CREATIVE PROCESS
Printing a t-shirt, from design concept to final delivery is a pretty interesting and unique process. Below is a rough overview of some of the steps involved in printing your order. Hopefully you’ll get a basic understanding of the screen printing method!
A screen frame is stretched with polyester screen fabric we call mesh. We then coat these screens with a photographic material called emulsion, and by using ultraviolet light we “expose” the film onto the screen.
Whether it’s a design for your event, or your organization’s logo, the process is the same. Our design team will re-create your artwork inside our graphics program, and print each individual color (if your design has more than one) onto a transparent material. This is the final film used to create a screen.
Using a manual or automatic printer (depending on the size of your order), our print team uses these newly exposed screens to print your design. Each color in the design is transferred through the screen’s stencil with a squeegee until the overall design is entirely printed on the t-shirt.
After the shirt is printed with your design, we send it down a dryer, which is a conveyor belt-driven machine that exposes the necessary heat to your t-shirt in order to make sure the design is cured evenly and will hold up wash after wash.
A Kelgraphics team member stands at the end of the conveyor belt to receive each shirt in your order. After folding (usually by 12) each size and color individually, the entire order is placed inside it’s package and the job is marked as complete. It is then sent to our shipping department for delivery via UPS, or marked as ready for pickup and we’ll give you a call to let you know it’s available.