OnDesign: Promo Print

November 18, 2009

Forward Printing thought that a flashy, water-based print with lots of colors and fine detail would make a good promotional item.

A couple of times a year, the employees at Forward Printing, Oakland, Calif., print 250 to 400 shirts for promotional purposes. According to Dan Holzer, owner and CFO, these promo runs are usually printed on a variety of different garment styles and include a spin on the company logo in some way. This month’s featured design, which was screen printed using water-based inks, is an example of a promotional garment that was sent to customers as samples of Forward Printing’s capabilities using water-based inks.

“About 64% of our customers are out of state,” Holzer says. “These promo shirts are sent to those customers interested in having one so they can see and feel the garment, and [with this shirt, in particular, see and feel] what a water-based print looks like, feels like after being washed and what we can do with water-based inks.”

The majority of the colors in this design were set up on 230-mesh S-thread retensionable screens coated with water-resistant emulsion. The design also features metallic ink, which was printed through a 110-mesh screen to allow the metallic flakes to pass through, Holzer says.

But the design was not without its challenges. Holzer says this was Forward’s first experience using water-based metallic ink. “We treated the ink like plastisol and did not let it flood until just before the stroke to prevent the thin ink from dripping through the low mesh count and smearing the design,” he says. When the design was first printed, the results were sub-par, Holzer says, because the halftones experienced too much dot gain when being “stepped on by the other screens and mixing with the other water-based inks.” To remedy this, the separations were re-engineered, which scaled back the dot gain and gave the halftones some breathing room.

Since Forward Printing targets all markets, Holzer says the company wanted the design to have mass appeal. “Considering the large, sometimes distressed — and usually water-based — prints you’re seeing in stores right now, [a promotional garment featuring water-based inks] was the way to go,” he says.

— Jamar Laster

Design Details: Dimensions: 15" x 17" • Screen Printing Press: MHM E-Type 10/12 • Separation Software: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, AccuRip • Ink Type(s): Rutland and Matsui • Ink Colors: Red, yellow, orange, white, grey, black and metallic magenta

Acccording to Holzer, Forward Printing currently prints about 95% of its work with water-based inks. Though the design on the front of the shirt was printed with water-based inks, there was one element that was not. “The inside tag design was printed using plastisol ink so that it would not bleed to the outside of the garment,” Holzer says.

Holzer says the company thought that a flashy, water-based print with lots of colors, gradients and fine detail would be ideal for this promotional print. All inks in the design were discharge activated to print on the dark-colored fabric.“Every color in the design was printed wet on wet,” Holzer says. “Registration was tight to accurately reproduce all of the shading [in the design].”



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