"Crafty men condemn studies, simple man admire them and
wise men use them"
- Francis Bacon of Studies.
"We are made wise not by the recollections of our past but by the responsibility for our future"
- George Bernard Shaw

The above two quotation of great thinkers clearly tell us to be wise, to take good responsibility of our future. Artist, Client and Printer are three dimension of print medium. If all this three interact with each other in a good manner then the final printed product is bound to be excellent. Technology without Art is fruitless. So is Art without Technology in the application of graphic art.

Basically we have to initiate an interaction between the students of print technology, (would be printers) and experts of graphic design and printing technology. The purpose is to achieve quality in printed products. New interpretation by the visualizers for effective visual communication is the challenge for the development of the technology. We are living in the age of information, which is slowly leading us towards the concept of "Global Village" with a modern lifestyle.

An aesthetic sensitivity is a basic characteristic of any civilized society. This is a vital force taking us towards the awareness of design disciplines. Let's try to recollect and see the views of experts in the field of graphic arts in retrospect.

Nearly thirty years ago Government of Maharashtra had organized a conference on the problems of Printing. Amongst the eminent who had contributed their views, one paper was on the development of printing design for the quality and productivity in printing industry." Presented by late Shri Jayant Deokule the managing director of "Rational Art and Press" He had expressed, "It is often aid that design is the essence of good printing what exactly do we mean by design in the concept of relationship between design and print? The average printer is no prepared to accept that design is and integral part of printing. In his mind design has separate place and he is always scared by the term. He feels it is not a province of his inquiry with the result. He is further reluctant to give second thought to the aspect. He is of the opinion that design falls in the line of commercial art or applied art. "He also stated further" Good design is at least accepted not only as "good business" but also indeed as an essential contributory factor to productivity and to efficient exploitation of quality production. Techniques."

I think today we are rather forced to accept the view of late Shri Jayant Deokule due to the tremendous development in electronic technology.

The colour separation scanners, des top publishing preparing art works within less time with precise measurement the wide range of type styles on phototypesetting the advanced printing machines modern set-up of press giving up to date services all these were not known then. They have post new challenges in design disciplines. Are we really in a position to face it in right spirit? I am afraid we are not because of our general attitude of "Sab chalta Hai"

Today's senior eminent script scholar Shri L. S. Wakankarwho was also one of the participant at the conference on printing had expressed at that time on the state of type designing, No type designers are available who have studied the characteristics or traditional developments of indigenous scripts The western type designers have a tradition of faithfulness to the ROMAN forms of letters carved on TROJAN COLUMN in Rome.

"Our type foundries themselves are run on monetary motives and owners indulge in exploiting the demands by simply duplicating the faces of other foundries by the unfair practice of electroforming matrices without giving compensation to originators"

His views on duplication on typefaces are still in existence by today's readymade attitude. We have shifted from hot metal type composing to modern photo type composing without changing the attitude. By easy operation of today 's new method the duplication is easier than ever before. It's how you look at the technological development that is with this sense of disadvantages. But living legends like Shri L. S. Wakankar has set--up an excellent example by himself founding the Institute of Typographical Research at Pune along with good hands of Shri Mukund Gokhale, the graphic designer and Shri Bhatt, an industrial to study and design the Indian regional scripts with better type designs in today's market.

Let's take a look at the internationally known graphic designer Aron Burns who is the co-founder of the famous "International Typeface corporation" who has noted his views in the article" Typography Today and Tomorrow" published in print issue dated Nov-Dec '86. For as more and more work is produced in non traditional environments using Typographic Word Processors,' the appreciation of the beauty and effectiveness of typographic communication will massive proportions, that extend far beyond the confines of the graphic arts. And as people throughout the world become more and more conscious typographic communication, this will in my opinion open up an area of opportunities for designers and topographers everywhere. " He state's further, I believe the typographic technologies that are been developed for office communication and electronic publishing mark the beginning of new era of printed communications. Correspondence memos, documents reports and materials customarily set in the typewriter faces are already set in type faces such as Helvetica, Times Roman, Optima, Avan Garde, Gothic which were formerly used in graphic arts. This revolution in the office communications will have it's effect on the future professional graphic designer and typographer." This is an alarming state of condition for all of us to bring in more quality and perfect ness in graphic arts.

Similarly in this context let's take a quick look at what late typographer and professor of typography Shri V. N. Ranade had to say in his small book 'Art Forum' published in 1966 he says, " The art of printing is a result of combined operation of many skilled technicians such as the artist designer, compositors, readers, stereotype, machine binder, process artist, retoucher line and color etcher, camera operator etc. The printing job begins with the designer, and ends with actual printer. However the success of printing job also depends much on the paper and ink manufacturers and metallurgist responsible for type metals. The failure of any one of these technicians can mar the quality of the final reproduction.

Dr. Roy D'silva, the internationally known Indian Graphic Designer, when asked in my personal opinion survey on design in print production that whether "Design is amalgamation of art and technology in Print medium?" He answered," I considered design and execution/Presentation in print having equal standing, I would put both in same class or rank and use the term co-ordination rather than amalgamation. It is co-ordination of art and technology.

In this today's world of computer age and high tech...art or Technology one who is more innovative than other usually gets the first place and steals the show.

All these above stated views of experts clearly indicate various aspects of design and it's role in different context of print medium. It makes the basic concept clear.

The basic elements of visual Art like Points, Line, Mass, Shapes, Color and also principle like Balance Emphasis, Rhythm, Proportion etc cannot be ignored by the quality printer. These elements and principles play most important role in printed products like Poster, Book Cover, Calendar, Folder, Corporate Identity, Label Design, and Certificates etc.

These printed products initiate the idea of the products with an aim to reach the users having the basic purpose to promote the correct information to the masses through the two dimensional visual media of print.

