It is a mechanism being used from age-old days where a stencil is first created with the design that is to be printed on the t-shirts. A stencil is nothing but mostly silk with the design embedded in it. The design area will be porous and the other areas will be non porous and will not allow the ink to pass through them. Then, the stencil is being placed on the apparel and the ink is then spread on the stencil. Now, the ink passes through the permeable layer in the stencil onto the piece of garment. Now, the ink gets embedded onto the t-shirt. Then, the stencil is removed and printed apparel is sent for curing which is a process done for drying the print and also helps the print to get a polished look.

Screen printing has its own advantages and disadvantages. Some of it advantages are good quality prints and a smooth feel of the apparel. Some of its demerits could be, it’s a costly process, involves more labour and the machine occupies a vast space.

What is Digital printing?

This is an advanced mechanism in printing which is costlier and more efficient that the screen printing process. As the name implies, in digital printing process, the printing process is all digital. The designs are fed to the computer and are directly printed on the apparel we desire. It is very simple, like instead of taking a printout of the design on paper, we take it on a t-shirt. It is very efficient and when printing on large quantities of apparel, it is very useful. This is the simple concept used in digital printing.

It has again got its own merits and demerits. Some of its merits are it gives high colour options and variations in the prints and it’s faster since it is done digitally. A demerit of it would be, it’s too costly and it requires expertise in printing. Not everyone can maintain such a mechanism.

What differentiates Screen printing and Digital printing?

• Digital printing can be the best option when we go in for printing garments in bulk. They are most cost-effective and efficient when it comes to bulk orders.
• Digital printing provides an option of printing millions of colours but screen printing provides an option of only limited colours.
• Digital printing helps us print the designs with more accuracy and detail.
• Screen printing is very cheap when compared to digital printing.

We have now seen the concepts of screen printing and digital printing which are widely used in the field of printing t-shirts.

And when you are in need on such printed custom t-shirts, you got very many options these days like you can get it from the retail stores in your locality, malls and many other sources. But, my suggestion for you would be to go to the online stores available in plenty. Many online stores are available with the printed t-shirts, where you can view their catalogs and unique prints at a cheaper cost. So, browse through a handful of reliable websites and choose the right one that suits your needs. I suggest online stores, because it’s the only place where you get variety from where you can choose yours!