ButtonMakers.net Sponsors the 2010 Georgetown Super 8 Film Festival
The folks over at GS8 put on a festival every year featuring amateur, unedited, un-juried films shot on Super 8. The whole neighborhood comes out and comes together. It's really amazing. Plus the money raised goes toward a neighborhood arts grant.
This year ButtonMakers.net helped out by donating a rental and supplies to the festival. They made these awesome "metallic" magnets in the 1 inch machine by printing the design backwards on transparencies. (More about the technique later.)
BUTTONS = DONATIONS
This metal drop box was placed in the neighborhood coffee shop. They just put up a sign to "take a magnet, leave a dollar" and watched the $ roll in. They were able to bring in several hundred dollars in just over a month. It was absolutely the most effective, fund-raising effort the festival did, while at the same time requiring the least amount of legwork!
METALLIC BUTTONS
One way to snazz up your button designs is to print them out on transparencies. This way the metal shell shows through and makes it look all shiny and cool.
When you do this, you'll want to print out your graphic backwards. That way you can place the transparency on the shell ink or toner side down to protect the graphic. You don't even need to use mylar!
To flip your image in
Photoshop, use the Image -> Image Rotation -> Flip Horizontal option as shown in the image to the left. If you're not familiar with laying out pages on one Layer this way, you might want to download our templates and check out the tutorial on using Patterns.
In OpenOffice you can flip your image by right clicking or CTRL-clicking on it and selecting Flip -> Horizontally. In OpenOffice you have to remember to flip your graphic before laying out the whole page.If you have a good printer you may also be able to flip the image in the printer settings as well.
When you're pressing metallic buttons you want to make sure that the image prints backwards, the ink is totally dry, and you load the graphic into the machine with the graphic toward the shell. That way it reads properly and the ink side is facing the shell (not out and exposed to the elements). You don't want to use mylar for metallic buttons either. Sometimes when you put two pieces of plastic together you get that weird rainbow pattern, and that's not what we want.
7 comments:
Can we use a inkjet printer and where do we get the transparencies? Aloha Reggie in Hawaii
Hi Reggie,
These buttons were made on an inkjet printer. You definitely need to make sure you're using archival inks though. That's pigment based inks only.
You can get inkjet transparencies from most office supply stores. Or you can also get it from one of my favorite stores, InkJetArt.com.
Since you're not using the original Mylar, could you also use some other color paper behind to change it up from silver, perhaps a piece of foil wrapping paper in a different color(gold)?
Hi Dave,
Yes, you could use gold or some other type of metallic paper underneath. Though, in this case that wouldn't work so well with the red ink. Or... maybe it would look awesome! Who knows? You should try it and send me some pics!!!
:D
re "make sure you're using archival inks..."
First I've heard of this. So if one has a "regular" inkjet printer, is its regular ink the same as archival ink? If not, where would one get such from? Or are you talking about having to get a special printer just to do this?
Also, if you don't use the archival ink, what will happen to the ink and/or transparency?
Hi Anonymous,
Archival inks are "pigment" based inks. Dye based inks are sucksville for buttons.
Epson sells pigment inks under the names DuraBrite and UltraChrome. HP sells pigment inks under the name Vivera.
There are some consumer grade "regular" printers that use these inks. But some still use dye based inks. So you just have to check and make sure.
If you already have a printer that is not compatible with name brand pigment inks, you might try using inks from InkSupply.com. I've used one of their continuous inking systems in my Epson 1280 for years, and I'm still quite happy.
oh, I almost forgot. If you use dye based inks on any buttons really, but especially on transparency buttons, your inks are liable to run in the rain (or wash) and fade badly in the sun.
Keep in mind that unlike photos, or reports, or most of the prints these printers are designed for, buttons are worn outside in the elements and accidentally tossed in the washing machine.
Pigment inks can stand up to this wear, but dye inks cannot.
Hope that helps!!
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