Behind the Screen Print : Ed Le May

Sign-writer, mural artist, illustrator and general Norwich legend Ed Le May was an obvious choice for our imprint. His work is instantly recognisable and permeates the very soul of our city. We created this two Colour screen print hand pulled onto Mohawk Superfine 352gsm 67.4 x 23.5 cm with a deckled edge.

 Whether he’s doing portraits at the pub or creating works of art on the windows of small business, Ed’s work radiates kindness. That and also his most famous motif the phallus. That brings us to this print, a stunning display of 27 typographic members adorned in premium gold ink.  

The funny thing with black paper is that its always a little bit grey. We really wanted this print to be flat, bold and clean. In order to get that true black we were after we took Screentec matt black and printed massive squares of solid black. Once we had our studio made black paper we needed the best and brightest gold.

The two types of gold that the ink masters Screentec offer are, solar gold and ready mix gold. We had Ed come by the studio to have a look at the proofs. We all agreed on top of black, the ready mix didn’t pop enough and the solar gold didn’t have that debonair class to suit these members. The result was obvious and we mixed the two together using the darker ready mix to tame the solar. The glitter particle size of the solar is also massive and so when printing, it would require multiple pulls to put down enough ink.

We had so much fun printing these, also putting down such large areas of black was a hell of a workout. We look forward to printing more Ed Le May in the future, in the mean time we’ll probably see him around!

Pick up the print here: www.wellniceprints.com/print-shop 

Check out Ed Le May here: @edlemaydesign