Game Brain | Novel graphics: printing and video games converge

By Brian Diefenbach
Western Herald

Printing and video games require innovative engineering and creativity. It should come as no surprise that the two go well together.

Western Michigan University’s imaging program (soon to be Graphic and Print Science) allows students to express their creativity while learning various printing technologies and techniques. Everything from Web sites to t-shirts to packaging is covered throughout a printing student’s education at WMU.

A year ago, I was enrolled in an offset lithography class with my friend and classmate Robert Grotans, who is now a senior majoring in multimedia imaging. The final project for the class involved students working on a two-color press at the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

By themselves or in a team, students designed and printed pretty much anything they could fit onto the press. Projects ranged from placemats to posters to wedding invitations. Grotan’s project, however, really caught my eye.

His simple but elegant holiday greeting card was a clever spin on a video game classic: “Space Invaders.” One of the little invaders was on the front of the card, wearing a little Santa hat.

Eventually, Grotans was able to print custom envelopes to mail the cards in. In addition to friends and relatives, he sent a card to the folks at Kotaku, a major video game blog. In all, Grotans printed 1,000 cards and still has plenty of copies left for sale.

This past holiday, Kotaku.com featured the various cards they had received from game publishers and developers. Right alongside them, representing for gamers, was his adorable/awesome “Space Invaders” card.

Despite the simple colors and graphics, Grotans’ cards were hardly easy to make. First, the idea had to be refined and artwork needed to be created.

“To come up with the idea, I just played around in [Adobe] Photoshop to see what works; eventually, I came up with the cards that I printed,” he said.

Once the design is finalized as line art, registration marks and color bars are added, which aid the press operator in properly aligning the red and green ink layers. From there, the design is printed on transparent film; each color is printed on a separate sheet.

The film is used to expose a printing plate, which holds the ink and transfers it to the paper. After all the press work and cleanup, the press sheets are cut down to individual cards.

The madness didn’t stop there. This past fall, Grotans and I were enrolled in a finishing and bindery class. This time, we both incorporated video games into class projects, though his was on a much grander scale.

My contribution was a pop-up card, demonstrating my knowledge of folding, scoring, and other finishing techniques. The pop-up featured the ominous zombie hand from the “Left 4 Dead” games and illustrations on the front. The finished card was presented to my brother for his birthday, right around the time we started getting into “Left 4 Dead 2.”

Grotans and classmates Ashleigh Carpentier, Madelyn Richards, and Rich Weber created a point of purchase display for “Pac-Man” candy. I didn’t even know such a thing existed! Not only was the display fully capable of holding candy, it featured individually-cut graphics of the ghosts from “Pac-Man” and working lights.

To Grotans, the combination of video games and printing is a no-brainer.

“I love Pac-Man and I love printing, so I figure ‘why not mix them together whenever I can?’”

Since our class did not have access to die cutting for the project, he and his team had to cut everything by hand. Their project was a credit to both the graphic arts and video games.

Currently, I am working with him and fellow imaging senior Jeff Bergkamp on yet another project, this time involving flexographic printing. The process and planning for this will be harder than any previous project, but we’re determined to make something that we and WMU can be proud of.

Last year, my soon-to-be-graduate friend Michael Doyle II incorporated video games into his flexo project. He made a bumper sticker that depicted the iconic landscape from “Super Mario World” with a WMU flag. The stickers are still used in the imaging program, and will remain in circulation for years to come.

Printing students don’t just make these projects for credit. Each project is a chance to show employers what they’ve accomplished over their four years at WMU. Printing schools and companies also take notice of WMU students’ talent at seminars and competitions.

Brian Diefenbach, a copy editor and columnist for the Western Herald, is a senior majoring in graphic and print science. For more Game Brain, visit WesternHerald.com.

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