All About Printed T Shirts

With screen printing t shirts-shirts, you may 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, there are certain aspects of screen printing you should understand, while they impact on the kind of design you may use.

To begin with, a brief description of what is linked to screen printing:

Screen Printing T-Shirts: the Process

The Screen - At one time this process was described as silk screen printing, because 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.

Even though the artwork will be needed before the screens may be made, an explanation of the technique will be necessary so you may understand the limitations within your design. To begin with, a mesh will be required with holes big enough to permit 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 a lot more definition.

The mesh is coated with a light-sensitive emulsion, as well as the artwork placed under it. Light is exposed up throughout the screen, and where the light hits the screen, the chemical solidifies and covers the mesh. The design area stops the light, so in the event the screen is washed, the area of the design is clear of emulsion, as 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 the garment is placed under the box. Ink is poured in to the box and 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.

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

It should be apparent that a whole new screen is necessary for each different colour unless the pattern is precisely the 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 an additional cost for each colour. The more t-shirts that are printed in a run, then the cheaper it gets for each individual garment.

Other printing methods, such as digital printing, can print multiple colours with virtually no 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, cannot print large areas as effectively as screen.

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

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

Screen will be extremely cost effective if you have just one colour, and should 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