6 Questions You Must Answer Before Screen printing Your Unique Shaped Container

When you have a unique bottle, tube, or other containers, whether in shape, color, or design, silk screen printing may be the answer for your decorating needs. Depending upon your container shape and composition, the printing options may be limiting or ideal.

So How Do You Decide?

You Should First Consider a Few Key Questions:

Will the screen printing method fit with your shaped container? This one is pretty obvious if you have a speckled, plastic, round container, shaped like an orange, a round screen printing machine probably will not adhere well. So you can eliminate this option upfront.

Are you trying to show the contents or maximize the graphics? If the surface shape is the draw, a shrink sleeve label is ideal to enhance that shape by maximizing the graphics. But if you want to show the contents, the direct silk-screen print may be more ideal by minimizing the graphics for a high-end look. But be aware, the amount of printable space may be limited because of the shape.

3. Total Number of Colors.
It’s clear that the total number of colors used in your product label impact how much you’ll pay for printing. Going for a ”clean” look and limit your colors to less than three will reduce your costs.
Still, it’s not always easy to limit the number of colors. After all, you want your product to stand out on the shelf. Stealing even one color from your design could impact sales so you should consider the impact when considering taking away color options.

4. What quantities do you plan to print over the next three months? This may seem like a strange question but since there are often material stock minimums or tooling requirements, it makes sense to know if the volume needs justify the investment required. Often in the screen printing world, the unit price decreases as volume increase so knowing this will also help you to understand budgetary impacts.

5. How are your products silk printed and transported? This speaks once again to the durability of the product printing. You don’t want to invest in the print only to have it scuff and rip in transit.

6. What s the Production Process? In any of the above cases, there may be several steps in the process to finalize the silk printing. understanding the silk screen printing chain process is critical, as special tooling and equipment may be needed for special-shaped containers.

Knowing this information should help you better assess the ideal printing process with your print bottle printing machine manufacturer.

Action items:

Answer questions 1-5 above

Discuss these items with your printer or contract filler

Find out the required steps in question # 6 to determine costs associated to produce from start to finish.

Need additional help?

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