How is a Logo Printed on Promotional Canvas Bags

Have you ever printed your logo on a promotional product? Using promotional products is one of the most highly targeted way to advertise for your business because you control who receives your ads. Promotional canvas bags are one of the most cost-efficient promotional items out there. Maybe you have, maybe you have not printed your logo on a tote bag like this already. The question, we hear a lot is, how do you print a logo on a bag?

There are so many promotional products that have different types of imprinting. However, I’ll discuss one of the most common ways your logo is printed on promotional canvas bags. The method is called silk screen printing.

Silk Screen Printing

This method is also simply called screen printing. There are a few ways to create a screen, but I will try to explain the most simple way. After creating the artwork, the designer must print out the logo on a sheet of transparency using black ink. This will be used later in the process. The screens were traditionally made out of silk, but now they are usually made of other fabrics. The fabric is covered with a light sensitive substance, which will harden when exposed to the right amount of light, so this process must take place in a dark room. It is similar to the film used in cameras.

Once the substance has dried to the screen, the previously mentioned, logo printed transparency paper is needed. The transparency paper is set on top of the screen, and everything is then exposed to a certain amount of light. The light hardens the substance on the screen, except the areas that are directly under the black ink from the logo on the transparency paper. The screen can now be washed out with running water. The substance covered by the logo design washes out, but the area exposed to light has been hardened, so it is still on the screen.

The green area is the hardened substance, called emulsion. The ink will be pushed through the other areas with a squeegee.

Now that you have a usable screen, you can place the screen on a tote bag, and, using a special screen printing ink, push the ink through the screen. Only the area that was washed out in the previous step will allow ink to pass through the screen. As a result, you now get your logo printed on a promotional canvas tote bag. The silk screen printing process is nothing short of an art form.

It is amazing to see the process of science mixed with art to create beautiful logos printed on tote bags. As I said before, there are dozens of ways to imprint logos onto promotional products, even tote bags. A lot of people ask about how the process of silk screen printing works, so hopefully this clears up the questions about the process.