Changing the way you learn

Printing Process

Screen Printing
1. How it works
  1. A screen is made from a piece of porous, finely woven fabric (polyester/ nylon) streched over a wooden of aluminium frame.
  2. A stencil is used which blocks off areas of the screen with a non-permeable material.
  3. Stencil is a negative of the image to be printed, so the open spaces are where the ink wil appear.
2. Advantages
  1. Stencils are easy to produce using Photo-emulsion technique.
  2. Versatile- can print on virtually any surface
  3. Economic for short, hand-produced runs.
3. Disadvantages
  1. Difficult to achieve fine details (photographic screens able to produce fine detail)
  2. Prints require long drying time.
4. Materials used
  1. Paper
  2. Boards
  3. Cardboard
  4. Plastic
  5. Rubber
  6. Metal
  7. Ceramic
  8. Glass
  9. Fabrics
5. Used for...
  1. T-Shirts
  2. Posters
  3. Metal Signage
  4. Point-of- Sale displays
Digital Printing (think of laser printing)
1. How it works
  1. Use laser guided electrostatic energy to transfer tone powder obnto paper in the form of text and images.
2. Advantages
  1. Excellent visual quality of prints.
  2. Very cost effective for up to 1000 prints as no plates are required.
  3. Set up costs are very low.
3. Disadvantages
  1. Unit costs are high
4. Materials used
  1. Paper
  2. Boards
5. Used for...
  1. Books
  2. Lables
  3. Brochures
Letterpress
1. How it works
  1. Is a relief printing process. Ink is applied to the surface of the reversed, raised type
  2. The type is pressed onto the paper to reproduce the positive image.
2. Advantages
  1. Tooling costs are low- especially if blocks are reused.
3. Disadvantages
  1. Labour costs are high due o level of craftsmanship required.
4. Materials used
  1. Paper
  2. Boards
5. Used for...
  1. Low volume production of books
  2. Posters
  3. Packaging labels
  4. Flyers
  5. Invitaions
Offset Lithography
1. How it works
  1. Works on the principle that oil and water do not mix, but repel each other.
Offset Lithography
1. How it works
  1. Works on the principle that oil and water do not mix, but reple each other.
2. Advantages
  1. Inexpensive printing process
  2. Can print on a wide range of papers
  3. High printing speed
3. Disadvantages
  1. Can only be used on flat material
  2. Colour variation due to water/ink mixture
  3. Set-up cost make it uneconmic on short runs
  4. Only suitable for mass production
4. Materials used
  1. sheet materials (paper, card, board and metal)
5. Used for...
  1. Posters
  2. Books
  3. Newspapers
  4. Packaging
  5. Credit Cards
  6. Decorated CDs
Flexogrphy
1. How it works
  1. Uses a relief-type printing plate with raised images; only raised images come into contact with the paper during printing
2. Advantages
  1. High speed- printing process
  2. Relatively expensive
  3. Fast-drying inks
3. Disadvantages
  1. Set-up cost high so would rarely be used on print runs below 500,000
  2. Difficult to reproduce final detail
  3. Colour may not be consistent
4. Materials Used
  1. Sheet&Rolls of paper
  2. Card
  3. Plastic
  4. Corrugated card
  5. Glass
  6. Metal
  7. Metalized films
5. Used for...
  1. CartonBoard containers
  2. Plastic Bags
  3. Chocolate Bar wrappers
Gravure
1. How it works
  1. Image is engraved onto a copper-plate cylinder.
  2. Uses a rotary printing press
2. Advantages
  1. High Speed printing process
  2. Good quality results on low quality paper
  3. Consistent colour reproduction
3. Disadvantages
  1. High cost of engraved printing plates and cyclinders
  2. Only efficient for long print runs
  3. Very expensive set-up costs
4. Materials Used
  1. Rolls of paper
  2. Plastic Packaging (Polyethylene PP, Polyethylene PE, Polythylene terephthalate PET)
5. Used for...
  1. High quality art books
  2. Postage Stamps
  3. Packaging
  4. Expensive Magazines

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Printing Process

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	Created by 08stuart_ki over 11 years ago