Screen printing is a printing techique used to push ink through a mesh stencil onto textiles. Each colour in your design requires a different stencil (or screen) to be made. Once the screens are made we make sure all colours line up (or register) to one another. We then print all the garments on an automated press which is capable of incredibly precise, repeatable printing on 2,000’s of t-shirts a day using the same screens. Even after the introduction of digital garment printing, screen printing remains the best process for printing textiles.
Are you looking for a fast and effective way of printing fabrics? This must be your choice.
When direct print proves to be useful?
This printing method is universal and performs well when printing on various materials. It can be used when you create:Since we started screen printing back in 2006 we have been tirelessly working towards improving our print quality & efficiency. Dialling in every part of the process so we can produce high quality screen printed clothing with absolute consistancy & ever increasing efficiency. This means we can produce unrivalled quality screen prints, for very competitive prices, with a fast turnaround time.
What makes direct print unique?
It can seem a little overwhelming with all the available print finishes available, so here’s a simple breakdown of our most popular inks & the print finishes they will produce. As with most services we offer, if you have a particular finish or style in mind, make sure you let us know before ordering & we should be able to help!
Plastisol
95% of printers will use this ink as standard. It generally leaves a thicker ink deposit than the above ink types & will generally have a satin – glossy finish. The good thing about plastisol inks, & why they’re so popular is you can print on pretty much every garment. We usually personally prefer a softer finish, but plastisol can be the only option for some garments & if you’re after the most vibrant print & don’t mind a thicker, satin finish then plastisol is the best option.
Screen Printing Techniques
SPOT COLOURS – Spot colours as the name suggests, are true solid colours, that do not involve any gradients or tones. Spot colours therefore produce a very bright and vibrant solid colour. Spot colours are great for logos, and designs that do not have a great number of colours in the design.
HALF-TONE PRINTING – Half-tone printing is used in images that have gradients and tones, or are more photographic in nature. With half-tone printing you can print a graphic, or multi-colour look in a limited amount of colours. They can produce the impression of multiple colours, and gradients in only one or few ink colours, therefore saving the expense of multiple screens. Half-tone printing uses small dots to produce different gradients.
CMYK PRINTING – CMYK Printing or four colour process printing, is a great way to produce full colour prints in a limited number of screens. With just four ink colours cyan, magenta, yellow and black we can create designs with many colours. A good way of envisioning CMYK printing is to think of a desktop printer. It does not have hundreds or thousands of different ink cartridges for every possible colour. Rather it has four ink cartridges CMYK, and can therefore print many colours. Much like a desktop printer, CMYK screen printing will only show on white paper, or for the purpose of our analogy, white garments. You could not put a black piece of paper and expect to see the image, likewise for CMYK screen printing. This is because the inks used are not very opaque as they need to mix together. These specially formulated inks also do not adhere well to a white under-base. We therefore only recommend CMYK screen printing for white and light coloured garments.
