Printavo is simple shop management software. We help you streamline your business, keep jobs moving forward and your team on the same page.
Scheduling, quoting, approvals, payments, customer communication, automation and more. With Printavo, you’ll work smarter–not harder.
The screen printing process is a mystery to many new screen printers. While the overall process is simple enough, there are lots of details to learn.
Before you dive in and spend thousands on new screen printing equipment, take some time to learn about the process. Screen printing is process oriented – meaning that if something goes wrong, you may have to start over at the first step.
If you're looking to make some quick cash printing shirts, understanding that there's a process you must adhere to will help you hustle harder – with more consistent results for your customers.
The basic screen printing process has three phases:
The most important part of the screen printing process is preparation.
You will hear this time and time again from industry professionals: great prints start with a great pre-press process!
Pre-press preparation and organization is the key to successful growth in screen printing.
The typical pre-press process doesn’t begin when a screen printer arrives at their shop and starts putting ink onto a screen.
We’re going to spend a lot of time on the details and edge-cases during the pre-press process. We can’t overemphasize how important this entire section is to your success. The smoother, faster, and easier your pre-press process, the better your business can become.
So screen printing doesn't begin with ink or shirts. No, the screen printing process begins with sales.
We’ve written extensively about screen printing sales. Each and every shop has their own methods for getting sales, and each salesperson typically has their own unique style for attaining sales.
But what does it mean to make sales part of your screen printing process?
You must sell profitable orders that your shop can print on time and up to the customer’s expectations. Nailing your screen printing prices isn't as important as you think. It's more important to provide a lot of value to your customers. More on that in a moment.
If you sell a screen printing job you can’t actually print, what should you do?
Maybe you can find a contract printer to take it on – but if you’re new or don’t have contract printer connections, you need to take your shop’s ability into account while you are selling. In other words, don't sell jobs you can't actually print unless you know a good printer that will help you out!
As a rule of thumb, you should sell screen printing orders that are:
Most print shops choose two to five niches that they capitalize on, and that's how they provide real value to their customers.
For example, some prints shops focus exclusively on printing highly detailed images of cars for car enthusiasts and auto shows. They provide value by knowing the right cars to feature, the right people to market to, and the right way to print these demanding images.
Some only print high-visibility merchandise for government agencies. They provide value by understanding the inks that work best with high-vis, and they even understand the legal requirements that their garments might have to meet. They know the local Department of Transportation real well!
And still other screen printers are dedicated entirely to band merchandise for music tours. They know which bands to target, what products to offer, and what kinds of things actually work when you're selling merchandise.
The point is that you should nail your niche to get more sales and make the process easier. Industry expert Mark Coudray told us at PrintHustlers Conf: "The riches are in the niches!"
Note: we've written extensively about how to get more sales for screen printing.
One of the trickiest parts of the screen printing process is the Quote and artwork approval process.
Did you ever think about this? Your customer needs to approve – in detail! – every part of the project you're working with them on. After all, it's a totally custom project!
More importantly, we’ve discovered that print shops typically have thousands of dollars in outstanding orders that are stuck. They're just quotes that never got approved!
You’ve sold the job, agreed on the numbers, but still need to get the green light from your customer that every single detail is correct. So nail that process as a screen printer and you'll make more money, faster.
Without complete approval, you’re gambling with your business: what if the customer wanted a change, something was misspelled, or they want more shirts at the last minute?
Your approvals process should give you time to plan the job appropriately! You need to account for approvals in your turnaround time: if a customer wants something in 5 days, is that actually enough time to print the order...and go through approvals for quotes, art, and more?
We recommend that you implement some kind of well-documented system to help you track and organize your quote and artwork approvals. \
Note: Printavo’s screen printing management software has a powerful automated system for staying on top of your Quotes and Artwork approvals.
Once your quote and artwork have been accepted by the customer, you have to figure out the puzzle: how do you actually make this design and print come to life?
There are virtually unlimited combinations of garments, inks, and printing processes in screen printing.
Hopefully you're not planning to use pink ink on a black shirt without using an underbase – you do know what an underbase is, right?
Are you printing plastisol on cotton, keeping it super easy or simple? Or are you going to use water based inks alongside a discharge underbase to make the print feel like the t-shirt? Maybe you're trying to figure out how to get a softer screen print?
You must understand screen printing ink and how it interacts with fabrics to nail this step.
Or, keep it simple and just offer limited options to your customers. Good, better, best is a simple and classic way to organize the merchandise quality you offer.
Weird fact: many people consider the most affordable mass-produced t-shirts (thick, heavy cotton tees) to be the "highest quality" shirts.
The odds are good you don’t have the right garments on hand, unless you keep a lot of inventory on hand. Most screen printers in the US don't keep large amounts of inventory (though the shop pictured above is an obvious exception – they print thousands of shirts a day).
So, if you're like most screen printers, you’ll order apparel through a wholesaler.
