screen printing methods

Athletic apparel, primarily team jerseys and workout gear, has long been the bread and butter of screen printing shops. With “performance” fabrics, favored for their lightweight feel and quick-drying properties, becoming more and more popular for weekend athletes and everyday wear, screen printers are seeing more and more requests for use of these fabrics.

When it comes to your screen printing production, a flash cure can either be your best friend or your worst enemy – it can be a big help or it can slow you down. Understanding the different types of flash units and their appropriate uses will help you get the most out of them.

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?

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.

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.

When you’re running a small business, you need to take advantage of the technology and techniques that will help you increase efficiency while still providing quality products to customers.

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.”