Hi MLE,

Exciting day today - researching our first Dibond print. Dibond is of interest as we are researching printing a large one-colour vector illustration. It is an aluminium composite sheet specially optimised for display, so even though the sheets are huge and very thin, they lie super flat, which is amazing. Also, they are very light compared to aluminium. Dibond comes in a variety of colours including a brushed silver that looks like stainless steel and a mirror finish that looks just like a mirror.

The print quality is amazing, perfect for a one-colour vector drawing, however compared to a more traditional digital print, the quality is not quite there, especially when you look at gradients, that are a bit more spotty.

I had a look at the new direct to media printer, which was impressive (photos above). In addition to Dibond, it can pretty much print on anything. This printer has been used to print on a huge cow hide and also bricks. In fact, as long as it the material is less than 8cm thick, it can probably be done.

The bed is massive, and can print up to 3.5 x 2.5 meters. It has a series of holes in it that sucks the material to it, so that it lies as flat as possible, hence a high resolution print. There is a heating device that dries the link instantly as it is being printed. This heating device will cause some coated digital papers to burn, but these are some of the only materials that cannot be used!

One last interesting fact: the print head costs £45K to replace (photo of the print head is above). Which had to be done recently. After paying about £250K for the machine about three years ago, the printer was not very happy about this!

I will write again when the job is done…

Have a nice weekend!

Suzan

Hi the MLE,

Well, well, well, look what I found in my brother’s basement this summer:  the MOTHandRUST catalogue!  Can you believe that it was well over ten years ago now that we designed this?

A lot of people ask me how we came up with the name for our studio.  So I tell them the story…  We met at design school in Vancouver and became friends right away.  We learned that we work well together so we teamed up to do our grad project, an intense project that takes the entire final year to complete. We chose to study how graphic design, considered to be mostly disposable, may age with time. We chose to brand a fictional clothing label to explore our subject.

The end result included hangtags made with seed paper, that when planted, would grow wild flowers…

A billboard, that when stained with the elements, would reveal the logo…

A window display with a sweater with a light inside, that clothes moths could eat, revealing an interesting t-shirt at the end…

Etc etc…

Remember we had to contact the biology department of Simon Fraser University and convince them to hatch the moths for us?

We also created a fashion catalogue using a light sensitive paper, that with time, would slowly turn completely black.  And I must say, it has worked - the catalogue only contains ghostlike images, and the pages have beautiful stains as well.  I’m pleased to see the tin box has rusted rather nicely too (image above).

Anyway, we were flipping through thesauruses and dictionaries in the studio one afternoon, going over dozens of names to call our clothing label, when you said, “Moth and Rust!”  Then later, we did a brainstorming of names to call our studio, and you said, “Moth and Rust?” It just made sense.

Suzan xx

Hello the MLE,

Hope you're doing well and that the snow is gone in Stockholm.  It's been surprisingly nice and dry all year here in London (which is good for our new roof!) and it's starting to feel a bit warmer.

Probably one of the reasons we are such good friends is that we are both nerds.  I sometimes wonder how different my life would be if after my Psychology degree I continued on to med school, as I had prepared for, and became a psychiatrist...  It's funny how a decision made so many years ago can have such a big effect on your life.  Anyway, I still read Psychology books today, though way less nerdy, and sometimes even flaky, ones.

One of my latest finds is the Five Minute Journal.  I've kept a journal regularly since I was 15, but in the past two years I have almost stopped writing completely - so the "five minute" part sounded appealing.  And it really does take only five minutes, it's super simple.

You take one minute out of your day to be grateful for three things.  This is important, as in our culture, it is so easy to want, want, want.  The thinking is that if you appreciate what you have, you will be happier with your life as-is, and happier overall.

Then you take one minute to list three things that would make the day great.  I find this helps prioritize my day.

At the end of the day, you take two minutes to reflect on of three great things that happened, and three things that could have made today better.  I've been doing this for two weeks now, and I've been seeing the same "could have been better" item come up quite often, which has been rather insightful.  Hmmm, need to do something about that...

I skip the "daily affirmations" bit because it's a bit corny for me personally, so I guess that makes it more of a Four Minute Journal.   Anyway, I'll keep going with it for another few months and will let you know how it works out.  So far, I like taking the time out to think like this for a few minutes each day, so I reckon that may stick, though the things I think about may evolve...

From one nerd to another,

Suzan xx

 

Hey Suzan!

Have you heard of Norwegian scientist/artist Sissel Tolaas? Probably one of the most fascinating people I've ever read about. With a background in mathematics, chemistry and art – she is now known as one of the world's leading "scent experts" – essentially, studying the sense of smell and the power it has in our lives. Among the vast array of things she does, she "collects" scents in a huge library of over 7000 samples that she's been harvesting since 1990. She designs scents, as part of projects which investigate the relationship of smell and memory, which have been used as therapy for trauma patients. She's hired in the commercial world to help decide things like what scents work best in a hotel lobby. And she works with artists creating various scent-installations. I first learned about her in an issue of the journal mono-kultur - where she discusses amazing topics such as - what does fear smell like? Violence? Love? Smell is so deeply provocative, and we're constantly surrounded by an "invisible architecture "of scent. And that being the case, can we understand it better to see if it offers the potential for change? Fascinating, no? Now that's what I call an interesting day job!  Apparently she spoke at the Serpentine Gallery last month - saw this too late as usual - but you must keep an eye out in case she makes any other appearances around London - can't imagine it would be anything less than amazing...

E xox

Hey MLE!

This is a bit scattered up like my brain right now. Going to the US of A tomorrow morning very early to meet our client in Baltimore. Really looking forward to meeting everyone and seeing their new facilities.

I got the email above awhile ago, all HTML. Saved it because I thought it was interesting. Not sure why, maybe its because there are no spaces, and complete random upper and lower case with numbers too, no repetition. It went on and on and on. Thought I'd post it, maybe one day we'll be looking through our archives and we'll use it for something.  :)

I know you'll appreciate this my friend,

Suzan xx