Today we take you to the Parisian suburbs, Rue de la Gueule du Bois (‘hangover road’ in French :)). Follow us to find out what a day in a screen printing workshop looks like.
But first of all, you’re probably wondering: “screen printing, what’s this all about!?” You’ll see, it’s not complicated. It’s a printing technique that allows paint or ink to be deposited directly onto a surface using a large rubber stamp. This is what you’ll find on our travel-size bottles or collab pieces for example.
So, how is it going in the field? After hours of waiting to find a taxi, we arrive in front of a large hangar in the middle of nowhere, at the end of a long path. In truth, it's quite charming, but it seems huge! Inside, we unexpectedly find a very small production line, a team of 4 smiling women who explain all the little details to us. First, they mix the pigments by hand and weigh them before pouring them onto a board engraved with the pattern of the product (the pattern on the board is actually an inverse of the final design). It’s thanks to this team and their technique that the lettering and designs on your products are always top notch.
Then it’s the..."aaah"..satisfying moment! The big pink rubber stamp comes to rest on the plate, bounces around, soaking up the paint, before landing on the glass and leaving the design there. It works exactly the same way as a sponge…and looks like a big strawberry bubblegum.
Then all the bottles are left to dry before they can be packed up and sent to Chartres a few kilometers away for filling!
PS: our partner workshop uses paint to print the pattern on the products and not a metallic film like in other workshops.
For a very small series of only 300 pieces (as we’ve done with our Carne Bollente collaboration), you have to find workshops that agree to work with such small quantities. The goal is to keep the collaboration ultra-limited edition = just a few collectors pieces. Thanks Arthus!
