Thursday, January 14, 2010

The Screen Printing Process

By Raymond Sung

Screen printing is one of the initial methods used in printing process. In this process, the ink or any other printing medium is passed through a screen or 'mesh' that has been fixed on a frame, and a stencil has been applied to it. The image that needs to be imprinted is determined from the stencil openings. For the different colors, different screens are prepared and the process is repeated.

Silk screening or serigraph also involves screen printing. In this, the stencil method of the print making imposes a design on the screen of silk or any other fine mesh and the empty areas are covered with an impermeable substance while the ink is put on the printing surface through the mesh. The silk printing was the traditional method but now it has been replaced with the polyester for screen painting.

Screen painting is the technique developed by the Chinese almost 2000 years back and the screen was made of human hair stretched across a wooden frame. The Japanese developed it further by using the woven silk as mesh and lacquers as stencils. Europe adopted this technique much later as it involved silk which was not available in the Europe.

The rotary machine was patented by Michael Vasilantone in'60 in the United States to print logos and team information on the bowling garments. It was licensed by different manufacturers to produce screen- prints on the garments like t-shirts, and hats. The screen printing on the garments has become so popular that it accounts for almost half of the screen printing activity going on in the country.

The printing on the canvas with the help of the screen-printing also became popular with the artists. Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and many other artists have made use of screen-printing on the canvas. The commercial as well as the fine arts industry is using this screen printing industry to increase their profits and they use it to make prints on the CD and DVD covers, t-shirts, hats and also on the metals and many more things.

Currently, graphic screen printing is used in creation of mass or large batch production graphics such as posters or display stands. The screen printing is more suitable for printing on non-porous surfaces like ceramics and metals, curved surfaces like bottles and cups and also for short print runs.

Large and small corporate give gifts to their employees and clients in appreciation of their work and also to motivate the employees to perform better. The Corporate gifts are usually screen printed with the company logo and some motivational sentiments. The corporate gifts are given at the time of holidays like Christmas and New Year. There are many different types of corporate gifts like t-shirts, bags, glasses and like. The screen printed t-shirts are also given to the employees during the annual events of the corporate.

About the Author:

No comments:

Post a Comment