An individually prepared artwork prepared by the artist with above motive (if circulated from communication in multimember of impression with the same quality that of the original) is the essence of any good printing with design awareness.

When I begin to think of the word DESIGN my mind encompasses it's meaning from several angles. The chain of thoughts developed in the following manner:
Our whole life is influenced by the singular concept of "Design" It communicates
- Information in applied arts
- Encompasses visual masses in painting
- Generates functions in engineering
- Activates physical space in architecture,
- Cultivates easy operations in industrial design and
- Initiates a kind of discipline in groups, masses etc

It is order by mobilization of resources interweaving idea, purpose and aim

Twenty-five years ago my artists father Late Prof. R.P. Joshi exposed me to a book on design. It was "Fundamentals of Design" by scots, which was a beginning of my visual journey that continues even today. To draw on two-dimensional surface, one has to get acquainted with basic elements like Point, Shape, Mass, Space and color. From the basic I learnt, taught and then was accepted as the professional artist in the filed of visual communication. These elements have given me a rich experience of visual creation. They appear in different form and the elements have motivated a rediscovery of these forms in different perspective.

To come to teaching first, Eight years ago, I discovered them once again in different manner when I got an opportunity to teach these elements to the students of printing technology.

These beautiful abstract elements of design began to appear most rational manner encoded with definite meaning with framework of printing process. It posed a challenge before me to interpret them in almost technical manner that teaching involves.

It was a confrontation between Art and Technology. A dot or a point became an important part of a Halftone screens. Or sometimes a tiny 3pt. size type font appeared like a fine point. A group of various sizes of points creating light middle or dark masses helping to come with an illusion of an third dimension. A line became a beautiful mean of interesting screens, to make effective and attractive textural impact. The same line in the various alignments in a text or a copy platform from left, center, to right or zigzag for effective typography. The creation of new type font designs directed one to explore various line and shape possibilities.

The play of backgrounds activated by these elements vitalizes the visual. The association of the negative and positive communication through black and white masses inspires to create entirely mew association. To say anything about the color is a long story full of interest. The printing process that clearly defines two theories of color for the purpose of production invites most interesting possibilities to play with sepia, blue, green or orange tones by systematic processing methods. It gives us a challenging opportunity. Even the basic colors of additive or subtractive theories, used in other than regular four-color production process would bring new color applications. I do not claim any special innovation in this trying to think of these elements in terms of art by means of its technical applications. The age of Print Making process or Graphic Artists the main source of inspiration for me because I consider that new technology can be developed only through such efforts.

The challenge of computer culture is the one we have to face squarely and I think our thinking in this direction should keep us growing in future. The great visual thinker "Paul Klee" has beautifully expressed, "A seed nature cultivates allows it to grow freely making an inbuilt arrangement of water supply from the earth through its roots. This enriches the tree to grow." Similarly we should learn to develop freely and enrich our visual thinking and our sense of aesthetics.

The purpose of these efforts is to help you to grow from time to time. You are going to contribute more to the field of visual communication, as it's explorers.

My vision began to grow gradually when I had an opportunity to teach the foundation course of visual art twenty years ago and the process is still continuing over the years after my encounters with various kinds of visual experience. I feel one can rediscover the same in the other disciplines like Medicine, Botany, and Architecture etc.

Point: When an artist touches a point of a brush or any tool on a flat surface a point is born. This point has a position and a magnitude. When the point is enlarged without loosing its property it becomes a DOT. This point has a visual energy to attract attention. As regards a point or dot in printing is concerned it acts to print solid tones that is black. In printing process one cannot print grays. To make any continues tone copy or picture for printing must to be converted to line through dotted screens in which the sharpness is of greater importance to print it well. Similarly if we take smallest type that is of 4 pt. Or smaller than that also appears like a point. The difference of the dot in printing art is clear because it carries a specific function in printing process.

Line: When we move one point from its position to another position successively we get a path of dot or point, which becomes a line. This line has a length but not width. 1. Straight 2. Curve In printing process this line acts to create a word-sentence of several individual alphabets (like single dot or point). Also to produce various line screens such as Horizontal, Wavy line, circle line, steels engineering, crosshatch, vertical straight lines… to create visual impact.

Shape: When several lines from different directions coming closer and thereby encloses a space will create a shape. There are four basic shapes… 1. Circle 2. Triangle 3. Square 4. Rectangle And following are its derivatives ellipse, oval, pollygones. Shape in printing means an area to be printed. In a layout it is an area of a grid. In typography it's the basic of any letterform to create the identity for that particular alphabet.

Mass: When several points from different directions come to form a group it creates a mass. In Typography proper distribution of block letters also creates reading to be more smooth and good. There are several line technique to make a photo or illustration effective in which a screen called Mezo tint that consists of small points groups according to the shade and light of picture is a fine example of mass.

Space: The area covered by the shape and left out by the shape is called a space. The covered one is called positive space and the one left out is called negative space. The Negatives or Positives are the images photographically created in printing process. In Halftone screens we see area composed of dots, some area compared of highlight dots. The Negative and Positive area are interconnected which gives us overall visual of shape and space.

Colour: Colour is a psychological and physiological phenomenon. To see colour we need light, object and on eye. Reflection of rays, absorption of rays and Transmission of rays which is interpreted by the human brain with the help of Rods and Cones on the retina of the eye helps us to understand and see colour. Additive theory of colour helps us to understand mixing of colour lights in which Red + Green +Blue creates White light, in payment or subtractive theory helps us to understand by mixing Yellow + Magenta + Cyan Blue that creates black pigment. In printing Additive or light theory is used for colour separation in processing and pigment or subtractive theory ids used for printing production. Also colour carry symbolic values and some emotional expression that could be applied in Art and printing production.