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