The advantages of screen printing in graphic design
Compared with embossing, gravure printing, and offset printing, screen printing has strong advantages in texture, touch, and vividness of colors. In addition, screen printing technology can achieve large-format printing, so add it. With its own color and texture advantage, the printed product has a more eye-catching effect. Especially in the use of colors, you can play to your heart’s content, pursue the texture that designers want to achieve, fully display the charm of colors in the design, and bring different visual and tactile feelings to the viewer. It is not limited by the shape of the substrate, making it in the shape And structurally, it provides graphic designers with a broader free expression space. Most designs include two processes: “design” and “completion”. Most of the graphic design works need to be copied and completed by printing means before the entire design process is completed. Different printing and production techniques determine the different works of the work. Personality style. Different printing times, different substrates, and different ink coatings will bring different textures and styles. Screen printing is the printing method that achieves the most texture and style.
It is well known that the completion of a graphic design product includes pre-press design and production, in-press and post-press processes. Screen printing can not only bear the function of in-press printing and copying, but also many special processes after printing are inseparable from screen printing. To be more accurate, screen printing in graphic design is more of carrying the effect of generating novel textures and new ideas, and is not simply used for mass reproduction. The modernity and artistry of screen printing in the application of graphic design far surpasses other printing technologies. Graphic designers must fully understand or master the technical and artistic characteristics of screen printing, and fully participate in the printing practice, in order to continuously create individual and shocking screen printing graphic design works.
1 The combination of creative materials and screen printing produces new design inspiration
Acrylic synthetic paper: can provide designers with various colors, shapes and thickness options. This material is characterized by high smoothness and scratch resistance, so it can be widely used as a protective film for other materials. Acrylic synthetic paper can be cut in different shapes with a saw. After cutting and forming, it can be waxed and polished to produce smooth edges; it can be heated to soften and bend into a specific angle to produce different shapes: it can be thermoformed and manufactured Special three-dimensional shape. And this kind of shape with thickness and special shape needs screen printing to realize the printing of the graphic part and convey the designer’s idea. Cover cloth: also called book cloth. The production process of this material is to attach a layer of starch and pigment mixture that has been steamed at a high temperature on the surface of woven cotton cloth to make the surface of the cotton cloth uniformly hardened, and then steam it in a heating tank Dry and dry, high temperature solidifies the starch on the surface of the cotton cloth. After the material is glued, the process is reversed, and the water in the glue softens the starch particles, so that the cover fabric is flexible and easy to bend, which is good for printing. And starch granules can always prevent glue from penetrating into the outer layer of the cover fabric.
At the beginning, books are bound by materials such as animal skins, which are poor in operability and costly, and animal skins have different shapes and are prone to many defects. In the mid-nineteenth century, with the development of printing and human civilization, people’s demand for books increased day by day, and books gradually became civilians. At this time, low-cost and convenient cover fabrics were more suitable for mass production, and economical and practical characteristics gradually replaced The animal skin has become one of the main materials for book binding. Nowadays, whether it is artificial leather or the surface of the cover cloth for decoration of text patterns, in addition to hot stamping, the most important method of printing is screen printing. Cover cloth and artificial leather are not only applied to book binding in current designs. Different materials create conditions for designers to inspire.
Cork chips: the bark of cork ridges. Cork chips have been used in industry for a long time, and the main breakthrough is to replace other wooden corks to make champagne and red wine corks. Because 50% of the cork is air, it has strong buoyancy, elasticity and toughness and is not easy to break. It is a good cushioning material. Because it is a natural material, it is difficult for the printing on the cork sheet to be smooth and smooth, and it is difficult to achieve the printing effect for complex text and markings. However, its special surface texture is also the advantage of the cork sheet, which can produce more changes when designing and printing. Simple and special printing effect. Corrugated cardboard: Corrugated cardboard usually only has two choices of double-sided white and double-sided brown. Usually, corrugated paper is used as a fine packaging and its surface will be pasted with a layer of printed matter to produce a better visual effect. If the screen printing of graphics and text on natural corrugated paper can also produce different effects, making packaging with different textures is also one of the creative ways of designers.
Felt cloth: Felt cloth is processed through a series of processes using animal fibers and chemical fibers as raw materials. Felt cloth can be dyed. Colorful felt cloth materials can be found everywhere in the market. Industrial sheep felt is the same as recycled cardboard and corrugated cardboard. Although its appearance is not good, it plays a very important role in printing design. Screen printing on felt cloth requires very high technology, and it is almost impossible to achieve the accuracy of printing on paper. But it is the special texture of felt cloth that will produce a unique visual touch when applied to the cover packaging. Soft polyvinyl chloride paper (PVC): Soft polyvinyl chloride paper has a variety of colors and mature post-printing technology. Soft polyvinyl chloride can be decorated with rich post-printing technology like colored paper. Each type of PVC paper has its unique characteristics. Different printing on it will produce different special effects. As the carrier of screen printing, its high-frequency welding dent effect is very good, color and Abundant post-press craftsmanship makes soft polyvinyl chloride a perfect substrate for printed matter with high printing requirements like invitations. Designers need to pay attention to the rare and more characteristic PVC materials on the market and try to apply them to different designs.
