Screen printing

Week 4: 31 July - 6 August

After receiving the first prototype of my shirt last semester, I knew immediately that I wanted to complete this project via screen printing rather than digital printing. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the shirt from Printbar, but from a business standpoint, I would have to charge a higher-than-anticipated price per shirt in order to make this product viable. Not having screen printed since grade eight, I took this week to research screenprinting and reach out to local screen printing companies on the Sunshine Coast.

Upon watching several ‘how to screen print at home’ and ‘screen printing for beginners’ videos on YouTube, I felt quite out of my comfort zone in attempting this process. While it is something I would like to achieve from start to finish, I would also rather seek the help of local companies who can assist me in the process of taking my print onto the screen itself.

I emailed three Sunshine Coast companies at the beginning of this week and visited two businesses in person to ask if they could assist me to which they both informed me that they only work commercially and don’t actually screen print traditionally, but rather screen print digitally.

Coming back to this blog, it is now the end of the week, and none of the three companies I reached out to have gotten back to me, so it seems as though I will be undertaking this process from start to finish. Below is a rough breakdown of the supplies I need to screen print and options of where/how I can purchase these. In the meantime, I will branch out my search to businesses in Brisbane and try to contact/visit (when I can around work and uni) other businesses to seek their assistance.