It goes without saying that you “deck the halls with boughs of holly” at Christmas time. It just wouldn’t be the festive season without glittering lights, tinsel on the tree and paper-chains slung between the ceiling tiles at the office party.

And of course, you can’t have a birthday without balloons. A certain number of candles protruding optimistically from a heavily iced cake is pretty much obligatory to mark the passing of the years. If you’re having a party, ideally there’ll be a great big colourful banner too.

Ever since it was invented in China, around 2000 years ago, paper has been an integral part of human evolution. Paper is the canvas upon which works of art have been created, revolutionary speeches have been written and universal mysteries have been unravelled. As such the preservation of valued and significant paper documents is of huge importance.

What do pop artists, snowboarders, punks in the 1970s and Chinese innovators working while Europe struggled with the Middle Ages have in common? The answer may surprise you.

It is screen printing, the art of using mesh designs to transfer images onto different items. From its development in the tenth century to today, screen printing has been capturing our imaginations and our attention thanks to its ease of use and strong visual impact.