Screen
Printing
on Textile
An exploration of layered screen printing on tote bags — three ideations, two shared elements, one cohesive concept.
Three ideations on layered screen printing, two elements in common.
The project brief called for three distinct designs that each share two design elements — creating a visual family while allowing each piece its own narrative and emotional tone.
The hand and eye anchor every composition. Both are fundamental to human experience — we perceive through our eyes and interact through our hands. The butterfly is layered in as the transformative third element: a symbol of hope, faith, and change.
"Humans use their eyes and hands for everything — these parts help us communicate as well as interact with our surroundings and other human beings."
A butterfly symbolises transformation, hope and faith. The prints symbolise stress, strength and calmness. Each is set in a different environment to showcase a distinct mood.
Strength — the printed tote in context
The two-colour layered print on natural canvas — black outline pass for the hand and triangle, a secondary wash for the butterfly at the eye. The registration between layers creates the depth that defines this design.
Shot in an urban setting, the bold graphic holds confidently at scale — legible from a distance while rewarding close inspection.
Each print uses the same symbolic vocabulary — hand, eye, butterfly — yet arrives at an entirely different emotional register. The stress piece is claustrophobic; the strength piece is architectural; the calm piece breathes. The constraint became generative.
Screen printing's physicality added something digital work cannot: the drag of the squeegee, the slight inconsistency of ink deposit, the texture of the mesh in the final surface. These are not failures — they are the medium speaking.
Layered printing demanded precision. Every misaligned pass would compound across layers. Registration became a form of discipline, a mindfulness enforced by the process itself.