T-Shirt Printing Overland Park, KS
T-Shirt Printing Overland Park, KS. Are you preparing for a special event? Regardless, you should order some custom t-shirts! T-shirt printing is effectively used for many purposes. Are you tasked with bringing a work or sports team together in Overland Park, KS? Are you hoping to mark a special life event with a lasting memento? Do you want to raise money or awareness for a cause or market a business? ALl these very different goals can be accomplished with the right t-shirt printing services. When you do need t-shirt printing services, it’s important to find a screen printing company that is skilled at printing, can help you with your design, and can have your order ready when you need it. When you order shirts from STL Shirt. Co, you get all those things and more.
Shirt.Co is one of the top t-shirt printing companies used by individuals, families, and organizations in the Overland Park, KS area. For almost 50 years, members of the Overland Park, KS community and beyond have counted on us for all of their screen printing and embroidery needs. Our t-shirt printing abilities and excellent customer service set us apart. You may be wondering about our capabilities and services, how we do it, or how to place your order. Ask us questions or start your order by calling us at 636-926-2777 or sending us a message at 636-299-0162 today.
How it Works
Placing a custom t-shirt printing order may seem a bit mysterous. You put in your t-shirt printing order to your favorite screen printer and receive a package filled with custom-designed, nicely folded t-shirts a few days later. We wouldn’t blame you if you described it as magic. To the unfamiliar, t-shirt printing is a mysterious endeavor. Many of our t-shirt printing customers come to us for special occasions and events, so we understand the excitement that surrounds these shirts. Have you ever wondered about the journey that plain cotton tee has gone through to become the beauty you see hanging in your closet or reflected in the mirror today?
The T-Shirt Printing Process
STEP ONE – Make your order.
You’ve determined you want some t-shirt printing done for some upcoming occassion, work group in Overland Park, KS, athletic team, or something else. You contact your shop to place the order and that is where the t-shirt printing journey begins. When you place your shirt order, you will have to choose and specify the:
- What color, brand, style, and material the shirts will be
- Ink colors or special effects
- The design you want printed
Don’t sweat it if you are intimidated by the thought of creating a design and making all these choices! Shirt.Co can give you advice and help during every step of the t-shirt printing process. Use our professional printers and designers. Need help designing a logo that perfectly captures your vision? You can rely on our professional design team. Our experienced staff can advise you on the best shirt or combination of colors to use for your order.
STEP TWO – We prepare the screen
After you decide on a design, we go about preparing the screen that will be used to print the design on your shirts. First, we print the design on a transparent sheet of film. Based on your unique parameters, our t-shirt printing experts will select the best mesh screen for your order. We then coat that screen with a photo-sensitive substance called emulsion. We place the film with your design on it on the screen and we expose the screen to light. Light is blocked from reaching the screen wherever the design is on the film and the rest of the emulsion hardens in the light. This creates the stencil.
If you want a design using multiple colors, we go through the same process for for each color in the design.
STEP THREE – We print.
This is where the ink comes in. Screen printing such as t-shirt printing usually uses a special ink called plastisol. You might have noticed that the prints on shirts are slightly textured, a little rubbery, but still smooth and flexible. What you are feeling is the plastisol ink. Plastisol is ideal for screen printing due to its ability to withstand p washes, move with the flexibility of the fabric, and display vibrantly on a shirt of any color.
We then secure the screens to a printing press, with each shirt pulled taut and placed on a plate below. Our t-shirt printing artists take great care to make sure everything is registered and lined up exactly so to make sure the design is printed in the right position on your t-shirt. We add ink on top of the screen and use a squeegee from end to end of the screen to apply and press the ink onto the shirt. This process is repeated for every single t-shirt we print, and if your design has multiple colors, we repeat it for each color on every shirt. There is an art to applying the ink precisely so it stays vibrant and retains the sharp lines in the original design. Lucky for you, our t-shirt printing team has mad skills.
STEP FOUR – The ink cures.
The ink is now on your shirts! But there is still one more step. After the ink is applied, the ink has to cure. This means we have to turn the liquid ink into a solid so it becomes permanent on your t-shirts. To make this happen we have to apply heat to the ink. It takes research and trial and error to perfect the curing process. It is easy to damage the shirt or the print when you don’t use the correct temperature or amount of time. We know what we’re doing, though, so you know your prints will turn out great.
STEP FIVE – You get your shirts!
After the ink is cured, your t-shirts are officially printed! We fold the shirts up neatly and hand them off to you. We can have your shirts or other items printed and packaged within just a handful of days. If you need it, ask us about shipping your order to you. For those last-minute situations when you need your t-shirts ready in a week or less, we even offer rush printing services.