The major garment suppliers in the US are:
Each garment wholesaler specializes in different areas: SanMar offers exclusive lines like Nike, Carhartt and more, alphabroder has a truly giant inventory, S&S Activewear is known for speed and consistently, and TSC Apparel provides some of the best athletic apparel.
"SanMar was founded by my father, a decorator. SanMar started because he got a big screen printing order for the Seattle Supersonics and had to order a bunch of t-shirts for it." - Jeremy Lott from SanMar
It’s great to have a working relationship with these wholesalers. They're supportive and know how important it is to maintain a close connection to screen printers.
You can learn how to order t-shirts from wholesale vendors quickly: they're eager for business!
Note: each wholesaler listed here is integrated directly into Printavo, making quoting and sales a super seamless process. Just punch in the item you’re looking for by name and you'll have quick access to pricing and more.
Be sure to proactively plan your wholesale shipments: it may take 3-5 business days just to receive certain merchandise.
You’ve sold the order, got the goods, and are so close to printing that you can taste it.
But don’t rush through this next step: it’s crucial!
Order intake is part of your sales process, yes – it’s the details you take from the customer to get specific information about the customer and what they need.
But this step is also the process you use to receive garments and "stage" orders when they arrive at your shop.
Most shops use a combination of wheeled carts or bins to control the flow of t-shirts. It’s best to have a clear system in place for receiving that ensures your team isn’t losing garments, misplacing items, or otherwise disrupting the smooth flow of an order through your shop.
This same process is part-and-parcel of the internal communication process in your shop. We think the way Printavo handles this process is incredibly smooth, so we want to share it.
Once a Quote has been approved, the order is moved to a custom job status in Printavo called ORDER INTAKE - GOODS INCOMING.
Everyone in the shop can always see what status jobs are in, so anyone that visits that job knows what’s happening with it. Changing the status can send a notification via text or email as well.
Usually, the intake department will then handle the order.
Once they’ve got the goods counted in and ready to print, they’ll change the job to a status like GOODS READY - PREPARE SCREENS. Then, the next department – the screen room – takes control of the job.
Once everyone in your shop is on the same page about the order, and your customer has confirmed the Quote and approved the artwork...it’s time to make (or more accurately: image) your screens.
If there’s one technical skill to master as a screen printer, it’s everything that goes into making great screens.
From emulsion to exposure, you want to have the best possible understanding of the basics of making screens if you want to be a great screen printer.
Here’s the basic process for making screens for screen printing:
The screen process is, if you didn’t notice, a loop. Screens travel through this process over and over until they’re worn out, lose tension, or break.
But, no matter how you image your screens (or the exact process your shop uses to make screens), your screens are the single most important operational detail relating to quality. Great print shops know how to make great screens, full stop.
Curious about the cutting edge of screen printing technology? Check out our guide to CTS and DTS machines for screen printing.
While it’s exciting to print t-shirts, your actual on-press time is a sliver of your business. Preparation is everything in screen printing.
It’s not unusual for the administration (read: the order intake, quote approval, art approvals and revisions) and preparation (the pre-press process) for a screen printing order to take longer than the actual printing. Think about it: a 250 piece order might take 5 hours of time to agree on – but only an hour or two to actually print.
Screen printing is about much more than dragging a squeegee across a screen: it’s a process and the actual printing is just a small part of that process. Get one piece of the screen printing process wrong and you’ll likely have to start over from the first step.
There aren’t many businesses that have such a process-intensive product – so treat the screen printing process with respect!
Most screen printers follow a process like this while printing:
We’ve meticulously prepared our order, done the hard work of printing it, and now we must do three crucial things that every screen printing business should do:
The biggest and most important insight we can leave you with is this: screen printing is a process.
While you are making a product, the real product of any screen print shop is actually its process. Each job is custom, unique, and totally different – so what stays the same is the processes underlying each job.
Good preparation is essential to good screen printing.
There is not a successful screen print shop that ignores the process and leaves it to chance in the entire world.
Screen printing and process-first thinking go together like bread and butter.
The three-phase process you should focus on involves pre-press activities (where you should and will spend the majority of your business’ time), on-press printing (often just a fraction of the revenue-generating time in your business), and finally post-production follow-ups (to build and maintain customer relationships, get reviews, and keep your business in good standing).
Getting just 1% better every day is the goal. What can you do today to learn, improve, or develop your process?
Need help with your screen printing process? Look no further than the Customer Success team at Printavo. Industry professionals that can help you discover new efficiencies and chart a path to a sustainable process in your shop – whenever you need them. Join Printavo’s screen printing management software and get access to this incredible resource at no additional cost.
Printavo is simple shop management software. We help you streamline your business, keep jobs moving forward and your team on the same page.
Scheduling, quoting, approvals, payments, customer communication, automation and more. With Printavo, you’ll work smarter–not harder.