Puff printing

WHAT IS PUFF INK?

Puff ink is a specialty ink that adds form and a three dimensional appearance to printed garments. For print, many designers only think of their art in terms of flat color and design, but puff screen printing can depth and structure to their designs. For those looking to add a little punch to their art, puff ink is a great way to grab someone's attention.

 

THE WAY IT WORKS 

For puff print screen printing, we add Rutland NPT Puff-Additive to standard plastisol ink. When cured with heat, regular plastisol ink would typically stay flat  on the garment. However, when plastisol ink with puff additive mixed in is cured, the ink will inflate like a fresh batch of bread resting on your preferred garment. The result is a raised screen print that is puffed up but will cling to the fabric like any other standard plastisol ink. 

We have puff ink mixing down to a science, and typically add a 5-15% ratio to accommodate the appropriate design. The higher the ratio, the bigger the puff. Too much puff can run the risk with altering designs with more intricate details. While puff screen printing is an excellent and unique way to highlight your designs, it does not serve well to complex art and can result in elements in designs to get muddled and blurred. But don’t you worry! There are other special inks that service more intricate artwork that can give your designs that extra dimension that you’re looking for.

THE BEST ART TO PUFF 

Because of the expanding nature of puff prints, the art that works best with this process are designs that are simple and clean. When cured in the oven, puff inks will expand beyond the borders of their original design just a little. For this reason, designs that have fine lines and details can potentially close close up, and may cause variation from the original artwork. This can especially be a concern for smaller text in your artwork that need to retain its legibility.

For the best results, we recommend one color puff at only one location for the most consistent results. Puff ink will peak in its rise and fall depending on the curing time in the oven. If you are puff printing multiple locations, each time we lay down a puff print, it has to cure in our forced air conveyor oven before we move onto the next one. The more times we run the garment through the oven to cure the ink, the previous puff print can potentially flatten out due to the excess of heat hitting the print. 

Puff inks can be used in combination with standard flat plastisol inks. For designers that want to retain as much detail as possible in certain aspects of their art, but add a puff element on top, a combination of the two types of ink can truly elevate your prints and stand out from the rest. 

CARE INSTRUCTIONS 

It is recommended that you wash your puff print garments inside out with cold water. Do not tumble dry, and hang dry if possible. Puff prints are more prone to cracking than standard ink prints. Do not iron over the puff prints, this can damage the puff and cause the ink to alter and warp the garment. In order to preserve the quality of the print, dry cleaning a puff print garment would be the best way to care for your product. 

 

If you are looking for puff screen printing in the Greater Los Angeles area or Orange County, look no further than Money Merch. We also can ship anywhere within the United States. If puff printing is something you’d be interested in adding into your design, contact our sales team by filling out our order form for a quote. We look forward to making your aesthetic vision come to life here at Money Merch.