This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. Learn more.
Screen Printing
The method behind almost every shirt you already own
Screen printing lays ink down thick, one colour at a time, through a stencil cut for each layer of your design. It's how retail garments are made, and it's why a well-printed shirt still looks right after a hundred washes. Vivid on dark fabrics, built for volume, and produced in our Corvallis shop — most orders ready 7–10 business days after you approve the art.
Best for 24 or more
Screens are set once, then the run pays for itself.
Bright on dark garments
Opaque ink, not dye — colour stays true.
Specialty inks
Puff, reflective, glitter and glow.
How it actually works
Each colour in your design gets its own screen — a fine mesh with everything but that colour blocked out. Ink is pushed through the open areas onto the garment, one screen at a time, building the image in layers until it's complete.
That layering is the whole advantage. Because the ink sits on the fabric rather than soaking into it, colours stay opaque and saturated even on black, and the print has a physical presence you can feel with a thumb.
Inks that do more than colour
Our standard inks are the workhorse — rich, durable, and rated to survive countless washes without fading. But screen printing is the only method where the ink itself can become the idea, and that's where most designs get interesting.
Specialty inks carry a little extra setup, so they suit a run rather than a handful. Mention what you're after early and we'll build it into the quote rather than surprising you with it.
Specialty inks
Four ways to make a design do something a flat print can't.
Puff
Rises as it cures for a raised 3D effect. Adds real texture to a logo or a bold typographic mark.
Reflective
3M ink loaded with reflective beads — invisible by day, lights up under headlights. Good for safety and night events.
Glow in the dark
Charges in daylight and glows in the dark. It prints over a base layer and carries a light lime cast.
Glitter
Shimmer worked into the ink. Best used as a highlight on part of a design rather than the whole thing.
Why the quantity matters
Every colour in your design needs its own screen, and each screen has to be burned, aligned and washed out before a single shirt gets printed. That work happens once whether you're making 24 shirts or 500 — so the setup is the cost, and the run is what spreads it.
Which is why the price per shirt keeps dropping as the order grows, and why quantity discounts on screen printing are real rather than a marketing line. Tell us the number you're actually planning for and we'll show you where the breaks fall.
Under about two dozen pieces, digital print usually gets you the same design without paying for screens. Your project manager will say so before you commit.
What it's best for
Team and league apparel, event and festival shirts, staff uniforms, merch runs a shop will actually sell, and anything where the finish needs to survive being worn hard and washed often.
Designs with bold shapes and defined colours print beautifully. Photographs, fine gradients and artwork with a dozen colours in it are better handled digitally — each colour would need its own screen, and the result simplifies detail that digital reproduces exactly.
How a job runs
Pick the garment
Browse the catalog, or tell us what it's for and we'll recommend a blank. More than 3,000 items across every major brand.
Send your artwork
Every file goes through a 21-point design check, then gets separated into one layer per colour. If yours isn't print-ready, our design team will fix it or rebuild it — and we'll call you either way.
Approve and print
Your project manager confirms sizes and sends a quote. Once approved, you get a mockup on the actual garment to sign off colours and placement. Screens aren't burned until you say so.
Want to see it on the garment first?
Our online design tool lets you drop artwork onto a blank, see it mocked up, and get a quote in about five minutes — useful for shaping an idea before you talk to us.
Not sure which blank to choose?
Our catalog runs to more than 3,000 items — Nike, SanMar, Ogio, Gildan, Fruit of the Loom, Columbia, Champion, Richardson and Carhartt among them. Fabric and colour both change how ink sits, so tell us what it's for and how it'll be worn and we'll recommend a garment that prints well.
Recent screen printing work
Ready when you are
Tell us what you're trying to make
Send artwork, a rough sketch, or just an idea. We'll come back with options at three price points and a proof within one business day. No minimums, no obligation, and a real person on the other end.
Prefer to talk? Call (541) 207-3424 or stop by 1853 NW 9th St, weekdays 10am–5pm.