Screen Printing Class Archives - McLogan | Quality Screen Printing Supplies

Screen Printing Classes in Los Angeles | Learn in 2 Days & You Can Open Your Own Store! | McLogan

February 29, 2016 by Mclogan Supply Leave a Comment

McLogan Supply helps hundreds of customers a day with questions about screen printing. We have found that most of the questions we get asked are very similar in scope. Most revolve around how to start and build your own screen printing company and how to troubleshoot exposure and printing issues. With so many questions we have decided to offer an educational course on screen printing.We are thrilled to announce that we are now offering monthly screen printing classes. Attend our Screen Printing classes Academy and learn everything you need to know about screen printing. McLogan now has its own education room, dark room and we have an experienced and knowledgeable staff teaching the class.Ross Hunter has his own thriving screen printing, graphic design, and embroidery business. He specializes in marketing and training within the field, as well as management of the day to day operations. Let him teach and inspire you how to create/operate your own business.

Classes will be monthly on Friday & Saturday from 9am-5pm at our Los Angles location. The upcoming screen printing classes’ dates are all listed on our website.

Here’s What You Can Expect to be Covered in Class:

Introduction to Art; Vector art with Photoshop, Jpeg, tiff, and bmp, spot color, separations, 4 color process, and assorted graphic programs.
Films and Output; Why an ink jet printer? Inkjet RIP, plotters, density req.
Screen Preparation; Frame & mesh selection, pre-stretched wood versus aluminum and pre-production paperwork.
Setting up a Screen room; Racks, lighting, dehumidifiers and environment.
Pre-press; Degreasing, emulsions, coating, drying, exposure and block-out.
Setting Up a Job & Printing; Print order, registration, strike-offs and printing techniques.
Curing Parameters; Flash temperatures, final cure parameters and testing.
Production Tracking; Final counts, cleaning garments, misprints and filling out production reports for job repeatability and consistency.
Additional Tips & Advice; Print placements, Photoshop separation guide, blends, puff ink tricks, curable reducers and assorted short cuts.

Class size is limited to 12 people, so sign up online to reserve your spot!

We look forward to further helping you reach your business goals and to establishing a great business partnership. See you in our education room soon!

Best Way To Register Your Artwork

February 24, 2016 by calibermg Leave a Comment

The answer to this problem is a screen printing registration template. Our pre-registration templates are printed on backlight film making it very simple to register your screen printing jobs. This template will save you time and make it easy for lining up spot colors and four color process jobs. The templates overall size is 26″x36″ for 20″x24″ and 23″x31″ screen printing frames. The template comes with center line registration and left and right pocket registration — a must for any screen printing business. Here are detailed instructions and a YouTube video to help learn how to use the template.

Step by step screen printing registration Instructions:

1. Make sure your film positive has center registration marks.
2. Line up the center registration marks on your artwork to the center lines on the pre-registration template.

3. Tape your artwork down to the pre-registration template right side up.
4. Pull out the appropriate size screen for your job and place it in the according outline for your size screen on the pre-registration templete.

5. Using a soft tip black marker make a mark on your screen where each registration mark is on the artwork
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you have marked all screens needed for that job.
7. When finished marking the screens needed. Tape each film positive to your screen using the center registration marks and the marks that you applied to each screen.

8. Burn your screen!

Screen Printing Classes in Los Angeles: Establishing Your Art

February 17, 2016 by Mclogan Supply Leave a Comment

Creating your artwork can be a confusing project for someone new to the screen printing industry; good news is McLogan’s Supply Academy Screen Printing 101 Classes have you covered. Take your ideas and turn them into a screen printed design. Screen Printing Classes 101 will teach you all the steps needed and what programs to use, so that you will work your way toward screen printing your artwork. Screen printers create their artwork into one of two main categories: Vector Art or a Raster Image.Vector Art:Vector Art is the most common artwork used for spot color printing, where you are printing solid forms of color to create a design. With this type of printing you aren’t dealing with halftones, blending colors, you are literally just working with a single stamp of color. Spot color includes most logos (green Starbucks logo), fonts, and vector artwork. These types of designs can be made in CorelDRAW, Adobe Freehand, and Adobe Illustrator. You will also have the ability to adjust the size, and color to the whole artwork without it changing your design.

Vector Image:

Raster Image:

A Raster image is much more pictorial than a Vector image. It’s full of color (pixels), halftones, and is printed by a four color process. These images are usually JPEG, GIF, TIFF and BMP. Adobe Photoshop and Coral PHOTO-PAINT are the programs best for designing these images.

