What Is Silk Screen Printing

Silk screen printing is one of those custom apparel terms that’s widely used and rarely broken down, and if you’ve been nodding along without fully understanding what the process actually involves, Marathon Sportswear is here to help. Whether you’re ordering your first run of shirts for a company event, a school fundraiser, or a community race, knowing what’s actually happening in the print shop helps you make better decisions about your order.

This guide covers the process from start to finish in plain language, without assuming you already know the difference between a screen and a squeegee.

What Silk Screen Printing Is

Despite the name, silk screen printing hasn’t used actual silk in decades. The process got its name from the fine silk mesh screens used in early production, where tightly woven fabric stretched over frames that acted as stencils for transferring ink onto a surface. Over time, those silk screens were replaced by more durable synthetic polyester mesh, but the name stuck and remains widely used today.

The core technique itself hasn’t changed much. Ink is pushed through a mesh screen and directly onto a garment, creating a design that bonds to the fabric at the fiber level. That direct bond is what separates screen printing from heat transfer methods and other approaches where the design sits on top of the fabric rather than becoming part of it.

How the Silk Screen Printing Process Works

Understanding how does silk screening work from beginning to end is simpler than most people expect. The silk screen printing process moves through a series of stages, each one building on the last. The good news is that once you see how the pieces fit together, it’s a logical sequence that’s easy to follow, even if you’ve never set foot in a print shop.

Step One: Creating the Screens

The process starts with design preparation. Your artwork is separated by color, and the production team creates a stencil, called a screen, for each color in the design. Each screen is a taut mesh frame coated with a light-sensitive emulsion, which is then exposed to UV light. The light hardens the emulsion everywhere except where your design sits, leaving open channels in the mesh where ink will pass through. A design with four colors requires four separate screens, and all of them have to be registered before a single piece of apparel is printed.

Step Two: Running the Press

With the screens prepared, each garment is placed on a flat surface called a platen and positioned under the screen. A rubber squeegee pulls ink across the screen, forcing it through those open mesh channels and directly onto the fabric fibers below. Each color in the design gets its own pass through the press. High-volume jobs typically run on automatic presses that can cycle through hundreds of pieces per hour, while smaller or more specialized runs might use manual equipment, but the mechanics of the process are the same either way.

Step Three: Curing the Ink

After the ink is applied, the garment moves through a dryer or curing tunnel where heat locks the ink permanently into the fabric. For plastisol ink, the most common type, that cure temperature is typically around 320°F. Without proper curing, the print would begin breaking down in the wash almost immediately, which is why this step is treated as seriously as the printing itself in any professional shop. Well-cured screen printed designs are built to outlast hard use, repeated washing, and the general wear that apparel tends to take.

Marathon Sportswear has been running this process in-house since 1980, producing custom apparel for schools, race events, businesses, and organizations of all sizes out of a 50,000 square foot facility just south of Chicago. Our silk screening service is built on that same depth of production experience, and it shows up in every order we deliver.

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Types of Silk Screen Printing

Not every silk screen printing job uses the same approach, and the right choice for your order depends on the garment, the design, and the finished look you’re going for. The types of silk screen printing most commonly used in professional production each have strengths that make them better suited for certain applications.

Here’s how the main options break down:

Plastisol: The industry standard. Plastisol inks cure on top of the fabric and produce bold, opaque colors that read well on both light and dark garments. They’re durable, consistent, and cost-effective for large runs, which makes them the default choice for most standard orders.
Water-Based: Water-based inks are absorbed into the fabric rather than sitting on top of it, leaving a noticeably softer feel. This makes them a popular choice for fashion apparel, athletic wear, and any piece where comfort and breathability are priorities.
Discharge: Discharge printing works by removing the existing dye from the fabric and replacing it with a new color, resulting in a print that feels as soft as the garment itself. It’s especially effective on 100% cotton and produces a finish that’s hard to replicate with other methods.
Specialty Techniques: Beyond these core options, specialty printing techniques like foil application, metallic inks, puff printing, and glow-in-the-dark effects can be layered into a design to add texture, dimension, and visual impact.

Silk Screen Printing Materials and Ink: What You’re Actually Working With

Understanding silk screen printing materials gives you useful context for why quality varies so much from one shop to the next. The screens themselves need to be properly tensioned for ink to transfer evenly and cleanly. Screens that are too loose cause distortion in the design; screens that are improperly coated or exposed produce soft, blurry edges that post-production can’t fix.

Add in the platens, squeegees, flash cure units, and curing ovens required to run a full production line, and it becomes clear that silk screen printing is as much about serious equipment investment as it is about skill and technique.

The choice of silk screen printing ink matters just as much as the equipment being used. Plastisol is the most widely used ink type. It’s forgiving to apply, cures at consistent temperatures, and holds its color reliably across a large print run. Water-based inks, like Marathon’s Hydro Water-Based Ink, cure at lower temperatures and leave a much softer hand feel on the fabric, which is why they’re a go-to for performance athletic wear.

For anyone approaching silk screen printing for beginners, the most important thing to understand about inks is that the right choice depends on your garment, your design, and how the finished piece is going to be used. A good printer will help you navigate that decision as part of the ordering process, not as an afterthought.

Start Your Custom Order With Marathon Sportswear

Marathon Sportswear has been producing screen printed apparel across the Midwest since 1980. Every order comes with direct access to a dedicated sales rep who knows the production process inside and out, so whether you walked away from this guide with more questions or you’re ready to move forward, you can get real answers fast.

Reach out to us to talk through what you need, get a quote, and start putting together an order that works for your timeline and your budget.