Spotlight Arkwel's laser magic

In a tiled blue and white building just past Vancouver’s kaleidoscopic Commercial Drive, there’s a shop called Arkwel that does a lot of fancy finishing. We worked with Arkwel on our business cards for Blim— a Vancouver art and craft studio that gives workshops on screenprinting.

Our designer Kim Ridgewell started with the idea that Blim’s business cards should highlight their screenprinting work. So she came up with the idea to user a laser cutting technique that transformed each business card into a miniature silkscreen. It was a really great idea that’s won a bunch of awards— even a One Show gold pencil! But it took a lot of work with Arkwel to get it right.

Here we talk with our rep at Arkwel, Carrie Clark, about the process and Arkwel's work.

Rethink: How long have you worked with Arkwel and what do you do there?

Carrie: I’ve been at Arkwel for nearly 12 years— I'm a print coordinator. Basically I take jobs in, assess the details and requirements (and get any missing information from the client), and then write them up for production. I'm also a liason to deal with any problems that come up mid-production.

Rethink: What are your and the company’s specialties?

Carrie: Arkwel offers high-quality finishing, including steel rule dies, diecutting, foilstamping, embossing, dry mount laminating, and laser cutting. I've been in this industry for 26 years and have worked in many different areas, including running presses and making steel rule dies, so I've got a real advantage when it comes to trouble-shooting on the challenging projects that come in.

Rethink: Did you need to do any trouble-shooting on the Blim project?

Carrie: Well, the Blim project was unique in that it involved a raster file of a photo as well as type. We needed to find a font that was readable after the laser cutting— we ran a lot of tests to find one that would take the same laser treatment as the photos and show a similar screenprinting effect.

And as with most laser jobs, we had to work on minimizing the browning— the mark the laser leaves from the heat. We tried printing on coloured paper to mask it, but eventually went back to the cream-coloured stock.

Rethink: If you were going to do the project over again is there anything else you would want to try or do differently?

Carrie: I don’t think I’d do anything much differently, except perhaps to shorten the amount of time between tests. Sometimes with a project like this one, where there is some brainstorming being done, we had to start from the beginning with each test to refresh ourselves with all the details.

Rethink: Any other memorable, crazy projects you’ve worked on recently?

Carrie: We have done so many “crazy” projects that I can’t even list them! I’m always amazed at the creativity in this industry and that I still see so many new ideas even after so many years in the business.

One of the more complicated projects I can recall was a very customized presentation folder that involved foilstamping and embossing a logo, laser cutting an intricate shape on the front panel, glueing in a separate sheet behind the laser-cut shape, diecutting the folder and assembling with a magnetic closure. It turned out very well, but was in our shop for over a month!

If you'd like to contact Arkwel about a finishing job, email producti..@arkwel.com.

If you've worked with Rethink and would like to be considered for Spotlight, email lian..@rethinkcanada.com.