Off by One Plate
An avant-garde screen-print poster — flat inks, a distorted figure, and the printing fault that makes it a print rather than a picture of one. Six fields.
Two runs of the same template. A head cut at the brow and slid sideways beside a body cut at the waist and offset — bone paper against grey, a lit window where an eye should be against a gull where a head should be, and in each one ink sitting a few millimetres out of true.
Generated from this template with the fields shown above — flat inks on visible stock, the figure cut and offset, one intrusion, and the slipped plate showing the same sliver on the same side wherever it meets another colour. The reference asked for overprint offset by name and its baseline returned perfectly aligned plates with a grain filter laid over the top, which is the mistake the whole skill exists to prevent: misregistration is not a texture, it is one plate printed out of position, so the displacement is identical everywhere because a plate is one sheet and cannot be in two places. The baseline also signed itself with the name of a real international art fair that nobody had asked for, so the template now forbids any real institution, venue or brand anywhere on the page. This run was generated twice for a subtler reason: the first slipped an ink that appeared in only one small element, which satisfies the law and shows nothing. Slip the ink that borders the subject along its whole length.
Generated for this library
Input
Announces Vibary - an exhibition of interfaces that were
described, not drawn
Subject a head in flat black silhouette, cut along one
horizontal line at the brow, the top half slid
sideways off the skull
Intrusion a small lit window floating where the eye should be
Slip the vermilion plate slips 4 mm down and to the right,
identically everywhere
Corners DESCRIBED NOT DRAWN · VIBARY 2026
Palette bone paper, black, one vermilion, one cobalt
Returned 1 poster · 3:4 · three inks, visible paper grain
subject the head flat black, the cut clean, the offset top half
leaving a bone-coloured gap across the brow
slip every vermilion edge carrying the same sliver on its
lower right - against the head, the cobalt, the frame
intrusion the small window bright inside the black, the only warm
thing on the page
ink coarse halftone in the mid-tones, ink friction at the
edges of the flat fields, paper showing through
type two lines in the top corners, tiny, wide-tracked, coldYou fill in 6 fields — the braced lines at the top. Everything below them is fixed.
- 1What it announces
- 2The subject, distorted
- 3The one intrusion
- 4The misregistration
- 5The two corner lines
- 6The palette
Off by One Plate
Produce ONE image, 3:4 portrait: an avant-garde screen-printed art poster. Follow every line. Replace only the FIELDS block; everything after it is fixed.
First — do you have the fields?
If any field below still has braces around it, stop and ask. Put all the questions in one short message, and show the example under each one so they can see the shape of a useful answer. Wait for the replies, then draw. Never fill a brace yourself: a value you invented is a value nobody asked for, and it will look exactly as considered as the ones they did give you.
Ask in whatever language they are writing to you in. Translate the questions and the examples; do not make someone read English to tell you what they want.
The examples are only examples. If someone answers a question, use their answer; never fall back to the example because you prefer it.
If the fields are already filled in, ignore this and carry on.
Fields — replace these six lines only
- What it announces: {the show, production or release} e.g. Vibary — an exhibition of interfaces that were described, not drawn
- The subject, distorted: {one figure or object, and how it is broken} e.g. a head in flat black silhouette, cut along one horizontal line at the brow and the top half slid sideways off the skull
- The one intrusion: {the element that does not belong} e.g. a small lit window floating where the eye should be
- The misregistration: {which ink slips, which way, how far} e.g. the vermilion plate slips 4 mm down and to the right, identically everywhere
- The two corner lines: {upper left, and upper right} e.g. DESCRIBED NOT DRAWN · VIBARY 2026
- The palette: {the paper, and two or three inks} e.g. bone paper, black, one vermilion, one cobalt
The plate law
This is what separates a screen print from a picture of one, and it is the thing these templates ask for by name and never get.
Misregistration is not a texture and not a mood. It is one plate printed slightly out of position — so the same colour is displaced by the same amount in the same direction across the entire poster.
- Pick one ink. It slips by a stated distance in a stated direction.
- Every edge of that ink shows the same sliver, on the same side, everywhere it meets another colour or the paper.
- The other inks stay in register with each other.
- Random per-shape offsets are wrong: a plate is one sheet, and it cannot be in two places.
A reference run of this style asked for overprint offset and returned perfectly aligned plates with a grain filter over the top. Grain is not registration. Check three separate edges before shipping.
Choose an ink that appears in several places. The slip is only visible where the moved ink meets another colour, so slipping a spot colour used once puts the whole effect inside one small element and the poster reads as perfectly printed. Slip the ink that borders the subject along its whole length.
