Recognize the iconic portrait below? Done in 1962 by Andy Warhol, this Marilyn Monroe artwork led to a bit of an explosion in the screen printing industry.
And now, each year, more than two billion T-shirts are sold worldwide. Over half of them that have a custom design are printed silk screen style.
The Process:
In short regarding the T-shirt screen printing process, it starts with the customer creating a design– finding one or making one, then put into a vector graphic form, and sent to the printer. The following step is likely the most critical. The screen gets coated with emulsion and set in a dark room, where it sits to dry. The dark room stops emulsion from being exposed to light, preventing the emulsion from hardening prematurely. Now, the graphic, which has been made into what’s called a film positive, gets placed securely on the emulsified screen. After that, a large vacuum sucks out all possible air between the film positive and screen to ensure no bubbles or wrinkles are part of the final product. Under an extremely hot light, the emulsion’s chemicals harden on all the surface area except for where the image is. The hardened emulsion will prevent any ink from passing through. Where colors need to be applied, the emulsion has been removed, which will allow the ink to pass through. After the exposure to the intense light, the screen is taken to a wash-out area where the portion of the shirt requiring ink will be apparent where the emulsion is now gone.
After a few more steps, the actual “printing” begins. The T-shirt is placed into the printing machine, and ink is distributed directly where it needs to go. It then gets cured, which is industry lexicon for dried. The process to get to the screen printing machine is intricate and lengthy. But once in the machine, everything moves extremely fast.
The Pros of T-Shirt Screen Printing:
While it does take time to prepare T-shirts for printing, the pros are plentiful. Among them are:
- The technique of screen printing produces bold, rich colors.
- T-shirt printing is dominant over other methods in terms of cumulative speed and efficiency. Once the screen has been made, the printing process is actually quicker than the rest of the procedures.
- Images on screen printed T-shirts last very long. Because of the density of the inks used, screen printed shirts have been known to maintain their vibrancy for years.
- The same amount of setup is required for one T-shirt as it is for 1,000 of them, so it’s ideal for bulk orders.
To Summarize:
T-shirt screen printing is one of the most widely popular, established methods used by print shops, especially when it comes to larger orders. Screen printing is a versatile and effective printing method that produces T-shirts with hard-to-match quality, rich-colored imagery, and unparalleled durability.
Remember how this article began about Andy Warhol in 1962? Well, screen printing was first recognized long before, back in China during the Song Dynasty beginning in 960 AD. That’s 1,060 years ago. Think they were on to something?
