Spooky season is upon us, and there is no better way to prepare for everyone’s favorite fall holiday than by making Halloween-themed arts and crafts. Command G, the on campus graphic design club, hosted a zine-making workshop on Oct. 19 for students to come in to embrace their spookily creative instincts.
The workshop’s focus was on two things: zines and risograph printing, or “riso” printing for short. A zine, taking its name from “magazine,” is usually a small comic book or collection of art. All the participants were asked to draw a random prompt from a box and use it as inspiration to create a creepy, ghoulish creature. The halloween-themed creations would then be printed onto a sheet of paper that would be folded into booklets. Three 8-page volumes were created for the collaborative zine, with six creatures printed in each volume.
The volumes were printed using riso printing, which Command G President Jade Parea said is essentially an automated screen printing process.
“So, when you send or scan an artwork in, (the printer) burns the design into, like, this rice paper that’s over the ink,” Parea said. ”Then it pushes the ink through the stencil, essentially onto the paper and the paper rolls over, and layers on top.”
Two layers of art are printed on top of one another, each in a different color. This makes each layer pop, juxtaposed on one another, while also creating a cohesive design throughout. For this workshop, everyone was given two small sheets of paper, pencils to sketch and markers to finalize our designs. It didn’t matter what color participants drew in, as the designs were going to be printed in our chosen two colors. Participants chose lime green and orchid as the colors to give the creations a spooky but satisfying palette.
Command G holds workshops throughout the semester for students of all majors to come and have fun creating art. Each workshop focuses on different types of art production so that attendees can get a good glimpse into the various facets that encompass graphic design.
However, most of the attendees are graphic design and art majors, so Parea has Command G host events like this so that those students know that resources, like the “riso” printer, are available to place orders for their classes and other projects. She wants students to gain some solid experiential knowledge to aid them in their future endeavors, though some workshops take a considerable amount of time to arrange.
“When we’re doing (something) like a heat vinyl workshop, we have to prepare the designs on the vinyl so that when people come in, they’re ready,” Parea said. “Because cutting during events too much takes too long, so to have everything quick and easy, where it’s more instructional, then they get hands-on experience versus fighting with technology.”
Command G started back up with consistent events in the fall of 2022 after a hiatus due to the pandemic. A trio of the recent St. Edward’s Class of 2023, Jacqueline Larios, Gabriel Erwin and Noelle Jones, were the main force behind this resurrection. Now, the organization holds multiple events per semester for students to get their creative feet wet and find community. They can be found on CollegiateLink and on Instagram as @cmd_g.