The ink
- Flat colour only. No gradients, no soft shading, no blur, no glow. Where a mid-tone is needed it comes from a coarse halftone dot, large enough to see.
- Ink friction at the edges of the big flat fields — a slightly starved, uneven boundary where the squeegee lifted.
- The paper shows through: visible stock, a warm uncoated tone, faint fibre.
- Where two inks overlap they multiply into a third, darker colour, as real ink does. They do not blend and neither hides the other.
The subject
One subject, heavily abstracted: a figure, a body part, an object, a creature. Reduced to flat silhouette and then broken — cut and offset, squeezed out of proportion, rotated wrong, a piece missing, a piece repeated.
One intrusion, and only one: a single element that has no business being there, sitting where an eye or a hand or a head should be. That is where the unease lives. Two intrusions make it whimsy.
The page
Large flat areas of colour, one clearly dominant. Off-centre composition, generous empty ground, few elements. The subject may run off an edge. Nothing is centred and nothing is symmetrical.
The type
Two lines only, one in each top corner. Tiny, very wide-tracked, plain sans, cold and quiet. A date line may sit in a lower corner at the same size.
Everything named is invented. No real gallery, museum, festival, prize, venue, brand or institution may appear anywhere on the poster. A run of this style signed itself with the name of a real international art fair that nobody had asked for; a poster that claims a real organisation's endorsement is a forgery, however good it looks.
Never
- ✕ a slip that varies in direction or distance between edges
- ✕ grain or noise standing in for misregistration
- ✕ gradients, soft shadows, glows or blur
- ✕ a fourth ink
- ✕ two intrusions, or a subject drawn realistically
- ✕ centred or symmetrical composition
- ✕ the name of any real institution, venue, festival or brand
The result
A poster that looks pulled rather than exported: flat ink on real paper, one colour a hair out of place all the way across, and one thing in the picture that should not be there.
The whole template, in one piece. The steps below are the entire workflow.
How to use it
- Copy the whole template with the button above.
- Replace the six FIELDS lines. State the misregistration as a measurement and a direction, not as a mood — 'the red slips 4 mm down-right' rather than 'misaligned printing feel'.
- Paste it into any image-capable agent or model, in one message. One run returns the poster.
- Check the slip before shipping: find three places the slipped colour meets another and confirm the sliver appears on the same side, by the same amount, in all three. If it varies, the run drew an effect instead of a plate.
What you swap
- What it announces
- Vibary — an exhibition of interfaces that were described, not drawn
- The subject, distorted
- a head in flat black silhouette, cut along one horizontal line at the brow and the top half slid sideways off the skull
- The one intrusion
- a small lit window floating where the eye should be
- The misregistration
- the vermilion plate slips 4 mm down and to the right, identically everywhere
- The two corner lines
- DESCRIBED NOT DRAWN · VIBARY 2026
- The palette
- bone paper, black, one vermilion, one cobalt
Before it runs
- A subject that survives being flattened to a silhouette. The style has no modelling and no light; a shape that needs shading to be read will not survive it.
- Two or three inks and no more. This is a press, not a screen — each colour is a separate pass and a fourth turns the poster muddy.
- One idea, held. The picture is a single image with one thing wrong in it, not a collection of strange things.
When to reach for it
When the thing being announced is difficult on purpose: an experimental show, a fringe production, a record, a manifesto. Templates in this style ask for misregistration by name and then return perfectly aligned plates, because they never say what misregistration actually is.
What changes
- One art-poster: two or three flat inks on paper stock, a heavily abstracted subject, and a great deal of empty colour.
- The misregistration is specified as a plate rather than as a texture — one colour, one direction, one distance, everywhere — which is what a real press does and what these templates never get.
- Halftone grain and ink friction that read as printing rather than as a filter dropped over the artwork.
- One intruding element that does not belong, which is where the unease comes from.
- Corner type kept tiny and cold, so the picture stays the loud thing on the page.
Pairs with
- Cut, Not FilledA copperplate-engraved city poster in one ink — where every tone is line density, nothing on the page is a flat fill, and the bare paper is a shape rather than a margin. Six fields.
- Bolted to the SkyA mascot built as real signage — a face on a plate, one wider name plate under it, and visible hardware holding both to the pole. Six fields.
- Every Bar Is a MultipleA barcode poster in two colours — with the code built on a base module, guard bars and a numeral row, so it reads as a scanned object rather than a stripe field. Five fields.