screen-printing

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.

Below is a diagram of how screen printing works:

diagram-screen-printing

If you want to have something screen printed with us, there are a few things to keep in mind:

 

1. Your artwork needs to be in a vector format otherwise the quality of the print will not be as good.

 

2. Minimum order of 25 of the same colour and same artwork.

 

3. We can screen print only one colour.

 

4. The waiting period is much longer than what it would have been with sublimation printing or heat transfer printing.

 

5. There is a setup fee for each new design and colour.

 

6. Screens/stencils with your artwork are not kept for reuse. The screens are washed and reused for someone else.

 

7. The setup fee will have to be paid every time you want something screen printed.

 

8. Small minor imperfections may occur. The reason for this is because its not printed with a machine. This is done with hand and sometimes more than one person will work on a certain project. The quality of the print will depend on the flooding of the screen, the pressure that was used and a few other factors.

To view some of our work, please click on the banner below to go to our gallery page.

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