What is t-shirt printing? The most common printing methods

In the current era of technology 4.0, printing plays an increasingly important role in our lives. Printing is also used in many different industries and fields.

There are many types of materials that can be used for printing such as paper, decal, plastic… and fabric.

And fabric will also be the material that I want to teach everyone. T-shirt printing is one of the most difficult ways to do so today. Let’s find out why this is so.

Each type of material will have its own printing method. The same goes for T-shirts, it will have its own way of printing.

What is t-shirt printing?

T-shirt or still called with the name T-shirt it is a very popular type of shirt today.

In the beginning, t-shirts appeared very simply with one tone and without any textures or patterns… today we still call them plain t-shirts.

Later, because of the needs and creativity of the designers, they wanted to put more images on the shirt to create more accents and impressions.

T-shirt printing is simply understood as putting an image, a logo or any texture, pattern by gluing onto the t-shirt based on the heat press method.

After many years of development, manual printing is gradually being replaced by more modern printing methods such as digital printing, decal printing, etc.

Modern t-shirt printing techniques
Silkscreen printing (silkscreen printing)

Referring to the first technique of printing on shirts, we cannot help but mention silkscreen printing.

This is almost one of the oldest and most popular methods to this day.

The main working principle of screen printing is to allow only the necessary part of printing ink to penetrate through the printing screen, and then print on the type of material to be printed.

Silk screen prints are usually made of silk threads.

But now there are many other types of fibers such as cotton yarn, synthetic fiber … so there are some places where they can call it by another name that is “screen printing”.

Process to print silk shirt

Step 1: Create a movie, export the film, then capture the silk frame.

Step 2: Mix printing ink and then proceed to pull the silk to match the captured silk frame.

Step 3: Can use heat pressing or drying method so that the image can stick on the surface of the material longer

Some pros and cons of this technique

Advantages

• Product has bright color
• Large print capacity
• Cost savings
• Do not make the shirt stiff.

Defect

• Difficult to print in many colors
• Long wait time for ink to dry.
• Requires large orders to reduce costs.

Digital printing method for t-shirts

This is considered the most modern printing method and gives the highest productivity today. It solves most of the disadvantages that other printing methods are facing.

With simple operations on the machine, we have created high-quality prints and great productivity.

Digital printing process

Step 1: Process the print pattern to make the ink brighter and more beautiful.

Step 2: Use the heat press method to dry the chemical.

Step 3: Proceed to print the t-shirt

Step 4: Heat press again to make the ink dry

Some advantages and disadvantages of technical printing

Advantages

• The printing position of soft shirt is not dry.
• Prints on a wide variety of fabrics.
• Hard to fade color
• Doesn’t need much image processing but still can print with high quality
• High speed and accuracy

Defect

• Large investment costs
• The color is not as beautiful as silk screen printing
• Only specialized inks can be used.

Technology to print decals on uniforms
Print decal or can be called with the name Vinyl printing, although not as widely used as the above methods, but it is also one of the technologies with many advantages.

The process to print decals on t-shirts

• Print the design on the decal
• Heat press the image to eat into the t-shirt.
• Cut unused parts

Advantages and disadvantages to note when printing Decal
Advantages

• Colors are sharper and harder to blur.
• Can be printed on both dark and light colored shirts.

Defect

• The print is prone to peeling.
• High cost and long production time.
• The printing position makes the shirt rough

  With the information I also provide, I hope that you can better understand the current printing techniques, from which you can choose the best t-shirt printing factory.