GRAPHIC ARTS
- Review with your counselor the processes for producing printed
communications: offset lithography, screen process printing,
electronic/digital, relief, and gravure. You may show samples or draw
diagrams to help with your description.
- Explain the difference between continuous-tone, line, and halftone
artwork. Describe how it can be created and/or stored in a computer.
- Design a printed piece (flier, T-shirt, program, form, etc.) and
produce it. Explain your decisions for the typeface or typefaces you use and
the way you arrange the elements in your design. Explain which printing
process is best suited for printing your design. If desktop publishing
hardware and software are available, identify what hardware and software
would be appropriate for outputting your design.
- Produce the design you created for requirement 3 using one of the
following printing processes:
- Offset lithography
Make a layout and then produce a plate using a process approved by your
counselor. Run the plate and print at least 50 copies.
- Screen process printing
Make a hand-cut or photographic stencil and attach it to a screen that
you have prepared. Mask the screen and print at least 20 copies.
- Electronic/digital printing
Make a layout in electronic form, download it to the press or printer,
and run 50 copies. If no electronic interface to the press or printer is
available, you may print and scan a paper copy of the layout.
- Relief printing
Prepare a layout or set the necessary type. Make a plate or lock up the
form. Use this to print 50 copies.
- Review the following post press operations with your counselor:
- Discuss the finishing operations of paddling, drilling, cutting,
and trimming.
- Collect, describe, or identify examples of the following types of
binding: perfect, spiral, plastic comb, saddle stitched, and case.
- Identify three career opportunities in graphic arts and tell how you
can prepare for them.
- Do ONE of the following, and then describe the highlights of your
visit:
- Visit a newspaper printing plant: Follow a story from the editor to
the press.
- Visit a commercial or in-plant printing facility: Follow a job from
beginning to end.
- Visit a school's graphic arts program: Find out what courses are
available and what the prerequisites are.
- Visit three Web sites on the Internet that belong to graphic arts
professional organizations and/or printing-related companies (suppliers,
manufacturers, printers): Download product or service information from
two of the sites.
BSA Advancement ID#: 122
Source: Boy Scout Requirements, #33215E, revised 2002
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