Custom T-Shirt Screen Printing

custom t shirt screen printing
Custom Screen Printing - T-Shirt Screen Printing Expressionism Or Collectable Fine Art?


Executive Summary By C L Moore

What image comes to mind when you think about screen printers or see t-shirts with screen printing? Is your only mental picture that of a custom screen printed t-shirt with a logo or a cute saying of some sort? You have probably heard of Andy Warhol, a distinguished artist who was known for his screen prints. Today, screen printers may specialize in decorating apparel and other items; or, a screen printer may utilize the screen printing medium for his or her artistic outlet.

What do you know about the origins of screen printing? The Middle Ages saw the development of stenciling into the early forms of screen printing as tar was painted on cloth stretched and dried to produce a sort of negative stencil. This fine, mesh fabric allowed more intricate designs to be accurately reproduced.

Custom T-Shirts - Choosing Between Screen Printing and Digital Printing

Executive Summary By Jamal Jones

When buying custom t-shirts, many buyers are unclear on whether to have their shirts screen printed or digital printed. Each method of printing produces a different result on the shirt. With screen printing, however, ordering a single custom t-shirt is unreasonable because. There are relatively high setup costs involved with screen printing that go away only when many shirts are ordered. On the other hand, the cost of digital printed t-shirt does not decrease very much as the quantity of shirts ordered increases. For example, the cost of digital printing will only decrease by 10 or 20 percent as the number of shirts ordered increases, but screen printing may offer as much as a 50 percent price deduction for higher quantity shirt orders.

When buying light colored t-shirts, such as white or natural colored t-shirts, both digital printing and screen printing are acceptable for your custom t-shirts. However, when ordering darker colored shirts, like blue or black, the digital printing option is eliminated. The ink used in digital printing simply is not strong enough to penetrate through the darker colors of the shirt.

Finally, the print itself must be taken into consideration. Digital printing produces a very colorful print that is not high resolution, but also leaves the t-shirt very soft to the touch. Printing more colors using digital printing will not increase the price of the shirt.

Screen printed t-shirts produces a stronger print that can sustain very many uses and countless times in the washing machine.