SCREEN PRINTING

“Quality printing with exceptional colour that lasts”

Introduction to Screen Printing:

Screen printing is a printing technique used to push ink through a mesh stencil onto textiles.

Each colour within your design will require a different screen to be made. Once we have all the screens made we ensure that all the colours line up. We then print all the garments with your design in the placement that is required.

 

Good Points to Screen Printing:

·         DURABILITY – Screen printing has the best durability, usually outlasting the garment itself

·         VIBRANT COLOUR – Plastisol inks have highest opacity resulting in prints with high brightness and colour vibrancy

·         FRONT – Production of large volumes is faster and cheaper than any other garment decorating techniques

·         VERSITILE – one of the main strengths of screen printing is that it can be applied to almost any type of garment

Ink Types:

It can seem a little overwhelming with all the available print finishes that are out there, so to help you make a decision on how you would like your garments to look, here are all the ink types available for you to choose from.

Premium Standard –

Although called Premium Standard, there is nothing standard about this printing process. We believe that you shouldn’t have to pay extra for a great print finish, so we offer a hybrid style (discharge under base) with our usual inks printed on top as standard. This allows us to strive the perfect balance between colour vibrancy / accuracy and a soft breathable, yet durable print, which only gets softer after the first wash. Premium standard inks are generally available on garments containing 80% or more cotton. There are some colours that often won’t be printable using this method, including Green, Red, Royal Blue, Purple, Teal and Turquoise.

Plastisol –

This is what we would call our standard ink. This type of ink generally leaves a thicker ink deposit than the above ink types and generally has a satin – glossy finish. The great thing about using plastisol inks, is that they are “user friendly” and therefore be printed onto pretty much every garment.

Waterbased Ink –

This ink type is similar to discharge, in that it will leave a very soft and durable finish. As these inks are low opacity, they can only be printed onto white/light coloured garments. On the plus side, waterbased inks will give a great final result when printing full colour, photographic images, as the ink blends really nicely. Waterbased Inks are generally considered eco-friendly as they are water soluble.   

 

Plastisol Transfers –

This method of printing involves screen printing the design as a transfer and then heat pressing onto the garment. This method is generally used when the garments have an unconventional shape. We generally use this method for trucker hats, neck labels and much more.

Discharge-

This is an increasingly popular method of printing within fashion brands. The ink evaporates the dye from the garment and replaces it with the pigment from the ink. This then leaves a very soft print with almost no texture.

Using this method the print won’t fade or crack over time as the garment is permanently dyed the ink colour.

One downside to using discharge printing is that colour matching and vibrancy can be an issue, so we can only provide approximate print colours.

Proofing before work:

Nothing is left to chance. Whether it be an online order or direct, everything goes through a proofing process. We will take your instruction and relay it back to you for approval before we print or embroider anything. This way you will know for sure you are getting what you wanted.