GSH Apparel’s Screen-Printing Business
With eight years of experience in the screen-printing business, I wanted to share the ins and outs to help you make an informed decision when choosing a company to decorate your next t-shirt order. Some things to consider when choosing your screen printer are: turnaround time, art quality, printing process (manual or automatic), and price. Due to minimal barriers to entry, screen-printing businesses are numerous. Below is an in-depth explanation to help you choose the appropriate t screen-printing business for your needs.
Turnaround Time: The first question to ask when selecting a screen-printing company is whether they can deliver the order by your deadline. If they can’t complete your order when you need it, then it doesn’t matter how great their art department is or how cheap their per-shirt cost. The sad reality is most places over-promise and under-deliver. There is nothing worse than not having your shirts on the day of your big event.
Art quality: The biggest bottleneck in the screen-printing business is the art/proofs process. The reality is the better the artwork you start with, the better the final t-shirts will be. The best way to submit art is through a vector file. If you are unable to produce vector art, then a high a resolution [.jpg] or[ .pdf] file may work. You want a company to actually review your artwork and make suggestions. Sadly, some places take exactly what you give them and put it on shirts. How do you think navy blue shows up on black shirts? You guessed it, not very well.
Printing Process: There are two screen-printing processes: manual and automatic. A manual process requires a human to pull down a screen and stroke ink through the screen onto a shirt. The automatic process works by loading shirts onto a pallet to be printed by a machine that goes around in a circle. In the automatic process, a shirt gets one coat of ink. There are times when an automatic machine should be used, but for smaller orders you want a quality screen printer manually printing your shirts.
Price: Although I saved price for last, it usually ranks as the most important factor for many customers. The screen-printing business is ultra-competitive and companies will under-bid each other when work is scarce. While going with a company offering the cheapest price may sound great, such companies often are lacking in one or more of the other important areas that I have discussed above. A fair price is when you get what you pay for. Think carefully before you choose the cheapest screen-printing business you can find; it actually may cost you more in the long run.
I hope these tips help you next time you need to select a quality screen-printing business. At GSH Apparel we pride ourselves on high-quality printing, excellent customer service, and meeting every deadline—we have a 100% rate in meeting deadlines over the last eight years!