An unexpected invitation from ESAD school in Porto to host a workshop on Graphic Design, sparked a desire in Anastasia Temirkhanova, a graphic designer with expertise in creative direction and visual identities, to create a poster for the event. With the support of Andrew Howard, a director at the school, Andrea’s creative journey began.
“I have always been inspired by form, and this time I wanted the form to represent me,” says the graphic designer. She continues; “I believe that self-identification and self-definition are some of the most interesting challenges in design.” Anastasia decided not to look for a complex image, but to choose one of her own photographs and define a shape that caught her attention – a body. She tells us; “I wanted to literally show how my mind was thinking about the upcoming event, with my head in the clouds. As I worked, I noticed that the body lost its original meaning and turned into a mountainous landscape with clouds. This ambiguity was exactly what I was looking for in the poster.” Anastasia’s acquaintance and admiration of Igor Gurovich is also undoubtedly evident in her work. “I have to admit, Igor is incredible and impossible to reach!” comments the designer.
After visualising her design, Anastasia decided to bring it to life through the medium of screen printing. Looking for a place where she could work on her own, Anastasia discovered Gate 44 art production studio in Milan. The space itself “deserves special attention” according to Anastasia. The studio has large windows and is filled with light, with high ceilings making it possible to divide the workspace into two levels. The whole experience of the space was inspiring and comfortable for the designer, as she tells us; “The music from Gate 44’s great playlist created a fantastic working atmosphere. Plus, they had all the necessary equipment to realise any creative project, from letterpress to large-scale screen printing.”
The process of preparing and implementing the design for printing was an exciting one for Anastasia. For the first time, she learnt about choosing mesh density (90 t or 120 t) and how many layers of emulsion are needed to achieve a good impression.”Applying emulsion and exposing the screens was quite a cinematic experience,” describes the designer. Not needing white in the composition, she chose G.F. Smith Colorplan Factory Yellow 135g/mg to print on. The fourth and final layer of the print consisted of three separate shapes forming the cloud. Each of them was printed by applying transparent ink and transparent black directly on the screen in order to get a gradient. “This was the biggest challenge, especially for registration,” says Anastasia. It was a conscious decision not to convert the gradient into a bitmap, even though it would have been easier. Anastasia’s curiosity and desire to learn new things always outweighs any challenges. Mixing paints was an especially vivid experience for the designer. She comments; “My hands, clothes, and walls quickly turned blue, red, and black! Then I repeated the same actions 80 times over four rounds.”
Throughout her printmaking process, Anastasia was guided through the intricacies of screen printing by Gianluca, teacher at Gate 44 – she recommends the studio to everyone!
Photographs by Erica Monzali
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