For t-shirt printing and other promotional garments and merchandise, screen printing is often employed using one of three different methods. ‘Spot Color’ printing is the method most often used for a large variety of graphics. It is also the best suited method for such a task. The most suitable method used for the printing of graphics that are not photographic in nature is Spot colour printing.

The colours of the inks to be used in the reproduction of the graphic images are usually Pantone specified colours chosen by a graphic designer. Pantone coated or noncoated color types are selected to clarify the ink hues of the pattern. An international colour reference used in publishing, printing and design whereby each colour is identified by a unique Pantone name and number and is called the Pantone matching system.

This method of spot colour printing is particularly suited to the printing of branded promotional garments or merchandise where colour identity and uniformity must remain constant throughout a diverse range of products.

“4 Colour Process” is another method of t-shirt printing. This printing process is utilised primarily with photographic designs and sketches comprised of a broad variety of hues, shades and gradations. All magazines and books use this four-color printing process as well.

The transparent inks blend with one another on a plain white backdrop to recreate each of the colours and shades present in the original. This is of course a rather more difficult process to achieve on a fabric than it is on paper. The methods are pretty similar.

This method of tshirt printing is only useful for white garments, and will not work well on coloured fabrics.

‘Simulated Process’ is a method used to reproduce full colour images onto colour fabrics. The costs associated with setting up the print are greater than those of simple spot colour designs. Therefore, they are only useful for larger print runs numbering more than 100. The artwork is divided into different hues and tones utilising a process that resembles spot colour printing in order to obtain the overall appearance and style of the original picture.

This is a standard method used by all printers and most popular for example with the reproduction of heavy metal and fantasy imagery taken from CD cover artwork and reproduced onto black t-shirts for band merchandise. This type of printing is the most expensive. For that reason, it is used entirely on large print runs. This is because it costs more to set up the colour separations, and it takes a greater number of colours to print the pictures.

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