TBT Hail Thursday! Old post on depth in screenprinting.

Digital is all well and good, but screen printing is deep man. Screen printing has depth. This is a great shirt to illustrate the point.

Notice the grey area, that is curable base, no pigment. You can also use very low pigment percentages up to 15% and it will just make the shirt darker. It creates a tone on tone effect and with no pigment, nothing sits up on the surface on the shirt.

The navy and the white ink is normal plastisol, and it sits “on” the shirt. There is some penetration, but it definitely sits up on top.

Last is the clear gel that looks a bit like a stamp or seal. That is a high density (HD) gel that is printed through a capillary film and stands up above the rest of the print.

The fact that there are basically three levels of printing on the shirt gives this simple logo print real depth. These levels emphasize each other, with the clear base in the shirt, the HD looks all the higher.

The resulting effect is a print that is in the shirt, on the shirt, and above the shirt. deep, man, deep.