Anatol blog

Any screen printer who sets out to find a basic t-shirt to use as a go-to substrate will quickly be faced with the reality of garment selection: there is no such thing as a basic t-shirt.

As a screen printer, you know that customers want their orders filled as quickly as possible with no sacrifice in print quality. Meeting your deadlines is key to keeping your customers happy (and coming back for more business).

“You have to spend money to make money,” but all business owners know that balancing costs is a must when it comes to maximizing profits.

Screen printing with white ink can frustrate even experienced screen printers. The same printing process you use with darker inks on lighter substrates can lead to blurred, fibrillated, heavy-handed or undercured prints when used to print white ink on darker substrates.

For what seems like all of screen printing’s history, screen printers have laid down their art on basic cotton shirts. While basic cotton still might be the industry standard, there are countless shirt options available for screen printing.

If you’ve been thinking about starting your own screen printing business, you’ve likely been wondering just what you need to get your screen printing shop up and running.

Running an efficient screen printing shop starts with reducing your waste. A print shop generates many different kinds of waste, from misprinted shirts to leftover ink and chemicals to cardboard boxes and other containers. And eliminating this waste isn’t always a straightforward process; some screen printing byproducts are potentially hazardous and require special attention. How do you get it all under control?

Even though the ingredients of most textile inks have become more eco-friendly over the years, it’s important to remember that they contain certain industrial chemicals. The disposal of these chemicals is usually closely regulated and often strictly enforced.

As the demands of decorating performance wear increasingly cross over into the world of fashion, it’s become necessary to develop new inks for screen printing. Given the strength and extreme stretch of many of these fabrics, it can be difficult to get the desired result, even with special additives. In response to these challenges, a number of ink manufacturers have developed silicone based inks.

There are countless screen printing inks that claim to be “ready for use”, but in reality almost all inks require some care before they hit your press. Whether you’re seeking the right consistency, the right color or a special effect, there are proper ways to get your ink ready for printing.

There’s an old adage: “Keep your eye upon the doughnut and not upon the hole”. Of course, with screen printing it’s sort of reversed, as it’s most important to keep your eye on the holes in your screen mesh.

“Green” living has gone beyond a fad and become a part of the modern fabric. While there have been garment brands offering environmentally friendly apparel – and screen printing shops specializing in green printing – for decades, eco-friendly clothing has gone mainstream.