Welcome to Our Screen Printing Department!
“Meet Tomo. He is our amazing shop manager. He personally oversees every job we screen print for quality and excellence!”What is Screen Printing?
Screen printing is the process of forcing ink through a stencil. It is quite possibly the oldest form of printing around, except now we have the added benefit of computer-generated art and incredibly detailed stencils. First, we separate your art into separate colours. Then, we make a separate screen for each colour in your design. We load each one of those onto a printing press, and we fill the screen with ink and then push the ink through the stencil with a squeegee. We can make really detailed prints by stacking up different colours of ink and blending them together on the t-shirt.
Once the shirt is printed, it goes on a conveyor dryer and goes on a trip through an oven. When the shirt gets to 320 degrees Fahrenheit, the ink is cured and is permanent.
Many different types of inks can be used in screen printing. Here is a list of techniques we offer:
- Standard plastisol printing
- Reduced plastisol printing
- Specialty inks such as glitter and puff and glow in the dark
- Discharge plastisol inks
- Discharge water base inks (limited colours)
- Inline foil in many colours or patterns
- Athletic prints
- Simulated process inks
- CMYK
“This is a screen printing machine. Many different types of inks can be used in screen printing.”Screen Printing on T-shirts
Screen printing on t-shirts is the most common way to get an image on a t-shirt. The reason for this is that it is durable and the process lends itself well to heavy and rugged inks that wash well and hold up to flexing and bending with a garment. Think about it? What other printing application is expected to hold up well after being washed one hundred times. Screen printing can do that.
We can screen print almost anything on a t-shirt. Simple logos or even photographic images can be created using layering of inks and blending of colours right on a t-shirt. But remember, the more colours in your image, the more it costs you to print it. In the case of screen printing, the old saying ‘less is more’ generally applies.
“This is Sam. She has been screen printing at GetBold since 2016. She does a great job!”Screen Printing on Sweatshirts
We can screen print logos on all kinds of garments. Sweatshirts are a very popular option. When screen printing a sweatshirt, be careful not to expect incredible detail – for example...a photograph of your uncle. That’s not going to screen print well on a sweatshirt. Screen printing on a sweatshirt is best with blocks of colours , not colour bleeds or half tone dots. I’m not saying it’s impossible to print a photo of your uncle on a sweatshirt, but it’s a complicated process that is quite involved and typically looks better on t-shirts than sweatshirts. The reason for this is the thickness of the fabric. The thicker the fabric the more likely those tiny dots of detail squish out under the pressure of the squeegee against the thick soft sweatshirt and detail gets lost.
If you plan your art to be simple, and only a few colours, you will probably be the most happy with the results on a hoodie or a crew-neck sweatshirt. You can do some pretty great art with one or two colours. AND - the fewer colours, the less you will pay.
“Eric, our lead screen printer, makes some adjustments to head number six with our ink mixing station in the background.”Screen Printing is a time-tested way to print images onto garments of all types. At GetBOLD we have been doing it for more than two decades with many happy customers. Send you screen printing needs to GetBOLD and you will be pleased with the results.
Below are some t-shirts we screen printed.