Gray board paper: Gray board paper is made from recycled waste paper. Although it has a hard texture, its surface can be screen-printed or bronzed to create a concave effect and create an interesting artistic effect. The grayboard paper needs to be sealed and polished before screen printing to prevent excessive ink bleeding of the grayboard paper and reduce the printing effect. However, without the sealing and grinding treatment, repeated printing can achieve the desired printing effect. It is difficult to achieve perfect image coincidence with repeated printing. The matt layer process in the application of gray board paper will produce random special texture effects due to the rough surface of gray board paper. Gray board paper is a rough-looking material, but the disharmony of using it properly is a special artistic effect.
Leather: Choose leather or artificial leather as the carrier of the design. There are many rich choices, whether it is color or texture. Leather gives people the feeling of wealth and luxury. The surface can be screen-printed to print graphics, or it can be equipped with post-press processing and embossing effects, bronzing and hot stamping effects. Metal: Metal is the least common material in the process of graphic design. Whether it is the appearance, texture, touch and price of the material, it is difficult to be widely and universally applied to design. , But it is precisely because of these limitations that make metal materials a more creative way to achieve after printing. Metals need to go through complicated pre-processing procedures in printing. Common metal materials in design and printing are aluminum and stainless steel. These two materials are more convenient for bending and cutting, and the screen printing effect is excellent. The stainless steel material can also be etched and hollowed out.
Aluminum is lighter and can be used to bind books. In order to control this complex and expensive material, designers need to learn more in detail to experiment and choose suitable processing technology with screen printing to achieve good application effects. The unique hardness and texture of metal also make it in design and printing. Irreplaceable status.
Polypropylene paper: is a widely used basic material. This wide application status benefits from polypropylene paper’s own multi-function, toughness and high stability. Polypropylene paper has a variety of colors and different thickness options. Screen printing is commonly used in the printing of polypropylene paper and can achieve perfect results. With film bronzing, it can create a convex effect without surface coating.
Rigid polyvinyl chloride: as a printed carrier, there are usually white and transparent colors to choose from. Rigid polyvinyl chloride has limited colors available in the market. Polyvinyl chloride materials with special textures need to be customized with manufacturers, and designers are choosing Try to communicate and coordinate with the manufacturer as much as possible when using this material. Carry out-some special texture posters and posters printing.
Rubber: Rubber has a unique sense of smell and touch. Although it cannot carry printing as well as paper, rubber with screen printing graphics can often be used as auxiliary decoration for book binding.
Wood: The raw materials of many products in our daily life are paper or cardboard, and the raw materials of paper or plate making are wood. For graphic designers, it seems that we rarely touch wood and it is more difficult to apply it to the design. However, for some design commissions such as furniture manufacturers, designers must learn to master the information characteristics of wood, enrich their own information reserves, make themselves more confident in design, and ultimately meet customer requirements. In the case where wood is applied to the design, the choice of wood has its own orientation, and they are all thin wood boards with natural color and wood texture, which can guarantee printing. The printed matter designed in this way can be put into production and can retain the natural texture of the wood. If you want to print logos or fonts on the wood, screen printing is undoubtedly the best choice. If the colleague’s wood is thick and hard enough, it can even be treated with bronzing and etching to show unique design creativity.
2The combination of special ink and screen printing produces new design inspiration
UV ink: UV is the abbreviation of ultraviolet (ultraviolet). UV ink is an ink that dries quickly by ultraviolet radiation. There are many different types, and they often produce special gloss and texture.
In the market, you can see varnish, mirror ink, matte ink, elastic ink, expansion ink, foam ink, wrinkle ink, hammer ink, colored sand ink, snowflake ink, ice ink, pearl ink, crystal ink, Laser inks, three-dimensional grating inks, luminous inks, fragrance inks, and silk screen silica gel are all UV inks, and new varieties are constantly being developed. These inks that can produce a special gloss texture are widely used in packaging, advertising, book covers, touch switches, and so on.
In the graphic design, the screen printing full-page UV treatment is used, so that the entire printed product surface will have an effect similar to a film.

Partial UV: Only print certain text or patterns. It can form a sharp texture contrast with the material of the substrate itself, embossing UV: similar to partial UV, but with thicker ink, the font or pattern is more prominent, resulting in a relief texture.
Elastic ink: printed on a variety of elastic and soft materials, such as artificial leather, leather, cover cloth, plastic film, etc. It is often used in the logo printing of bags and footwear or the cover processing of book binding. During the stretching and washing process of this kind of ink, the cured film stretches simultaneously with the printing material at the bottom, which has quite good new properties of stretch resistance and scratch resistance, and can add a three-dimensional texture to the picture.
Foaming ink: After the ink is printed, it is heated and foamed and swelled. After cooling, it solidifies to form a concave-convex texture pattern, and the bottom substrate can be lined with reflective or pattern patterns to form a more beautiful effect. It is widely used in packaging, book covers, braille reading materials, and building craft materials.
Many special effects of printed materials can be achieved by inks. We only list a few here. In the design, screen printing is not limited by printing coatings, so it is more suitable for the use of special inks, adding new texture to the design. The designer provides more design inspiration. Screen printing is a form of printing expression favored by graphic designers. Designers must have a sense of discovery and constantly seek out unusual materials. Even if they can’t appreciate its use in design at the moment, accumulation and innovative attempts will eventually lead the designer to unlimited creative possibilities.