The screen printing process

Screen printing is the thousand year old process of pushing ink through a stencil onto a shirt or other substrate. At Blue Button we print every shirt by hand using this process. We start with a digital version of your image. Then, in a dark room setting, we transfer the image onto one of our screens. The screen is registered in our press and we're ready to begin printing. We use a wooden squeegee to pull ink across the stencil. This prints the design onto the shirt. We then lay the shirt on a small conveyer belt which runs the shirt under a dryer. Two minutes later, your shirt is ready to be worn.

The Inks

Blue Button Apparel is currently Spokane's only shop screen printing with eco-friendly water based inks and discharge inks.  

Water Based Inks

Water based inks provide an exceptionally soft print because they are much thinner than traditional petroleum based inks.  The ink soaks into the fabric instead of leaving a think plastic layer.  Your print will stretch with the shirt's fabric and will not crack or peel over time.

Discharge Inks

Getting colors to show up well on dark colored shirts has been challenging for screen printers.  They are forced to print a white base layer in the shape of the design with the colored print going directly on top of it.  This causes the print to be even thicker and more prone to cracking.  With Blue Button's discharge inks, we can achieve vibrant colors on all sorts of dark fabrics.  This unique process bleaches your design into the shirt fabric while simultaneously leaving a different color in it's place.  Your finished print is vibrant in color and extremely soft in feel.  This process is getting popular in stores like the GAP and Old Navy.  Now you can get your custom shirts screen printed using this process right here in spokane.

The Cleanup

It's not glamourous, but how we clean up after screen printing shirts is one of the things we're most proud of.  Because of the petroleum based inks they use, most shops are forced to clean up using heavy duty solvents and chemicals.  Their employees are supposed to wear respirators and rubber gloves, though few do.  Most of these chemicals are proven to cause cancer, and not just in California.  At Blue Button, our inks can be cleaned up using water and soy based cleaners.  Our inks are 100% biodegradable, so cleaning up is a breeze.  It's not glamorous, but it's changing the world!