Services / Screen Printing Services

Screen Printing Services

Since 1985, we have been tirelessly perfecting our process and we take great pride in the simplicity and efficiency of our operation. There’s a reason why we’re an industry leader, and while much of it has to do with our high standards of work, our award-winning creative staff, and safe and secure shipping...  it all comes down to reliability. 

If you want premium quality screen printing services at an affordable price, then you want your job done by the experienced pros at Outhouse Designs!

Minimum Quantities
Turn Around Times
Ink Colors
The Process
Standard Screen Printing
Soft-Hand Screen Printing
Specialty Screen Printing

Minimum Quantities

Our minimum order quantity for custom screen printing is 72 pieces - based on each individual job setup.

Turn Around Times

Our standard turn around time for screen printing is 5-7 business days. Please note that production time begins after receipt of order AND artwork approval.

Orders CAN NOT go into production without prior artwork approval. Please keep this in mind if there are defined due dates for you order, as rush charges may be incurred. Any job requiring production in less than our standard turn around is considered a RUSH ORDER and is subject to production schedule availability.

Ink Colors

We have 36 standard ink colors to choose from - offered at no additional charge.

If you need to match a specific color, we offer pantone color matching for a one time (per order) extra charge of $20 per color.

The Process

Along with the many details for processing an order, there are a number of steps that happen between print request and the packing of the finished screen printed product.

REVIEW ART SUBMISSION

If artwork is customer supplied, we must determine if it will print well. We review each piece art and offer suggestions and recommendations for better printing if necessary. To help, we've developed an artwork requirements guideline based on our experience over the years.

ART PROOF

Once the artwork is determined good for printing, we'll email you a digital art proof showing a mock up of the design on the garment style and color(s). On this proof, we'll list out the exact imprint sizes and list the pantone colors we intend to use. The mock-up is an estimate for sizing and location. It's at this stage we request your artwork approval so that we may proceed with your order, so if you have any questions or concerns, please let us know!

COLOR SEPARATION AND FILM OUTPUT

For each color in a design, we produce a piece of film that will become an individual screen. Each separate screen is put on press and loaded with a specific color to be printed. The process for deconstructing the art into it's single color components is called color separation. Once the art is separated, we output a film positive for each color.

SCREEN EXPOSURE

Screen exposure or "burning screens" is the process of creating a screen stencil from the image on the film. A pre-stretched screen is coated with a photo-reactive emulsion and dried. The film is then adhered to the coated screen and exposed to high intensity light for a defined period of time. After exposure, the screen is sprayed with water to remove the emulsion from the image area.

SCREEN PREP FOR PRODUCTION

Once the screen has dried from the wash out, we prep it for the production run. We apply block-out to the emulsion areas outside of the design. This prevents the occurrence of pin-holes (tiny holes in the stencil that allow unwanted dots on a shirt) and helps stabilize the stencil for the entire production run. The edges of the screen are taped off to prevent other ink leakage and allow easier clean-up.

MIXING INK

While the film is being printed and the screens are being made, the ink department is pulling the ink and stationing it in a holding area for the press operators. Based on your order, we either use our stock inks or custom mix requested pms inks with our pantone color matching system.

SET UP

There's actually quite a lot of variables that are addressed each time a screen print design is set up on press. Depending on the design and desired outcome, press operators consider the amount of off-contact, squeegee speed, squeegee angle, durometer and other technical aspects of screen print. After the initial set up, these settings are recorded so the set up takes a fraction of the time for a re-order.

Standard Screen Printing

Good screen printing really comes down to the separation process. If the art isn't separated well, it's not going to print well. Outhouse Designs excels at color separation - producing beautiful, award-winning prints.

Below is a breakdown of our standard printing methods.

