Potpourri Blog

For merchandise and fashion there are mainly 3 particular methods of screen printing employed. ‘Spot Colour’, as known by any t-shirt printer, is widely used and works well with many types of graphics. Spot colour printing is best used when printing graphics which are usually not very photographic in nature.

A graphic designer usually chooses the ink colours used to reproduce the graphic images, and they are all Pantone specified. In order to isolate the hues of the ink in the image, Pantone coated or noncoated references are selected. Used in publishing, printing and design whereby each colour is identified by a unique pantone name and number, the Pantone matching system is an international colour reference.

When colour identity and uniformity is an issue, for example in branded promotional garments or a large selection of products, this method of spot color printing works very well.

The Four Color Process is another method used in screen printing. This method of printing is used mainly for photographic images and illustrations that consist of a wide range of colours, tones and graduations. All magazines and books use this four-color printing process as well.

These inks allow light to flow through and then merge together on white backgrounds to make all the hues and tones of the orginal one. This is certainly a much harder procedure to do on material than it is to do on paper. The methods are pretty similar. If you are going to use this kind of printing it will obviously only work on white garments and will not work for coloured fabrics. The print set up costs are higher than that of simple spot colour designs and as such only suitable for larger print runs of 100+.

When garment screen printers reproduce such full colour images onto coloured fabrics a method called ‘Simulated Process’ is used.|The cost for the print set up is going to be a lot higher than that of simple spot colour designs and is only good for the bigger print runs of 100+. When the garment screen printers make full coloured images and put them on coloured fabrics this is called ‘Simulated process’.|When garment screen printers reproduce such full colour images onto coloured fabrics a method called ‘Simulated Process’ is used. The print set-up costs are higher than that of simple spot colour designs and as such only suitable for larger print runs of 100+|This type of printing is only right for use in print runs of one hundred or more. This is because it simply costs more to set it up. A process called “Simulated Process” is used in cases where garment screen printers copy full colour pictures using coloured cloths.|’Simulated Process’ is a method used to reproduce full colour images onto colour fabrics. The costs associated with setting up the print are greater than those of simple spot colour designs. Therefore, they are only useful for larger print runs numbering more than 100.} Much like spot colour, used by any t-shirt printer, the art is divided into tones and colours to preserve the essential qualities of the original.

This is a standard method used by all printers and most popular for example with the reproduction of heavy metal and fantasy imagery taken from CD cover artwork and reproduced onto black t-shirts for band merchandise. This, for a t-shirt printer is the most expensive. For that reason, it is used entirely on large print runs. This is because it costs more to set up the colour separations, and it takes a greater number of colours to print the pictures.