One of the most affordable and versatile ways to express yourself is to create a custom screen print shirt. Whether it’s for a family reunion, a senior class vacation, volunteering in the community, taking part in a weekend beer league, putting together a workplace team for fundraising, starting a fan club for your favorite local band, or just because your buddy created a great design, it’s easy to get started on printing custom t-shirts.

First thing’s first — since it’s summertime, you should think about the sort of fabric your t-shirts will be made from. Not only is the material essential to the printing process in terms of the crispness of the design and the brightness of the colors, but the breathability and wearability are also important. No one wants to wear an itchy, sticky, sweaty shirt, no matter how awesome the design is.

For spot color screen printing, which is the most common fabric print method, cotton is an ideal material. Cotton, as a natural cloth, will readily absorb the ink, helping to ensure a vibrant print. Also, the outside surface of a cotton t-shirt is typically smooth, which assists in transferring over crisp, clean lines and sharp details.

Cotton is known as a breathable fabric. The fibers wick away moisture and also release odors much more readily than an oil-based material like polyester (which is synthetic). Wearing cotton during the hot summer months means that you not only will stay cooler, but you will smell better in the long run. Also, cotton is soft and lightweight, so it feels good to wear!

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As the top screen printing services in the Seattle, WA area, we here at Pork Chop Screen Printing strive to provide our customers with the widest range of printing services possible. As we’ve grown and expanded since 1999 we’ve continuously added to available services to make this a possibility. Customers come with the goal of getting their custom t-shirt ideas printed, however, they aren’t aware of the different types of printing services we offer and their benefits. The design process can go much more smoothly should the client know exactly which style of printing service they need.

Different Printing Services

  • Spot Color
  • Halftone Printing
  • Grayscale Printing
  • 4 Color CMYK Printing
  • Simulated Process Printing
  • DTG

Spot Color

Spot color screen printing is one of the most common forms of printing. Spot color provides vivid colors on all shapes and art on a design and is essential for any screen printing company to know. It uses premixed inks and prints one layer at a time, rather than in a dot pattern. This allows for those aforementioned colors to really show properly on the newly designed t-shirt and ensures that the customer’s design will stand out in the crowd.

Halftone Printing

Halftone printing is a unique screen printing process that uses minimal amounts of ink to display a wide range of colors on a shirt design. Halftone printing is completed through the process of printing dots of various sizes. When combined together, the dots form an optical illusion which tricks the human eye into seeing a gradient or full design rather than dots from a certain distance.

Grayscale Printing

Grayscale printing is a relatively inexpensive form of screen printing for t-shirts. Grayscale printing utilizes a full range of colors ranging from black to white, which includes several different shades of gray. Grayscale is typically confused with black and white printing, which solely uses true black and true white, instead of a range of colors between the two.

4 Color CMYK Printing

CMYK Printing Is the process of using the four basic colors of cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black). CMYK is well known for being an extremely cost-effective method, capable of rapidly producing batches of shirts for an event of any size. The main purpose of CMYK printing is to use as few colors as possible to produce as many shades as possible. This is similar to using the RGB process when referring to computer screens, as they’ll use red, green, and blue to combine and create a gorgeous range of colors available to the human eye. CMYK can typically only be done on white or light colored shirts.

Simulated Process Printing

Simulated process printing is excellent for those interested in printing full images and designs on clothing. This process is typically used for shirt designs with a heavy amount of colors required. Customers interested in designing a shirt with a high-resolution image should definitely be interested in going with simulated process printing. Simulated process printing is able to design your shirt while still staying breathable and comfortable.

Whichever printing process you decide is best for your needs, make sure to contact Pork Chop Screen Printing. 

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