Lanyard Blog

In this article I will explain the various imprinting methods that companies use for manufacturing a lanyard or a customised item.

Silk Screen Printing

Wikipedia Describes Silk Screening as “A printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate. A roller or squeegee is moved across the screen stencil, forcing or pumping ink past the threads of the woven mesh in the open areas.”

Screen printing is a very effective method of imprinting lanyards, while this method might be simple it is indeed an art when carried out correctly. The first step is when the design is finalised a large print out is traced to make a stencil. Acid is then used along with this stencil to form the print area being used with the silk screen, the acid burns through the silk and forms the design being used for print.

Once this stage is completed the ink and pantone colours are mixed and formed to the correct CMYK colours. The screen is placed over the material which must be millimetre perfect to ensure print location and conformity.

Ink is then placed on a blade and smeared across the print screen to transfer the print onto the lanyard material, lifting the screen away from the lanyard carefully and precisely is crucial otherwise print can smudge or flake off the lanyard.

The Printing method is used on a myriad of materials which may include but are not limited to: Polyester,  Nylon, Cotton, PET, Bamboo Fibre, Plant hemp and Milk Protein extract cotton. Silk screening is the most popular method of transferring designs from a desktop publishing application to a traditional printed media such as Lanyards, caps,towels or other promotional items.

Dye Sublimating (Photo Printing)

Dye sublimation is created using the 4 colour process principle CMYK ( Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and K index.)  The Lanyard material lengths are loaded into a dispenser and then rolled onto a large real.

The design is programmed into the machine using computer software that reproduces the colour model perfectly. The material proceeds down a production line, passing through a small device which transfers the design onto the polyester material. The process appears seamless however many complications can arise if all machinery is not configured correctly & calibrated within a millimetre tolerance.

See our next article where I will explain heat transfer imprinting. Which is a half blend of silk screening and dye sublimation.