Click HERE to sign up for our next McLogan Academy Screen Printing 101 classes and gain knowledge with these main design options, and programs. Classes will also teach you about four color process, simulated process, clip art, etc. We look forward to seeing you!

Screen Printing Class 101: Films

February 17, 2016 by Mclogan Supply Leave a Comment

Films are another topic covered in McLogan’s Academy Screen Printing 101 Classes. For great washout results you need to have a film positive that blocks out 100% UV from the exposure source. Inkjet printers are your best bet for inkjet film, since the printer will spray the ink onto your film as dense as need be for a clear image. We suggest using a dye-based ink for your printer since it tends to be impenetrable. The Epson 1430 is the most affordable printer made and they also sell all black ink cartridge system that will help your positive be even darker.
Let’s Talk Films

Waterproof: Waterproof film is the most commonly used film in the industry. It is a 4m film that is highly absorbent, allowing the film to really absorb the ink ensuring for a dark image. Its medium weight combined with a wide color gamut makes this the perfect choice for color separations.

Standard Inkjet: Inkjet film can be used for some of the older printers. This film is more affordable, but for some of the people newer to screen printing it is harder to get a dark image.

Laser Film: Just for laser printers. It’s thick and made to resist heat.

The cleaner, and darker your positive the easier the rest of your screen printing process will be when washing out the image. If 100% of the UV is not blocked out then you will deal with over exposure and you’ll have to use a pressure washer to clean off the emulsion.

Come take McLogan’s Academy Screen Printing 101 and learn all the expert tricks to turn your dreams into a brand.

McLogan at the Imprinted Sportswear Show: It’s the ISS Show Long Beach 2016

January 7, 2016 by Mclogan Supply Leave a Comment

The next Imprinted Sportswear Show (ISS Show) is almost here!

January 22-24th, 2016, Long Beach, CA; visit McLogan’s booth #465.

We are so excited to debut all this at the show:

New Screen Printing Starter Kit; All-in-one starter kit can teach anyone how to screen print. Best news is everything you need to print comes in one box!
Monthly Screen Printing Classes; Learn how to screen print, with hands on, interactive lessons, led by Ross Hunter in our new education room. Artwork, burning a screen, printing and what not to do, so that you can run a thriving business.
Thermotron Heat Presses; The most affordable heat press on the market. Come see why we have been selling these machines like crazy!
Live screen printing of Permaset Waterbased inks on Friday;
Screen printing with International Coatings Plastisol inks on Saturday;
NFL Football game on Sunday at the Long Beach Convention Center.

Come to the ISS show to see why we pride ourselves in having the most personal, and knowledgeable staff to help you with your new or current business. Our business is a success, because of all of you; so come chat with us and see all the new products we have to offer. See you at ISS!

Los Angeles Trade Technical College for Sign Makers and Screen Printers

December 8, 2014 by Mclogan Supply Leave a Comment

While Mclogan’s praises itself on being able to teach the “Average Joe” how to screen print and make signs there is another option for people wanting to learn this trade just a block away. Los Angeles Trade Technical College offers screen printing as an elective in their Sign Graphic degree program. The screen printing program is comprehensive and teaches students how to take their artwork and burn screens, all the way up to half-tone printing and 4 color process printing.

[New Screen Printing and Silk Screening classes Los Angeles enrollment now open. Pick your class today.]

Bert Johnson, a graphic designer, and art director who has been teaching and training students for over 30 years. Every semester Johnson’s students are sent into Mclogan’s with a list of necessary screen printing tools. Mclogan’s enjoys helping the new students get their required tools, while taking the time to further explain the screen printing process.

Above, Bert Johnson, shows a student how the clamp keeps the screen in place. With the right amount of pressure on the squeegee as it’s pulled, leaving the student with a clean print.

Below are pictures of students working on their own individual assignments.

The class is meant to compliment the Sign Graphics curriculum and teach screen printing as a prospective business and not as a fine art. The class is structured to give students experience in creatively solving potential problems that might come up with client requirements. In addition to using water-based inks, students use plastisols and other solvent based inks. They are alsorequired to print on several substrates so they understand the diverse applications for screen printing in a print production setting.

A student’s completed signs using Permaprint Red B/S. | Permaprint used in students’ poster project.

Permaprint Premium is a top selling waterbased ink for bright, eco friendly jobs. It’s really such a versatile ink where you can almost print it on anything.

Bryce Arpin prints on canvas. | The canvas is cut down and made into patches for bands.

Whether you are in school or just learning the business on your own, stop by Mclogan’s LA and we’ll help you with your next screen printing project.