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Screen-Printing
- Screen-printing is a method of copying an image to a surface.
- In the late 1970’s / early 1980’s, plastisol was developed and has revolutionized apparel screen-printing as we know it today.
- Plastisol is an ink made of plastic particles which becomes a solid when it is heated to the appropriate temperature (using a flash dryer). A wide variety of vibrant colors are available. Plastisol shares many of the same features as acrylic paint (used by artists).
- Plastisol does not actually get absorbed into the material. Instead, the ink wraps around the fibers and adheres to the material (similar to glue). Because of this, it can remain flexible for years.
- Since the ink is a coating (rather than a dye), it is almost impervious to normal wear and tear.
- Screen-printed products should never be dry-cleaned. Dry-cleaning damages the plastic molecules, which causes the ink bond to fail. Over time, this shows up as cracking and flaking (on occasions).
- The cost of screen-printing is based on the following factors:
- number of garments printed
- number of colors per location
- color of garment used (darker colors need an underlay of white ink)
- number of locations your artwork is printed
- Production range: 13 to over 5,000
- There are several ways of providing us with artwork; they range from a drawing on a cocktail napkin to a jpeg / bitmap file to a vector file. The amount of time to prepare your artwork will vary depending on how we receive it.
- If digital files are provided correctly, you can avoid most art charges. Digital files must be in a vector format for screen-printing. This means that every piece of the design has to be created in a vector-based program. These programs include Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW, and Free Hand. You cannot create them in Word or Paint and then save them in Illustrator. Every detail must have been created in one of these programs. To tell if you have a vector image that is suitable for printing, zoom in on it and see if the image looks fuzzy or not. A fuzzy image is bad and a sharp image is good. Vector files have “.AI”, “.CDR”, and “.EPS” extensions.
- Art charges run $60 per hour.