitive and needs to be applied before “burning” an image into the screen.
Then, he let the emulsion dry on the screens in the dark. Once they were dry, he set up the light box with one of the images we wanted to burn. He put one of the screens with the dry emulsion on top, and then piled on a bunch of books to make sure everything was flat and stayed put. He set up the timer on the light box and then covered it all with a blanket so that no outside light could get in and mess up the exposure.
The light box looked cool…
He repeated the burning process with the second screen and second image. Then, with a power washer, he washed out the emulsion that wasn’t hit with the light.
And viola! That is how he burned the screens.
Then, to print the images, we went back to Brian’s studio where he has a custom-built printing table all set up. He laid the paper down, flooded the screen with black ink, and then, using a tool reminiscent of a squeegee, swiped the ink down the length of the screen to transfer the image on to the paper below.
Side A looked like this:
And Side B like this:
After the prints were finished, then came the edible/more delicious portion of our project. First, I made Martha’s simple sugar cookies and cut them into circles.
Then, I made the standard powdered sugar frosting and used food coloring to make it as close to CMYK as I could.
And then I went to town decorating those cookies.
And there you have it. For DesignLoveFest’s photoshop-erific weekend, a Brian Standeford and Be Coolinary cookie collaboration that Lisa Frank would be stoked about.
