Tour

See how the screen printing process works from conception to completion!

Step 1

After meeting with the customer to discuss goals, design ideas and blank apparel options, our artists go to work developing initial design concepts.

Once a preliminary sketch has been approved by the customer, the design is recreated in vector on the computer. There may be several revision until the final design is approved.

Step 2

Once approved, artwork is prepped for films. This prep work includes adding crop marks, labels, and trapping which assist in setting up the job on press.

Step 3

Once the file is set up, each separate color plate is outputted in black to our printer. We use thermal printers, which allows the firm to be burned immediately with no wait time for drying.

Step 4

Films are then taken back to our exposure room. There, screens have been pre-coated with a light sensitive chemical emulsion which allows a screen to accept an exposed image.

Each film is aligned and taped to a screen and placed onto our exposure unit where screens are then subjected to ultraviolet light.

Step 5

Once exposed, each screen must be "washed out." Using pressurized water, any emulsion that was covered by the printed areas of the film will dissolve. Afterwards, each screen must dry completely.

Step 6

After the screens have dried, they are set up on one of our automatic presses. Setup involves placing each screen into a print station in the proper order, putting squeegees into the print station, and adding ink to the screen.

Step 7

Before a job can be run, several test prints are made to ensure the screens are in alignment and the print looks as it should. During these test prints, micro adjustments are made to ensure proper print quality.

Step 8

When the print looks perfect, the entire job is run. Depending on the number of colors in a design, a single item may rotate around the press multiple times.

Jobs printed on dark items or with lots of colors may also be flashed cured in between colors to dry the ink. This ensures that colors do not bleed.

Step 9

When an item has been completely printed, it is pulled off the platen and sent through a gas oven. The oven heats each item to a proper curing temperature. Curing dries the ink and makes it wear and wash resistant.

Step 10

On the other end of the oven, items are caught, stacked, folded, boxed, and are now ready for customer pickup.