Creating good prints Part I

I spend my days creating prints of graffiti. I term them "museum-quality prints". Prints of graffiti? Huh??

Yeah, my business sells art prints, the kind you put on the wall in your living room, dorm room, bed room, waiting room... and they happen to be of graffiti.

Basically, I take, or acquire, photographs of graffiti art that I like. That's the easy part. Turning them into "museum-quality prints" is a little more involved. I'll start Part I of this by defining "museum-quality prints":

First, what constitutes a print? In art-land, a print is usually actually a "re-print", meaning it was created from the original, it is not the original itself. There are lots of different types of prints i.e. lithographs, photo prints, canvas prints, etc. Generally though, a print is a reproduction of an original.

Now, a 75 cent color copy from Kinko's qualifies as a "print". It would not, however, qualify as "museum-quality"! In the art-world, the term "museum-quality" generally refers to the quality of the medium, whether it's photo paper, canvas, etc., the quality of the ink or pigment, the quality of the process i.e. lithography, photography, etc., and the "fastness" or longevity of the piece.

Without going into each and every possibility, I'll focus on photo prints, the most popular prints we carry. First, the medium: the paper itself. While the term 'photo' is misleading in this case as they are not done using a photographic process, the paper is termed photo paper. As you can imagine, there are varying grades. To qualify as museum-quality, the paper should be at least 240 g/m - this the weight of the paper. Higher numbers indicate heavier paper, lower numbers lighter, flimsier paper (we use 270 g/m paper). Next, the fastness, or longevity. As with the ink or pigment, the paper is rated on how long it keeps it's original characteristics i.e. resistance to fading, yellowing, etc. Museum-quality would be considered "archival", meaning under normal circumstances, it will look the way it did the day it was produced for at least 40 years.

Ok, to sum it up, creating "museum-quality prints" means they are produced on high-quality, heavy media, and using media and inks, that are "archival" - they will look the same way after hanging on the wall for at least 40 years.

Next entry: the mechanics, or how a photograph of graffiti is turned into a print you can hang.

Molly