Saturday, September 5, 2009

Process Of Screen Printing

By Stephen Sung

Screen printing is a printing process that makes use of a woven mesh to hold an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil outlines the open areas of the mesh that transfer ink in the form of a sharp-edged image on the surface that is to be printed and this surface is called substrate. On the screen stencil, a squeegee or roller moves and pumps the ink on the open areas that are to be printed with that particular color.

Silk screening or serigraphy 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 1960 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 screen printing was developed as an industrial technology but it was adopted by the artist for expressing and as a repeating medium to duplicate their works before 1900s. This is a very popular in both the commercial printing and also by artists and it is used to print images on different mediums like CD and DVD covers, glassware, ceramics, hats, woodwork, metals, t-shirts and hats.

The first industrial screen printing process was patented in 1907 and many years later, John Pilsworth of San Francisco introduced the multi-color printing using the same screen. In this, the different screen areas were blocked for different color inks and a multi-colored image was produced. This technique is popular in printing signs and posters.

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.

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