How Does Custom Screen Printing In Springfield MO Work?

Custom Screen Printing In Springfield MO  While the process itself is pretty simple, it does involve quite a  lot of pre-production work before the first shirt/garment can be screen printed.

Artwork
Whether provided by you, or created by us, the artwork for screen printing must meet certain standards, before it can be used to create your screen/stencil in custom screen printing.
Generally speaking, the artwork must be in a vector format. Typically that means it should have been created in a program such as Adobe Illustrator, or CoreDraw.

*Vector graphics are computer graphics images that are defined in terms of 2D points, which are connected by lines and curves to form polygons and other shapes. Each of these points has a definite position on the x- and y-axis of the work plane and determines the direction of the path; further, each path may have various properties including values for stroke color, shape, curve, thickness, and fill. Vector graphics are commonly found today in the CDR, AI, SVG, EPS and PDF graphic file formats and are intrinsically different from the more common raster graphics file formats of GIF, JPEG, PNG etc.

While raster type images (GIF, JPEG, PNG etc.) can “sometimes” be used to create your screen printing stencil, they must meet standards of at least 300dpi among other things. We normally need to see your artwork before a decision can be made to determine if further graphic design work is needed.

Film Positives
Once your artwork is finalized, each individual color of your design must be printed onto it’s own individual film transparency, also known as a film positive. Very similar in concept to a film negative that you may be familiar with from the old film photo days.

Screens/Stencils
Creating a stencil, known as a screen. The film positive is applied to a screen printing screen which has been coated with a photo sensitive emulsion. That screen is then exposed using a powerful UV light. The unexposed portions of the screen are then washed out using a high pressure washing process.

Custom Screen Printing Your Design
Using the screen/screens to apply ink onto the printing substrate. Each color in a design requires it’s own screen to be created. Each individual color is applied using a different screen, one at a time to achieve the final look of your design. The more colors a design has, the more screens that are required to screen print your design, thus the more setup time that is required.

The ink in screen printing is applied thicker than digital printing, which results in brighter colors – even on darker shirts. Custom screen printing is the best option for designs that require a high level of vibrancy, specialty products, or for quantities greater than 12 pieces. While Visions Screen Printing technically has a 12 piece minimum for screen printing, we are certainly willing an able to print smaller quantities. However, price is almost always a prohibitive factor with orders less than 12 pieces.

I hope this short, crash course on custom screen printing, has served to help you understand the processes involved in custom screen printing.

We love what we do, and look forward to the opportunity to serve your custom screen printing needs. Please contact us for a free quote.