The linocut class in a Tanjong Pagar shophouse ran on Saturday mornings, and the moment everyone waited for was the pull. You ink the block, lay the paper, lean your weight into the press, and then peel the sheet back slowly to see what transferred. Half the room would lean in each time.
One regular, a retired teacher, carved her poodle, Coco, every single week. Her prints got better, but she admitted the goal had never really been the print. She wanted Coco’s face on things she could use.
Printing has always been about putting images onto things
Woodblocks, screen prints, letterpress: the history of printmaking is the history of moving a picture from one surface to another so it can travel. Personalised pet goods are a recent chapter of that story, and the technique behind many of them is a cousin of what happens in a print studio.
Where sublimation comes in
Sublimation relies on heat and pressure to drive a design into whatever it is printing, and it is how Little Red Cute prints its harnesses, collars, leashes and bandanas. The shop is a place for personalised pet accessories singapore owners can create from one photo: the animal is illustrated from that photo and its name is added.
Alongside the printed pieces sit embroidery shirts and hoodies, where the pet’s face is worked in thread across the chest, and there is also an acrylic photo night light.
Questions from the workshop table
Do I need to carve or sketch anything? No carving at all. Send one photo, settle on one of the styles, and your pet is then illustrated straight from that picture.
Can I see a proof? More or less. The completed design comes up on screen, much like a proof pinned up to dry, and you sign it off before you pay. No sign-off, no production.
What makes a good source image? The same thing that makes a good reference for a print: clarity. Bright light, sharp focus and the whole face looking close to dead ahead. Phone photos are perfectly usable.
Where is it made? Here in Singapore, and only after each order comes in.
The last pull of the morning
The retired teacher still carves Coco most Saturdays, because she enjoys it. But the bandana Coco wore to the final class of the term carried her portrait, illustrated from a phone photo, and the room leaned in to look at it the same way they leaned in to every fresh pull from the press.