When you think of screen printed products, shirts are probably the first item that comes to mind. But you definitely shouldn’t stop there! There’s a whole world of different materials waiting to be screen printed, and expanding your offerings will help you attract new customers and keep old ones coming back for more.

In the screen printing world, a myth surrounds specialty inks. Screen printers often avoid puff, glow-in-the-dark, metallic and gel inks because they’re considered difficult to work with.

Now that you understand the different types of screen printing emulsions and have selected the right emulsion for your shop, it’s time to talk about using those emulsions the right way to prepare your screens for a successful print run.

A quality screen print requires a quality stencil. That means using the right screen printing emulsion for your job. So what types of screen printing emulsions are there? How are they different? How do you determine which type of emulsion to use?

Almost nothing poses as big of a challenge for screen printers as printing white ink on black or other dark-colored shirts. White-on-dark prints can come out rough, splotchy or blurry, and they can be challenging to fully cure.

To create a photorealistic image in screen printing, most printers rely on four color process. That involves printing the four basic print colors — cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK) — in fine, half-tone dots.

Water-based inks have grown in popularity due to their soft hand feel and lower environmental impact. For printers accustomed to plastisol inks, printing with water-based inks can provide some challenges because water-based inks don’t apply and react the same way plastisol inks do.

For newer screen printers, choosing the right screen mesh count often presents the most concern and confusion. Because of that, many newer screen printers – as well as some more seasoned ones – often use the same medium-grade mesh counts for all jobs. While a mid-range 160 mesh screen will get you far with your printing, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t learn about and experiment with different screen mesh counts for different projects.

Your screen printing business is nothing without its customers. However, from time to time you’ll come across some clients that are more difficult to deal with than others. Some might be impossibly picky; others may have unrealistic expectations for what you can deliver. The key to keeping customers happy is communication.

Feeling squeezed by the restrictions of a standard-sized screen print? If your creativity can’t be contained in your usual print size, you may want to give oversized printing a try. To really push the envelope, you can print whole backs and fronts of shirts, or even try all-over printing.

In a recent blog post, we covered seven screen printing tips to improve the quality of your products. Today, we’re expanding upon that by exploring seven screen printing mistakes to help you avoid saying, “I will never make that mistake again.”

Blurry prints. Smudged or rough ink. Improper registration. Images that wear away when washed. As a screen printer, these are some of the common problems you work to avoid. Every misprint costs money, and problem prints that make it into your customers’ hands can damage your business’s reputation.