T-Shirt Printing Peoria, IL
T-Shirt Printing Peoria, IL. Are you anticipating a special occassion? 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 Peoria, IL? 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 for individuals, groups, and organizations in the Peoria, IL area. People in Peoria, IL and all across the country trust us for their complete screen printing and embroidery needs, as they have for more than 45 years. Our t-shirt printing abilities and excellent customer service set us apart. We are sure you have more questions about our capabilities and services, our methods, or how to place your order. Have your questions answered or place your order by calling us at 636-926-2777 or sending us a message at 636-299-0162 today.
How it Works
Custom t-shirt printing orders can have an enigmatic feel. You put in your t-shirt printing order to your favorite printing shop and receive a package filled with custom-designed, nicely folded t-shirts a few days later. If you want to describe it as magic, we won’t object. 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 to have some t-shirt printing done for your upcoming event, club in Peoria, IL, sports team, or some other use. You contact your shop to place the order and the t-shirt printing process is set into motion. When you order your shirts, you will have to determine the:
- What color, brand, style, and material the shirts will be
- Ink type and color(s)
- What design will be printed
Don’t sweat it if you are intimidated by the thought of creating a design and making all these choices! Shirt.Co is here to offer counsel and help during the entire t-shirt printing process. Use our professional printers and designers. Need help designing a logo that perfectly captures your vision? You can work with our professional design team. We can also help you select the right shirt and ink colors.
STEP TWO – We prepare the screen
After you determine your design, we go about preparing the screen that allows us to print the design on your shirts. First, we print the design on a transparent sheet of film. Based on your desired end results, 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 is how we create 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.
Now we are ready for the ink. 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. That’s plastisol for you. 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 any color t-shirt.
Next, we mount the prepared 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 line everything up precisely so to make sure the design is printed in the right position on your t-shirt. We apply 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. We repeat this for every single t-shirt we print, and if your design has multiple colors, we repeat it for each color on every shirt. It takes skill to get the ink just right to where it stays vibrant and retains the sharp lines from your original design. Lucky for you, our t-shirt printing team has mad skills.
STEP FOUR – The ink cures.
Now your awesome design is on your shirts! But they aren’t ready to go yet. Once the ink is applied as a viscous liquid, it must be cured. This means we have to turn the ink from a liquid into a solid so it becomes permanent on your t-shirts. To do this 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 come 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 will package them up and have your shirts or other printed items ready in 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, check out our rush printing services.
