DIFFERENT TYPES OF SCREENPRINTING

We do three main types of printing, there are also several specialist methods and inks we use.

Plastisol Spot Inks

Plastisol is the most common printing method, it is opaque and lasts very well. It is essentially particles held in a emulsion.

When printing t-shirts we generally try and stick to Spot Colours, we use Solid Pantone Colours for colour matching.
Spot colours really just refer to a solid colour. They are generally opaque, bright and not victim to variance in between or within jobs.

This means that each colour is completely separate and needs it’s own screen. It also means we can effectively match brand guidelines.

CMYK Process Ink Printing

This differs from Spot Inks as it is a Four Colour process, similar to how brochues and magazines are offset printed it involves 4 Very Fine Screens and vastly less opaque inks. All Colours are made up from CMYK.

This works best on White Garments, and can look good. It is prone to more issues with varience and requires the use of halftones.While you can absolutely have halftones of Spot Colours, where tone is made up of halfrone dots.

Haltone Screenprinting is not only for CMYK Prints, but is essential for it.

The entire process is dependant on small dots of colour siting on each other to make up all other colours.

You can see on the image to the left the general gist of how this works. Each Screen is made of dots and by putting the colours together you get all of the colours.

This example would have 4 Spot Colours OR CMYK. Either way it is 4 Colours.

It is an actual example shown to a client to explain the process. In this example you would absolutely opt for Spot Colour Printing. Some images have so many colours that CMYK or Digital printing is a must.

Other Specialty Inks

These inks are by definition spot colours.

• Metallic Inks (Gold, Silver Fleck inks)
• Fluro Inks (Hi Vis Yellow, Orange, Pinks etc)
• Glow in the Dark (Covercoat)
• Puff Inks

These inks may have additional costs attached to them, we can also do discharge prints, however we do not do this for small orders as it does necessitate special dryer settings.

Waterbased Screen Printing

A completely different process to Plastisol.
We use waterbased dye inks for Teatowel Printing, this means the pigment sits inside the fabric. They can be used for drying and handling hot items.

This type of waterbased printing needs to go onto light coloured garments.