Process | kgtees

ART & DESIGN

Screen printing design has become a popular way to express a message. From simple to complex designs, Our t-shirt screen printing company can print on most any apparel.

PROCESS

SIZES & LOCATIONS

DESIGNS

INK COLORS

KG Tee's Custom T-Shirt Screen Printing Process for Adding Ink to shirts

The Screen printing process is the procedure of pushing ink through a mesh screen with the design burnt into the mesh. Ink is then pushed through the mesh onto t-shirts and other garments. Below we will take you through the steps we use to create custom screen printed apparel.

1. Designing the Art

It all starts with your ideas. Your idea is taken to our in house designers who make a computer generated version of that idea using Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop, incorporating the t-shirt color(s) and ink colors you have chosen for your order. Once the design has been completed it is emailed to you for your approval. Nothing is ever printed without the customer approval of the artwork.

4. Screen Printing Your Custom T-Shirts

Screen printing finishes by transferring the ink through the screen onto the shirt. To begin this process, the press is loaded with the mesh screens. Ink colors are then poured onto the proper screens. The screen printer then loads the t shirt making sure that it is even and sitting straight on the t-shirt plat. Once it is loaded properly the printer lowers the screen (or on the bigger presses, raises the shirts) and pulls the ink across the design with a rubber squeegee.

The t-shirt is then removed and placed on a belt that runs under a special dryer. This dryer will cure the ink at 320°F. At the end of the dryer, Quality Control inspects each garment to ensure the garment meets our high quality standards. Hope you have enjoyed this explanation of the screen printing process.

2. Process the Art

Once you approve your design, it goes to our production artist, who takes your design apart with a method called color seperation. Each color of the design will have its own screen. Before the production artist can take the design to the screen department they must print each color on a film positive.

3. Preparing the Screen(s)

Screen printing relys on well constructed screens. The film positives from the production artist go to the screen department, who prepares the screen by coating it with photosensitive emulsion. The color seperated positive is attached to the emulsion coated screens, and taken to be burned for t-shirt printing. This process is done for each color of your design.

The screen is placed into a unit that exposes it to ultraviolet light. The ultraviolet light burns the design into the mesh. Water is then used to remove the excess emulsion to let ink come through the screen. This is very important to get the best screen printing results.