Silkscreen printing, sometimes called screen printing, is a popular way of creating high quality printed images. It has been around for centuries and developed immensely, working much like the process of pouring paint over a stencil, except that this process is more refined. Through repeated fine-mesh screens, the printer applies different colours to the printing surface, allowing for greater detail in the printed image. This offers an economical way to colour a wide variety of products including decals, stickers, badges and labels. Read on to learn more.
Types of silk screen printing
Spot Colour Screen Printing: One of the most common silkscreen printing process, where the ink’s stock colour is used to produce a vibrant spot colour through a relatively simple process. Often used for printing on garments such as t-shirts and jackets.
Halftone Screen Printing: A cost-effective method, halftone screen printing uses a single ink colour to print gradients that emphasises the use of shading with tiny dots. This process is most often used to obtain a multicolour effect without actually using multiple inks.
Grayscale Screen Printing: In order to create a full-colour design using just one colour, you can use grayscale printing, which involves printing the image as white or black only. This technique is often used to print black and white designs onto fabrics.
Duotone Screen Printing: Duotone screen printing is similar to the sepia-toned printing technique in photography. First, a black halftone is printed with black ink; then a second halftone is printed with colour ink, producing sophisticated and refined prints.
CMYK Screen Printing: CMYK silkscreen printing uses four basic colours (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) to produce a wide range of colour tones, and is the most complicated screen printing method.
Advantages
Silkscreen printing is a cost-effective and relatively simple process as large runs of the same graphics can often be printed together economically, as compared to digital processes. Besides this, it also accommodates small text and fine-line illustrations, producing vibrant colours and detailed images, especially when it comes to colour logo printing, complex designs or even texturised, three dimensional looks.
At the same time, many industrial customers choose silkscreen printing because it produces prints that last longer, even in the most demanding industrial environments. Silkscreen printers use specially formulated inks that adhere more permanently to surfaces than digital inks. In short, they produce prints that withstand more wear and tear without losing printed quality.
Conclusion
For those looking to get a large amount of material printed, silkscreen printing is a good option to consider. With good colour, detail resolution and high-quality output for affordable price points, it can lend itself to a wide variety of needs and operations. Hillier Industries has been in the business of label and sticker printing as well as silkscreen printing in Singapore for decades. We aim to provide our customers with excellent service at all times, on top of quality products that are durable and attractive. Talk with us today what would be best for your project – we’ll be happy to help you with all of your printing questions!