One-of-a-kind

Chronology of a Notebook Giveaway

We were looking to produce a self-promotion piece that was made from repurposed materials, and after a couple of design staff meetings, came up with the idea of using old album covers. We scoured vintage record stores, resale stores and our own collections to find 200+ albums. And if the covers showed a little wear and tear – well, we thought it enhanced the beauty.

A giveaway to our clients for the 2010 holiday season, our handcrafted notebook turned out to be a fun project, eventually involving nearly everyone at Iconix. And for some of us, it also brought us back to our days as art students.

We initially started experimenting with different printing techniques such as woodblock, stamping, stenciling, spray painting and silkscreening, and eventually decided on silkscreening as the desired effect. We tested patterns and colors on a few albums, and really liked the idea that each person would receive their own one-of-a-kind piece of art.

Through a friend that owns a commercial screen print shop, we borrowed existing wood-framed screens that had been previously used to make different fabric patterns. We then ordered other necessary items such as: paint, ink, palette knives, squeegees and fixative spray. Quickly, the Iconix build shop and photo areas became our own printing shop, with stuff spread out everywhere.

With our album covers finished, we then had our offset printer trim them to final size, print the inner text sheets on recycled paper, and then spiral bind the units. Internally, we hand-assembled tags to the outer covers and placed them in hand-stamped recycled gift bags.

Hand silkscreening was a new process for us that required a lot of trial and error, and was very labor intensive. We sure got our hands dirty, but we were very pleased with the final results. I thought it might be interesting to share some of the multiple decisions and steps required on a “simple” project like this.