Three Incredibly Useful Tips Involving Printed T Shirts

With screen printing t-shirts, you can either design your own t-shirts or use one of the standard designs provided by those firms that concentrate on t-shirt printing. However if you want to design your own t-shirt, you will discover certain aspects of screen printing you should understand, because they influence on the kind of design you may use.

First, a brief description of what is involved in screen printing:

Screen Printing T-Shirts: the Process

The Screen - At one time this process was known as silk screen printing, since the screens used were made from silk. It was a popular printing technique in China, hence the silk, but modern polymer fibres now enable us to use synthetic screens that are considerably less expensive.

Although the artwork is necessary ahead of the screens can be made, an explanation of the technique will be necessary so you can understand the limitations within your design. First, a mesh will be required with holes big enough to enable the ink to be squeezed through it. An average mesh will be 110 (110 threads/inch), with lower for thicker inks and block images, and higher for thinner inks and many more definition.

The mesh is coated with a light-sensitive emulsion, and the artwork placed under it. Light is exposed up through the screen, and where the light hits the screen, the chemical solidifies and covers the mesh. The design area stops the light, so when the screen is washed, the area of the design is clear of emulsion, while the rest is solid. This is true whether screen printing t-shirts or some other item.

The Printing - The screen is mounted in a box, and also the garment is placed under the box. Ink is poured in to the box as well as a tool referred to as a 'squeegee' is pulled across, forcing the ink over the mesh. The ink is then dried, leaving the image on the t-shirt.

While you would ever guess, this process is suitable only for an individual colour per printing because just one colour may be poured in the mesh box or they might run together. For more colours, the process has to be repeated. Only delineated areas of individual colour can be printed, so it really is not possible to merge one shade into another when screen printing t-shirts.

It should be apparent that a new screen will be needed for each different colour unless the pattern is precisely the exact same. This adds to the cost, and screen printing t-shirts is expensive for individual garments. There's a fixed set-up cost and after that yet another cost for each colour. The better t-shirts that can be printed t shirt in a run, then the cheaper it gets for each individual garment.

Other printing methods, such as digital printing, can print multiple colours without any rise in price. So why use screen printing for t-shirts rather than just digital? There are a variety of reasons:

Advantages of Screen T-Shirt Printing

Screen printing is advantageous if you design your own t-shirt with large areas of block colour. Digital printing, and other methods, can't print large areas as effectively as screen.

Screen printing t-shirts is very opaque, as well as can cover any deep colour beneath it. Digital printing struggles to print light shades in addition to dark, such as pale blue on bright yellow, without it looking green.

Screen printing is great for whites, and even with DTG jet printers, white on dark often lasts no more than two or three washes. Screen inks are much more stable and are thicker so give greater coverage. You will need offer no specific washing instructions.

Screen will be extremely cost effective if you have just one colour, and if you have longer runs screen beats most other methods for economy and price.

The colours are brighter and stand out more when screen printing t-shirts