Ann Arbor T-shirt Company® Blog

  • Serigraphy: Screenprinting Gets Classy

    By: Rachel T, rachel.t@annarbortees.com

    over 6 years

    As discussed in our previous blog, Ready for the Closeup: Photographic Screens, screen printing was a major industry by the 1930’s. In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt created, as part of the New Deal, the Work Projects Administration (WPA). He created the WPA to help employ Americans during the Great Depression. In fact, the WPA became one of the first U.S. Government programs to support the arts. Many workers screen printed screen the WPA's very own posters and signs. However, some screen printers desired to distance artistic printing from its' industrial process roots. So, they renamed screen printing the more hoity-toity sounding “Serigraphy”.

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    Tags: #screen printing, #learn about printing, #history, #america, #employment
  • Ready for the Closeup: Photographic Screens

    By: Rachel T, rachel.t@annarbortees.com

    over 6 years
    the secret to the screen printer’s tan

    The secret to the screen printer’s tan

    As we discussed in our previous post, Let Them Screen Prints!: Production for the Masses, many technological advances eased the difficulties of screen printing. It emerged from the Industrial Revolution as a streamlined, mass production process. However, there were still many advances to come. Around 1911 to 1915, Roy Beck, Charles Peter, and Edward Owens began experimenting with the first photographic screens. Photographic screens use a UV sensitive photo emulsion (glue-like goo). Coating the screen was usually done by filling up a trough and dragging it across the surface. When hardened, the emulsion produced a uniform coating that was water soluble.

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    Tags: #screen printing, #learn about printing, #history
  • Let Them Screen Prints!: Production for the Masses

    By: Rachel T, rachel.t@annarbortees.com

    over 6 years

    As we discussed in our previous post, For Their Dyes Only: the Secret of Silk, printing in its early forms had been around for hundreds of years. However, the scientific and technological advances of the industrial revolution reinvented the practice. Screen printing began to focus on streamlined mass production as opposed to the painstaking craft of yore. Some of the earliest machine printing with stencils started during the late 1880's.

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    Tags: #screen printing, #learn about printing, #history
  • For Their Dyes Only: the Secret of Silk

    By: Rachel T, rachel.t@annarbortees.com

    over 6 years

    In our previous post, The Hairy Origins of Screen Printing, we discussed the Chinese invention of screen printing using human hair. This post will cover how the next big advance in screen printing began with the discovery of silk in China. Silk comes from the cocoon of the mulberry silk moth (Bombyx mori, for those who care or pretend to read latin). The caterpillar spins its cocoon from a single thread of hardened spit measuring close to 1000 yards. China started weaving silk around 3,000 BCE, even further back than the Pyramids of Giza.

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    Tags: #screen printing, #learn about printing, #history
  • The Hairy Origins of Screen Printing

    By: Rachel T, rachel.t@annarbortees.com

    almost 7 years

    Screen printing is the process of pushing ink through a mesh screen to create a print. A stencil of the design blocks off some of the ink in the shape of the desired print. This basic technique has changed little over the course of thousands of years. Yet, major technological advances helped printers adapt to a growing demand.

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    Tags: #screen printing, #learn about printing, #history
  • What is Screen Printing?

    By: Gavin, gavin@annarbortees.com

    over 7 years

    We have many ways of taking bland, boring garments and turning them into something amazing. One of our most popular requests is for garments to be screenprinted, which is a complex process that has been around for over a century.

    We use automatic screen presses. These are big carousels that revolve the garments printing a different color or part of the design at each station. This is a big step up from a manual press, where the operator has to swing different arms of the press into place to print each color. Manual presses limit the speed and amount of colors you could apply to a single garment. Our newest press is capable of printing 864 shirts an hour with up to 12 different colors!

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    Tags: #how to order a shirt, #screen printing, #custom design
  • How to Order a Shirt: Part 4/99 - When a T-shirt Isn't Enough

    By: Gavin, gavin@annarbortees.com

    almost 8 years

    When ordering apparel, t-shirts are typically the first thing that comes to mind. T-shirts are great and all, but they don’t need to be the only thing you think of. After all, there is whole wide world of apparel. From shoes to hats, we’ve got you covered. Everyone’s tastes and needs are different. Use this blog to compare various types of garments and pick the right style for your group.

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    Tags: #how to order a shirt, #screen printing, #custom apparel