What You Know About Printed Tees Might Be Wrong

With screen printing t-shirts, you may either design your own t-shirts or use among the standard designs offered by those firms that concentrate on t-shirt printing. However if you want to design your own t-shirt, you will find certain facets of screen printing you should understand, since they impact on the kind of design you can use.

To start with, a brief description of what is involved with screen printing:

Screen Printing T-Shirts: the Process

The Screen - At one time this process was referred to 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 which are considerably less expensive.

However the artwork will be needed prior to the screens may be made, an explanation of the technique will be necessary so you may understand the limitations within your design. For starters, a mesh is essential with holes big enough to permit the ink to be squeezed through it. A normal mesh will be 110 (110 threads/inch), with lower for thicker inks and block images, and better for thinner inks and 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 every other item.

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

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

It should be apparent that a new screen is needed for each different colour unless the pattern is precisely the exact same. This adds to the price, and screen printing t-shirts is expensive for individual garments. There is a fixed set-up cost and then an additional cost for each colour. The greater t-shirts that can be finding printed t shirts 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 increase in price. So why use screen printing for t-shirts rather than just digital? There are many 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, as well as other methods, cannot print large areas as effectively as screen.

Screen printing t-shirts is extremely opaque, and may also cover any deep colour beneath it. Digital printing struggles to print light shades along with dark, such as pale blue on bright yellow, without it looking green.

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

Screen is 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