Screen Printing

...also known as silk-screening or serigraphy, is a printmaking technique that traditionally creates a sharp-edged single-color image using a stencil and a porous fabric. A screen-print or serigraph is an image created using this technique. It began as an industrial technology, and was adopted by American graphic artists in the 1930s; the Pop Art movement of the 1960s further popularized the technique. Many of Andy Warhol's most famous works were created using the technique. It is currently popular both in fine arts and in small-scale commercial printing, where it is commonly used to put images on T-shirts, hats, ceramics, glass, polyethylene, polypropylene, paper, metals, and wood. In electronics, the term silkscreen or silkscreen legend often refers to the writing on a printed circuit board. Silk screen printing may also be used in the process of etching the copper wiring on the board.

Printing Technique

A screen is made of a piece of porous, finely woven fabric (originally silk, but typically made of polyester or nylon since the 1940s) stretched over a wood or aluminum frame. Areas of the screen are blocked off with a non-permeable material—a stencil—which is a negative of the image to be printed; that is, the open spaces are where the ink will appear. The screen is placed on top of a piece of dry paper or fabric. Ink is placed on top of the screen, and a squeegee (rubber blade) is used to spread the ink evenly across the screen. The ink passes through the open spaces in the screen onto the paper or fabric below; then the screen is lifted away. The screen can be re-used after cleaning. If more than one color is being printed on the same surface, the ink is allowed to dry and then the process is repeated with another screen and different color of ink. (Information provided by wikipedia )

Print Colours

Screen printing uses inks that you can customise into any single colour that you wish including metallics like silver* and gold* (*Subject to a metallic ink supplement charge).

Screen Print Area

The largest print size is 44cm tall and 35cm wide.

Limitations to Screen Printing

Yes, there are a few. Your logo needs to be in flat colours and cannot be in gradients. It is also not possible to print across a seam and your logo needs to be at least 1 inch from a garment seam or edge. For side garment printing ask for our no-side-seam option on our custom Pure jersey. It is only possible to screen print onto a single layer surface (e.g., not on lined shorts or lined hoods). A screen is a fixed size, so you need to ensure that what you wish to print will fit on the smallest sized garment in your order (e.g., a small women's shirt). If your logo needs to be relatively proportioned to the size of the shirt it is going on, we recommend that you create seperate screens for your men's shirts and your women's shirts.

Screen Life

We do not keep physical screens after printing, but all artwork and output transparencies are kept on file. As long as your team reorders within 18 months of your last order using the same artwork, you will not be charged for new screens.

Base Prints

All Lookfly technical fabrics are 'prepared for print' and are colour-fast. However, if you are printing a light colour onto a dark garment (eg. yellow ink onto navy fabric), the fabric colour can show through the ink. In the case of yellow on navy the yellow ink would look dirty and dull. To improve the vibrancy of the ink colour, we can apply a white base print prior to printing the logo. A base print will require an additional screen and print at a reduced charge and we will inform you if we think your logo print would benefit from this.