To produce printed articles of apparel for advertising, retail and fashion, there are three fundamental methods of screen printing that are utilised. ‘Spot Color’ printing is the method most often used for a large variety of graphics. It is also the best suited method for such a task. Spot color printing is used for those graphics that do not have photographic properties.
A graphic designer usually chooses the ink colours used to reproduce the graphic images, and they are all Pantone specified. Pantone coated or uncoated colour references are chosen to specify the ink colours of the design. The Pantone matching system is an international colour reference used in publishing, printing and design whereby each colour is identified by a unique pantone name and number.
Spot colour printing is well suited to printing branded promotional garments or items in which colour identity and uniformity needs to stay the same throughout a varying range of items.
“4 Colour Process” is another method of t-shirt screen printing. This is the best way to print photographs and illustrations which contain broad colour ranges, tones, and graduations. The images found in many books and magazines and printed by the 4 colour process.
The inks are translucent and merge together on a white background to reproduce all the hues and tones of the original. This is rather more difficult process to achieve on a fabric than it is on paper. However the method employed is essentially the same. This particular sort of t-shirt printing will, obviously, only be effective on white cloth. It won’t work on coloured garments. ‘Simulated Process’ is a method used to reproduce full colour images onto colour fabrics. The costs associated with setting up the print are greater than those of simple spot colour designs. Therefore, they are only useful for larger print runs numbering more than 100. Using method similar to spot colour printing to achieve the overall look and feel of the original image the artwork is separated into various colours and shades
Most t-shirt printers use this method, and it is especially popular when used to copy fantasy and heavy metal album artwork onto shirts to be sold by the band. Due to the higher set up prices which includes the separating of the colour as well as an increased amount of colours used to print the pictures, this works out to be the most expensive way of printing.
