thread's not dead - doITlab

The screen
printing press
at Jakprints
Respect the Printing Process
If I could give any advice to designers it is to try and have realistic expectations
and respect for the printing process. There are no screen printing robots
(yet) printing your shirts, chances are its just your average starving artist or
tattooed band guy plopping solid coated Pantone-matched plastisol ink into
your screens. The same guy is exposing and blowing each and every halftone
dot out of the screen.
My biggest pet peeve with designers who take a stab at printing is bitmapping!
Stop it! Let the professionals handle your half toning and angles! Most designers
when they bitmap an image have no clue what their printer’s capabilities
are. The size of your halftone dot is determining the mesh that your image can
be burned on and sometimes the dots can’t even be held! Your standard shop is
going to be able to print in the range of 35 LPI - 65 LPI. Please keep that in mind
when designing with halftone dots. Any dot smaller than 65 more than likely
will not be held on press.
If you plan on designing for apparel printing, please invest in a Solid Coated
Pantone book. This is the only way to truly control your design from point A to
completion. I deal with snooty designers all of the time who are unhappy with
their print because their orange on their calibrated monitor happened to look
yellow on my calibrated monitor. The chances of your screen looking the same
as someone else’s is slim to none. All of this can be avoided simply by calling
out your Pantone colors. Pantone 109 in your book looks exactly like Pantone
109 in my book. Problem solved, everyone is happy.
THREAD’S NOT DEAD • Jeff Finley
Trend Watching
I have seen it all. When I first started, I rarely ever had to output anything more
than 12 inches wide and everything was plastisol. Yesterday I output a film that
was 28 inches wide and discharge ink. For a while foiling was the hottest thing
ever. I was creating separations with foil prints 5 times a day. Now, I see a foil
job once every 3 weeks.
The trend that seems to be sticking around is over-sized printing. Everyone
wants the biggest and softest print they can have. But nobody wants the imperfections
that come along with it. T-shirts have seams, and when you go over
them, it creates problems. The trick is to design your graphics with these imperfections
in mind. Distress areas that you know are going to be near seams, so
that when the ink gets distressed from trying to print over gnarly hems, nobody
will think twice about the final product.
Also, it is important to know about your print processes. Standard printing at
99% of your shops will be printed using Plastisol inks. These are inks that are
plastic based and colored using pigments. Then you have Discharge and Water
based printing. Discharge inks remove the pigment from the apparel and leave
behind a smooth soft feel.
However there are limitations
to these soft feel
print methods. Discharge
printing requires the ink to
really penetrate the shirt,
that being said, a lower
mesh screen is needed.
Lower mesh screens cannot
hold small dot sizes
thus limiting the detail that can be held on press. Also, discharge printing is
not eco-friendly! Some brands of discharge ink have formaldehyde in it to keep
if from exploding!
“Have realistic expectations
and respect for the printing
process.” —LT Magnotto
When printing full color images on shirts, it is always best to stick with plastisol
inks. The colors pop and more depth can be created simulating with the color
of the t-shirt. Also, 9 times out of 10 a simulation is going to feel soft anyway
because you are printing halftone dots and its not just a solid deposit of ink!
Case Studies & Interviews 95