Screen Printing
What is screen printing?
Screen printing, also known as silk screening, is the most popular way to print custom t-shirts.
We create one screen per ink color, set up the screens on one of our precision presses, and print your design in quantities of 24 to 24,000 and beyond.
Screen printing isn’t just for t-shirt printing – it works well on hoodies, polo shirts, tote bags, and more!
How does screen printing work?
We prepare a separate screen (a bit like a large stencil created on a mesh) for each color in your design.
We install these screens on a machine and carefully align them so that the colors register perfectly (so all the parts of your design line up).
We prepare the ink for your design.
Then we load a shirt onto the pallet and it moves under the first screen to be printed with the first color.
The shirt is sandwiched between the screen and the pallet, and ink for the first color is pressed through the screen onto the shirt with a squeegee.
The machine revolves to the next station, and the shirt gets pressed with the second color, and so on.
What is the cost of screen printing?
Screen printing is a mass-production process, so to determine if your project is cost-effective for screen printing we recommend following this rule of thumb:
- 1-color artwork: order at least 24 items.
- 2-color artwork: order at least 36 items.
- 3-color artwork = order at least 48 items.
- Many color artwork: contact us to discuss, but it may be that our Direct-to-Garment (DTG) print services may be a better option for you.