Screen Printing
Let’s start with the standard: screen printing.
Screen printing is an age-old and very versatile process. Current state-of-the-art technology automates the entire process and adds precision to the end products
Here are the four elements of screen printing: your art file, the screen that carries the image, the squeegee and the ink. The screen printing process uses a porous mesh stretched tightly over a frame. A stencil, produced on the screen, defines the image to be printed. Screen printing ink is applied to the substrate by placing the screen over the material. As the octopus arms of the machine move around, each one holding a shirt in place, ink is then forced through the fine mesh openings using a mechanical squeegee. The squeegee pushes the ink through the open areas of the screen and voila! The image appears. Special heaters dry and lock in the image. If you’ve been to art school, you’ve probably silkscreened your share of projects. Screen printing is an age-old and very versatile process. Current state-of-the-art technology automates the entire process and adds precision to the end products.
What can be screenprinted?
Screen printing can be done on any reasonably smooth, flat apparel surface. This not only means t-shirts of all sizes, styles and colors, but also bags, hoodies, pants and more. Since screenprinting ink is opaque, your designs will show up vibrantly even on top of dark colors. See our Fashion Apparel section for a glimpse at some of the many shirts we can print on, then check out our catalogue for more.
Pricing
Keep this in mind: pricing is based on quantity and the number of colors (and placements) in your design. For each color, we make a separate screen. The more screens, the more costly the shirt.