ImagesMagUK_May_2021

www.images-magazine.com MAY 2021 images 47 TIPS & TECHNIQUES Are you forever binning the cartons your blank garments are delivered in? Well, stop right there. Brandon Lennert of Inferno Screen Printing shares how he reuses cardboard boxes while at the same time creating pieces of art that are appreciated by his customers I nferno Screen Printing already ships orders for its Inferno Merch Store in biodegradable packaging. For its bulk orders, however, director Brandon Lennert has come up with a simple yet ingenious method that saves both trees and money – old cardboard boxes are ‘upcycled’ with recycled inks to create Inferno-branded boxes that look as good as new. As well as old boxes that stock has been shipped in, Inferno also takes cardboard boxes from any other companies on the industrial business park where it is based in New Orleans, Louisiana, US. “Just take a razor, flatten [the boxes] and we stock flat until we get a huge pallet of them, then print away,” he explains. The Box clever STEP-BY-STEP: RECYCLING CARDBOARD BOXES company uses water-based inks for textiles that sometimes have to be disposed of for various reasons, such as expiry date, bad stock, too much of a Pantone that won’t be used, etc. An air-drying catalyst is added and then the boxes are printed, either by hand or on a screen print press. A single printer can print a couple of hundred boxes an hour depending on the image size, says Brandon. In the example here, a red block has been printed over the box’s original logo, and then the black artwork is added. “If printing say 75 or 100, usually by the time you are done with one side you can go on to the other. Of course, individual shops and local weather can change that with respect to humidity and so forth.” The images and logos can be changed depending on each job. “Besides being cool, it is a fun project for a staff member to design something and print it for the company.” This one was designed and printed by Ben Buckner in Inferno’s art department. “At the end of the day, it is about not wasting ink or cardboard and having a little bit of fun as well,” Brandon concludes. “If the prints are not perfect (ours are not) the boxes are already beat up so getting one more life cycle out of them is great. Plus, we have had customers cut them out and frame some of the art! Again, that is where the fun comes in.” www.infernoscreenprinting.com The existing logo on the flattened boxes is overprinted with a red block. 1 And some artwork on the other. 3 Inferno’s logo is added on one side. 2 A pile of recycled, branded cardboard boxes, ready to be used again. 4