What is Screen Printing?
Screen Printing, also referred to as silk screening is a printing technique that is used to print onto all sorts of items. This technique was invented in the 18th century. With this printing technique a mesh that is stretched over a frame is used to transfer your image onto the garment. Screen printing does last very long and is very durable.
How does screen printing work?
The way we use this technique is as follow:
Firstly it very important that your artwork is in a vector format. If its not a in vector format you might see jagged edges. This is caused by the pixelate of your image. The image is printed onto a special transparent page. The page is placed onto a emulsion coated mesh screen.
Coating a screen with emulsion is also referred to as making a stencil. Emulsion is a thick liquid that is sensitive to UV light. When you place artwork on the photo-sensitive emulsion and expose it, a negative stencil is created. This stencil is then used to transfer your image to your product with screen printing ink. Stencils cannot be reused. After your artwork was printed, the screen is washed and reused to printing another job with.
How will screen printing benefit me?
This printing technique works well with large quantities of the exact same artwork and colour. Once printed you won’t feel the print on the shirt except for when its white printing. White printing does have a texture to it as its a thicker ink. The reason for this is because white is not only a colour on its own, but its also used as a base coat for items with various colours. With screen printing you can do extremely small detail that you will not be able to achieve with heat transfer.