Screen Printing

Screen Printing is what Prairie Graphics grew up around. The process itself is simple. Making it look good is the tricky part. Fortunately, that's what were best at. The general process involved is akin to a stencil. A fine mesh of polyester is stretched over a wood or aluminum frame. The mesh is then coated with a photosensitive liquid emulsion. When dry, the screen can be exposed with a powerful metal halide lamp and a film positive of the desired artwork. The areas of the emulsion struck by the light 'harden', while the areas covered by the film positive artwork can be washed away with water, leaving *ta-da*, a stencil of the design on the screen. Ink (not paint, never say 'paint') made from a PVC resin, is forced through the stencil with a squeegee onto the shirt, cap, jacket, what-have-you. The item is then dried (cured) for several seconds in our infra red conveyor curing unit.

We are experts in putting your ideas onto wearables. We can do it all from simple one-color designs on a t-shirt, to complex multicolored designs on nylon jackets. We can do special effects like puffy ink, metallics, glow-in-the-dark, color-changing, halftones, and 4-color process printing. No artwork is too simple or complex. Okay, sometimes it's too complex, but I'm sure you'll find that our expert staff can provide you with workable solutions to your toughest problems.