Technological Advancement in Printing Technologies
When it comes to designing and creating your own t-shirts, selecting the right t-shirt printing strategy is one of the most vital calls you want to make in the t-shirt process. It is also the 1st decision that you must make so you create the design in the right format to make the most use out of the t-shirt printing strategy you select. Selecting the wrong printing method for your design could end up in unsuitable results for your t-shirt. Choosing the right t-shirt printing method nonetheless could mean your design is translated to the t-shirts as you had desired.
The 1st and most typical technique still today is water based or plastisol silkscreen printing. This method was also known many years back as silk-screening. Screenprinting employed the making of ‘screens’ or ‘silk screens’ made of filtered mesh. An individual screen is ‘burnt’ for each of the colours in the design. Ink is pushed thru the screens onto the t-shirt so multiple layers are needed for multi-colour designs. Having to form and ink a few screens for a multi-coloured designs means the set up cost for this process is high as it requires much manual work. Nonetheless since the process has been around for so long, the technology has advanced to such a point that much of it can be automated. The disadvantage of this automation is that to recover the capital and setup cost, orders must be quite big to keep cost down per t-shirt. Inks employed in silkscreening is also the most sturdy and colourful of all of the t-shirt printing strategies.
An especially fresh technology, but one that is gaining immense renown amount the t-shirt printing companies, is Digital Direct to Garment printing. Known more frequently as DTG, this digital methodology of printing doesn’t need the use of screens or manual setups. DTG printers are basically strong inkjet printers and so use an electronic printhead to deliver the ink directly onto the substrate, in this example t-shirts. The benefits of DTG are many. First, the design can be full colour as DTG printers use the CYMK color range. Designs can be created on popular design computer programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Corel Draw or any digital format available. Therefore , designers can send their designs direct to a printer to have it printed. No screen setups or scanning / converting to have the design ready to print. Most DTG printers therefore don’t charge a set-up charge so as to get the order started. The downsides of DTG include a high ink cost, and washability and vibrancy of colours that doesn’t yet match that of screenprinting. These drawbacks are principally because of the young age of the technology. As DTG becomes more popular and mainstream, the ink cost should decrease and ink quality increase, making it a workable alternative option to screenprinting.
Peter Kim has been in the t-shirt printing industry since the 70s. First with screen printing for 20 years and now working with DTG Printers for the world’s largest consumer printing companies. If you want to learn more about t-shirts and t-shirt printing, visit www.mrtees.com.au
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