For the production of printed garments for promotions, merchandise and fashion there are mainly 3 particular methods of screen printing employed. ‘Spot Color’, for a t-shirt printer, is the method most often used for a large variety of graphics. It is also the best suited method for such a task. Spot color printing is the appropriate procedure for graphic prints that aren’t photographic.

A graphic designer usually chooses the ink colours used to reproduce the graphic images, and they are all Pantone specified. In order to isolate the hues of the ink in the image, Pantone coated or noncoated references are selected. The Pantone matching system is an international colour reference used in publishing, printing and design whereby each colour is identified by a unique pantone name and number.

When colour identity and uniformity is an issue, for example in branded promotional garments or a large selection of products, this method of spot color printing works very well.

Another method of screen printing used is called ’4 Colour Process’. The type of printing that is used, relates mainly to images dealing with either photography or illustration, as well as having a large degree of colours, tones, and graduations used. 4 colour process is also the same method of printing by which all images in books and magazines are printed.

The inks are translucent and merge together on a white background to reproduce all the hues and tones of the original. This is certainly a much harder procedure to do on material than it is to do on paper. However the method employed is essentially the same. If you are going to use this kind of printing it will obviously only work on white garments and will not work for coloured fabrics. The print set up costs are higher than that of simple spot colour designs and as such only suitable for larger print runs of 100+.

When garment screen printers reproduce such full colour images onto coloured fabrics a method called ‘Simulated Process’ is used. The print set-up costs are higher than that of simple spot colour designs and as such only suitable for larger print runs of 100+ The artwork is divided into different hues and tones utilising a process that resembles spot colour, as used by any t-shirt printer in order to obtain the overall appearance and style of the original picture.

This method is used by every printer and is very popular for reproducing heavy metal and fantasy images taken from CD artwork and reproduced on black t-shirts for band merchandising. This is the most expensive form for a t shirt printer and as such used only on larger print runs due to the higher set up costs involving the colour separations and larger number of colours used to print the images.