Publishing Your T-shirts: A Summary
You have picked your materials, developed a tshirt design and put your order. What exactly happens next?
Step one in getting your design onto a shirt requires publishing films for the many colors used. A graphic artist can look at your artwork and determine the best method of printing the colors.
The two major types of printing colors are four-color process and spot colors. Spot colors are individual colors that are published separately. You’ll find 100’s of pre-mixed colors and an infinite quantity of colors which can be mixed to specification (e.g. Pantone Matching System colors).
About the textile to produce a large number of colors four-color process physically combines four colors (Cyan (sky blue), Magenta (warm pink), Yellow and Black). Four-color process, also referred to as CMYK, can be used to simulate design and final work with textural effects and sophisticated treatment. A hybrid form of printing referred to as simulated process may also be used, mixing components of both process and spot color printing.
The graphic artist makes clear acetate films of each color and prints them in black alongside registration marks and pinpointing information. The films are sent to the be burned onto screens and then gathered into a package with printing directions.
Each color of the t-shirt design is then exposed via a high-intensity lightbox onto a fine mesh screen that has been coated with photosensitive emulsion. These monitors were originally made from cotton, therefore the foundation of the word silkscreen. If the emulsion is exposed, it becomes and hardens insoluble to water. The black parts of the acetate movie prevent light from getting to the emulsion immediately beneath them. Those sections maybe not uncovered will dissolve in water. The screen is placed in a high-pressure washing unit where the pieces of emulsion are washed out of the screen. What remains is, in effect, a delicate stencil for that particular color of ink.
Whilst the Art Department is focusing on your films, your t-shirts are now being purchased from wholesalers. Often this can be described as a challenge; calls can be produced all across the nation buying a particular size or color of shirt. When the textiles occur, they’re mentioned in and checked against the order for accuracy and then taken to the screen printers.
A multiple-head press holds a number of screens from as few as four to as much as sixteen. The screens are arranged radially and turn over palettes that the tshirts are loaded on. There are both automatic and manual presses; on automatics while smaller manual presses are literally spun by the printer the rotation is handled by pneumatics. Each screen is put onto a segment, or head, and locked in to place. The printer then vigilantly adjusts the printed pictures from each screen until they are all in correct alignment for your final, mixed image. The appropriate color of ink is added to each screen and is forced through the screen’s openings by pulling a squeegee from the bottom of the screen to the top. Several of different factors influence the final silkscreen print effect, including the hardness of the squeegee, the power and position of the pull used, and the type of ink used.
After printing, your t-shirts are run-through a dryer to heal the ink so that it will bind to the materials of the substance. Your final test print is approved by the graphic artist focusing on your design, and the run-of t-shirts is produced.
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