Screen Printing 101
For large orders of custom t-shirts, screen printing is the way to go. Formally called silk screening, modern screen printing uses a technique to transfer ink onto your shirt by using a screen and stencil. Colored ink is poured onto a screen, and seeps through it to form the desired shirt design.
Screen printing is the most popular form of printing. Most shirts that you find with solid-color designs were probably manufactured using the screen printing process. Screen printing has a one time setup fee (usually around $20 per color), so after that is taken care of, the prints themselves are done very cheaply.
Screen printing comes with its own advantages and disadvantages.
Some advantages of screen printing:
- Screen printing is very economical for large orders. When you get past the setup fee, printing becomes very cheap per shirt. Thus, making large orders of custom t-shirts using screen printing makes makes each print very cheap.
- The ink to screen to shirt method of printing allows screen printing to be done on any surface. Screen printing can be done on all colors of shirts, although dark color shirts usually require an ink underlay to allow the design to appear clearly on the shirt. For more on picking your shirt, check out my tips on custom shirt picking.
- Screen printing causes the ink and the shirt to be strongly bonded together. As a result, the print is very durable and will endure long term use.
The disadvantages of screen printing have already been listed, but just to recap them:
- Screen Printing has a fairly large setup cost. Usually, it screen-printers charge about $20 per color as overhead for the setup. However, if you make a big order of custom shirts this setup fee becomes greatly overshadowed by how cheap each screen print costs.
- If you want a screen print design, most custom shirt companies have a minimum quantity of how many shirts you must purchase. This again is due to the setup cost.
Well, now you know some of the ins-and-outs of screen printing. To get a more whole picture of the shirt-printing-process, check out the guides on digital printing and the economics behind printing.