An Introduction to Screen Printing

From the minute you tear open the bag of your delivered tee and slap it on your back, you forget about the complex process your t-shirt went through before arriving on your doorstep. Here, we will attempt to give you some basic knowledge and guide you through the pit falls of screen printing. Something all good designers should know. Screen-printing is an art form all of its own, and DBH has always pushed the boundaries of printing and taken on complex artwork in an attempt to scare our printers. They haven't been beaten yet!

Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate. A roller or squeegee is moved across the screen stencil, forcing or pumping ink past the threads of the woven mesh in the open areas.

Screen printing is also a stencil method of print making in which a design is imposed on a screen of silk or other fine mesh, with blank areas coated with an impermeable substance, and ink is forced through the mesh onto the printing surface. It is also known as silkscreen, serigraphy, and serigraph.