Screen Printing has become the most convenient and economical way to mass produce T-shirts, banners, labels, decals and many other products. You can see the effects of screen printing every time you start your day. Whether it's somebody wearing a company T-shirt, or a business advertising a large sale with a banner, screen printing has become a part of our daily lives.

To get your business logo or custom designed T-shirt created is not as difficult as one may believe. The process involves several steps, beginning with Tees+Plus, where once your artwork, photograph or text is submitted, or created by one of our graphic artists, you are on your way to a professional looking T-shirt.

The Artwork
At Tees+Plus the first step in starting your project is to convert your approved artwork to film. The number of colors in your logo determines the amount of films that will be used for the project.

Once approved, the films are arranged on a "light table" and situated in the order they will look on the T-shirt. Once they are arranged in the proper form the images are brought over to the "exposure unit," a large photocopier type machine that will burn the image onto a screen.

The Screen
Screens are the method by which the image is applied to the T-shirt. Screens are created with mesh that can range in up to 15 different sizes. The mesh size will determine how much ink can pass through the screen as it is applied to the T-shirt.

The image is actually burned into the mesh screen by the exposure unit and later washed out by a Tees+Plus Employee. The image will "fall out" of the mesh and allow the ink to pass through it when placed over a T-shirt. The mesh is then framed into one unit and brought over to the press.

Branding Your T-shirt
Tees+Plus uses rotary presses to brand T-shirts because of the machines ability to create quality images at a high turnout rate. Rotary presses can be controlled manually or automatically, depending on the number of T-shirts you need.


For jobs of 100 T-shirts or more, an automatic rotary press will be utilized. For projects of less than 100 units the job is done by hand. This may cost more per T-shirt because of the manual labor involved. However, to use an automatic machine for projects of less than 100 T-shirts is not economical because of the time it takes to set up an automatic machine. The job of creating less than 100 T-shirts can be done quicker by hand than it would take to set up an automatic machine to perform the job.

Whether done automatically or by hand, your screen print frame is brought over to a six to 14 arm rotary color press. This all depends on how many different color images your design requires. For each layer of color, there is a different tray that the screen print must go through.

Each color of ink is separately poured into the screen print frame and then "squeegeed" through so that the ink is pushed, and matted onto the T-shirt. Depending on the volume of ink pushed through, the T-shirt will be automatically placed under a quick dryer so that the ink does not run or smudge. The T-shirt will then be shifted to another tray, where another color of ink is "squeegeed" through the mesh.

After each color has been applied the T-shirt is automatically placed on a conveyer belt, and placed one last time under a large drying unit. The final step is the inspection of each shirt by a Tees+Plus employee at the end of the conveyer belt. He or she will check each shirt to make sure everything looks proper, fold it, and place it in a box for shipping.

Inks
There are many different types of inks that can be used on a t shirt including UV curable, solvent inks, water inks and plastisol. Plastisol inks are mainly used at Tees+Plus.

Plastisol ink is made from PVC, a type of plastic that is durable and long lasting when applied to T-shirts.