What are Screen Printed Customised Caps?
Screen printing on caps is the cheapest way to personalise a cap with your graphics or designs. This method of branding is the second most popular technique we utilize to custom brand a cap.
How Screen Printing is applied to Caps
A screen made of a very fine material is stretched over a frame. Traditionally, this material is silk, but these days it is often made of nylon. Paint is forced through the holes in the fabric, spreading it evenly on the substance beneath it.
The design to be printed is traced on a sheet of waterproof material. The shape is cut away, leaving a gap where the design was. This stencil is then laid out in between the screen and whatever is being printed on -- in this case, a cap. Paint is forced through the screen but blocked by the stencil, meaning that only a shape in the inverse of the shape of the stencil gets through. The finished shape on the cloth of the cap should look exactly like the original design did.
Advantages of Screen Printing
There is a reason this process has been in use for so long -- it is simple, effective and inexpensive. Screen printing works best when printing designs in simple shapes and single, unshaded colours. Adding colours and complexity to your printed image can add to production time and cost. For this reason, if you are looking for full-colour printing on your personalised caps, we recommend using the sublimation printing method instead.
Cheap Way to Print on Caps
History of Screen Printing
Screen printing is a very old technique for putting designs on cloth. Initially developed in China about a thousand years ago, the process has been updated and modernised but remains essentially the same. The principle is so easy, screen printing is often used in by crafts enthusiasts -- perhaps you remember it yourself from a school art class? Commercial screen printing is more mechanised but works in basically the same way.