Introduction to T-Shirt Screen Printing

Translating your artwork from screen to fabric introduces new limitations and considerations when a t-shirt is the final destination. By being aware of these limitations, and having reasonable expectations, we can overcome them. Due to the print process, the porous surface, the inks used, and its elasticity, t-shirt fabric presents a unique set of design constraints. T Shirt Printing Shop Prints R Us presents you the best shirt printing service.

Our goal will be to show you how to overcome the obstacles of working with fabric as a design medium by explaining what these constraints are and how to overcome them.

Paper vs. fabric

We’ll begin by examining how fabrics and papers handle printed designs. The best way to translate what you see on the computer screen into print is to use paper. Since paper is less absorbent than fabric, the inks dry faster and do not mix with each other as much as they do with fabric.

Ink dries quickly at the surface, which is even more important. As a result, fabric is great for permanent printing because it is absorbent, allowing ink to penetrate deeper into the fabric than paper can. Also, this significantly affects the way colors look, particularly when printing light-colored ink on dark-colored clothing.

A white print design on a black t-shirt will translate differently since the black of the shirt will dominate the white ink. White ink can be fixed by running it twice with flashing in between runs. What does flashing mean? It’s actually a method of curing ink temporarily with a heat lamp before printing with the same screen again during Mardi Gras.

Flashing the same screen twice allows the ink to become double strength, preventing the shirt color from bleeding through. The use of a white under-base is also a very common technique for printing inks on dark colored fabrics.

Using this process, all of the design is printed in white first in order to create a blank canvas underneath the actual color design. On dark colored t-shirts, an under base technique is very effective for getting the colors as bright and true as possible. On dark colored t-shirts, make sure the inks are under-based or flashed.

A brief introduction to inks

In household washers and dryers, printed t-shirts undergo intensive cleaning cycles both indoors and outdoors, in wet and dry conditions.

With heavy wear, the ink on a printed t-shirt must permanently adhere to the fabric and maintain its quality. Plastisol ink, water-based ink, and discharge ink are the three most popular inks for t-shirt print designs. It would be impossible to cover all three inks here, so we’ll stick with plastisol, which is the most commonly used and easiest to find. Plastisol offers numerous advantages, including longevity and brightness of the print.

When possible, avoid shading and gradients. They should not act as the focal point of the design, but instead be used sparingly. Using the negative space on the shirt will help limit the amount of ink coverage and the thickness of the print.

Registration of the Print

There is a lot of stretch in the fabric. It rarely maintains a consistent size or shape. Do you think this affects your work as a designer in any way?

With a material that can change shape, matching the colors in the design becomes increasingly difficult. Registration is the technical term used in printing to ensure colors are in the right place in relation to other colors.

In the event of registration errors, the design will appear misprinted and poorly aligned. Even the slightest movement in the fabric can cause a misaligned print or blurry appearance. Add a very small stroke to your design to help the colors register.

Make sure you know your colors

Your blue is different from someone else’s. A navy blue that is different from another navy blue is your navy blue.

It is the Pantone Color Matching System, also known as PMS colors, which is the most widely used universal color system by designers and printers. With this method, you can communicate exactly what color you want to the printer in your design.

A printer can reproduce PMS colors by mixing their standard ink colors with the PMS color number you need. By doing so, we remove opinions on what a color should be and replace them with measurable results.

Final thoughts

Utilizing fabric as a design medium can drastically improve the finished product when these obstacles and solutions are understood. Designers should do what they can during the design phase of the process. Communicating the printer’s challenges will ensure the best results when translating from computer screen to fabric.