Autotype International and True Grain

I worked at Autotype International (now MacDermid Autotype), a company who manufacture films and emulsions for screen printing, in the late eighties. My job was in the training school, devising and running courses to teach sales staff and customers how to use the company’s screen printing products.

Printers from the UK and worldwide came to us to learn about the latest developments in screen making. Amongst our visitors was Kip Gresham, the artist and screen printer whose studio at that time was part of Curwen Chilford near Cambridge. Kip came to talk about indirect stencil films like Alpha Star and Five Star which most screen printers with solvent based inks used at that time (and many still do).

There were samples of Autotype’s textured films lying around in the training room. These were new products like Autotex, being developed for use as touch panel switches. Kip’s eyes lit up! He picked up a piece of film, gave it a good feel and wondered whether this was just what he’d been looking for - a transparent film that artists could draw on and transfer directly to silk-screens.

Kip and I carried out a bit of a research and development project over the next few months. Tried out this film with all kinds of paints, inks and marks and it turned out it was what he’d been looking for. It would accept and hold all kinds of subtle marks which could then be exposed directly to screens in a way that had been very difficult before.

Autotype went on to market the Autotex film as a new product for artists and printmakers. It was named True Grain and has been widely used ever since.

Here’s an interesting piece by Jonnie Turpie from The Drawn Serigraph.