	BASIC SPOT COLOR PRINTING Spot color printing uses standard plastisol inks and is usually no more than 3-4 colors. The process of assigning pantone colors is straightforward and the number of colors is easy to count. The design colors may contain halftones, but the colors do not blend together.
	SIMULATED PROCESS PRINTING ON DARKS Simulated process printing is the method of creating color separations for photographic or very complex, color rich graphics on colored garments. The method mixes standard opacity plastisol inks to achieve a photorealistic 4-color process look. Few shops can achieve quality simulated process prints due to the many variables involved. At Outhouse, simulated process printing is our specialty!
	4-COLOR PROCESS PRINTING ON LIGHTS 4-color process prints specially formulated inks in the colors of cyan, magenta, yellow & black to simulate how a regular ink jet printer would print. The inks are transparent, so this process can only be used when printing on white or, in certain cases, light garments. Images that call for this process are usually photographic. If necessary, spot colors may be added to the 4-color process ink print order for increased vibrance and saturation.

Soft-Hand Screen Printing

Retail inspired designs call for softer printing. Inks work best on white or light garments with the use of fashion-soft base additives and water-based inks. Achieving soft prints on dark garments is not as straight forward, so when requesting a soft-hand print on darks be sure to have a conversation with our art department so you know just what to expect.

Below is a breakdown of the different processes we use and a little bit about each one.

	DISCHARGE PRINTING Discharge ink was developed specifically for soft-hand printing on dark garments. Discharge is a water-based ink that bleaches the garment weave while depositing pigment. The look of the final print is quite different from traditional plastisol prints. The end print is more muted, therefore pantone ink matching is not possible. The print has an extremely soft feel after the garment has been washed once. Only 100% cotton garments have the potential to discharge. That being said, the exact discharge-ability of a particular tee is dependent on the conditions of the specific dye lot. A dye lot is the entire batch of shirts dyed at the same time. This is done in the t-shirt manufacturing process. There are a number of variables that can affect the quality discharge that varies from lot to lot. A black Hanes tee you print with discharge in June may not match a discharge print you do in July. Many times, t-shirt manufacturers will batch a bunch of overstock colors and dye them all black. Certain color shirts are more difficult to discharge. Reds, royals, cranberry, purples, and teal colors are all very difficult to get a consistent predictable discharge color.
	WATER-BASED PRINTING Water-based ink is more transparent than regular plastisol inks and it does not print well on dark garments, so you'll want to stick to printing on white or light colors. There is no pantone color matching with water-based ink. The print has an extremely soft feel.
	FASHION-SOFT PRINTING Fashion soft is a soft-hand additive that mixes with plastisol inks to achieve a softer feel. It works well with complex color mixing such as simulated process. In many cases, it's a better alternative to water-based or discharge printing - especially when color matching is important.

Specialty Screen Printing

Really want your order to get noticed? Try incorporating our specialty inks. Our art department can offer recommendations based on your design.

Our most popular choices are listed below.

	NEON INKS Fluorescent neon inks will make any print vivid and bright. Fluorescent colors work well on any design that you want to be noticed. Available in Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Magenta and Purple.
	SHIMMER INKS Tiny reflective flakes suspended in a clear carrier ink make these sparkly metallic inks. The print is nice and solid in 100% fill areas. Available in silver, gold, and copper.
	GLITTER INKS Larger reflective flakes suspended in a clear carrier ink make these sparkly metallic inks. The print is nice and solid in 100% fill areas. Available in silver and gold.
	CRYSTALINA INKS Clear reflective flakes allow this clear carrier ink to be on top of other ink colors with only one application.
	GLOW-IN-THE-DARK INKS Turn out the lights and areas printed with glow ink are illuminated. This ink is great for Halloween shirts, rock designs, or any design that you want to glow in the dark! Glow in the dark works on white or colored shirts, however colored shirts will require that an underbase of white be printed for the glow effect to work properly.
	FOIL PRINTS Add some flashiness to your next design! Highly reflective and almost mirror-like, foil is actually a sheet heat-pressed onto adhesive ink. Because of this, we recommend against using fine type or small details with this type of printing.