Shepard Fairey – Livestrong – Demo Wood Print
Custom Wood Print – Lance Armstrong Livestrong
This was something we printed directly on wood a few years back. It was actually just a test print on a scratch piece of wood and not meant for anything, but it turned out so cool that we thought we’d photograph it just for reference and to showcase what really good art looks like when printed on wood.
The artwork was for a huge billboard banner that we printed to promote the Livestrong campaign. For those that can’t tell, Shepard Fairey is the man behind the artwork. We knew this piece wood look amazing printed on wood. The colors are super vibrant and the “non-color” or negative space in the piece allows for the wood grain to shine through and fill in where color is absent. As you can see the end result was a show quality piece on plywood. Sadly, since it was just a test print, the piece now lives in a scrap pile in the back of our shop.
THIS PIECE IS NOT FOR SALE – JUST SHOWN HERE AS AN EXAMPLE
Learn more about:Printing directly on plywood
The idea of printing directly on plywood is not a new one. We have been doing it for years. Everything from point of purchase POP displays for retail stores to one-off artist prints for gallery exhibitions. The process is fairly straight-forward. We can print art in bulk quantities – the same artwork printed many times on a full 4-foot by 8-foot piece of plywood – OR in short run quantities on smaller, pre-cut sizes made to order.
It’s all in the grain
The wood grain tells a story on its own. When the wood grain comes through in the prints it sets a subtle organic tone to the piece – something natural yet non-natural at the same time. One could easily argue that the grain patterns themselves are noteworthy of attention, but the combination of both wood grain and custom artwork is what makes the art really stand out, almost transforming it sometimes. And better yet, since wood grain patterns are like fingerprints, each piece printed on wood, regardless if it was printed in bulk or not, is a unique and one-of-a-kind print. Awesome!