Would you like to design your footballs? Whether you are a business owner or a passionate designer, you can easily translate your design to a football with a screen print technique. This printing technique has been around for some time and has been adopted by many. So, is it beneficial for you to learn how screen printing footballs works?
First of all, screen printing on a football may be beneficial to you due to its cost. Even though digital printing technology is more advanced than screen printing, it will cost you more to digitally print on a football. So, if you are on a budget, then you should opt for screen printing your football.
If your design features your brand/company logo or any other simple design with one or two colors, screen printing will do a great job of translating that design to the football.
Footballs usually feature simple, one or two color designs. You won't see some complex graphics on a football that often. So, there are little reasons why you should opt for a digital print when the screen print can do the job perfectly!
So, now that you know why you should screen print on a football, let's learn how screen printing footballs works!
Choosing the Right Design for Your Football
The thing you must know when screen printing on a football is some desired characteristics for your design. As we already know, you should utilize the screen printing technique when you have a simple graphic design with one or two colors. The most common example of such design is a company or brand logo, which are usually minimalistic, but catchy enough to bat an eye.
Another thing to consider when designing for your football are the details of your graphic design. We recommend that you don't utilize a lot of tiny intricate details for your football if you opt for screen printing. As the screen will have meshes, it will be more complicated to make a mesh for tiny details. Screen printing your brand or company name is most ideal if you opt for this printing technique.
Also, make sure that your design is small enough to fit the shape of the ball. The football doesn't have an oval shape like a soccer ball, so translating a bigger graphic is more complicated than a small, less detailed one.
So, the ideal design for screen printing on a football should be small and simple, with less than three colors.
Making the Screen For Your Football
The next part of the process is loosely connected to your graphic design. A screen is formed by putting a frame on a thin surface like nylon or similar. Then, meshes are formed according to your graphic design. The mesh can be made out of polymer material. Your desired design will be more detailed depending on the aperture of the mesh.
After that, a stencil is made by highlighting the area where your graphic will be translated on your football. The highlighting is usually done by blocking parts of that area with a negative image. This step is essential before the final, operative part!
Now, you have a screen for your football! All that you need is to translate your desired design on the football!
Make sure to check out this video that details how screen printing works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSpsWewtxXwScreen Printing On Your Football
This is the last part of the screen printing process. You can screen print by hand or with a screen printing machine (which will cost you more). Depending on your design details, fill the screen with ink. As we said before, don't use more than two colors for your design when screen printing if you don't want different ink to mess up your design.
Now that you've filled the screen with ink, you can use a squeegee to move the ink to the mesh holes you have made in your screen. After a while, your design will be most likely accurately translated to a thin surface. Let the ink dry off, and your design will shine bright like a diamond!
Now, you just need to put this design on a football! You can do this by hand stitching the design on the football itself.
Here is a sample video detailing how hand stitching works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EqfWpRT-V8You can do this process on your own, but if you're questioning your artistic skills, you can always hire a graphic designer to do the job for you! We have a simple designing tool in which you can create and modify your football design in real-time. We also have professional designers on our team who can help you with finding the ideal design for your football.
Here is the video showing how the design process of the football works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGP1wvRbIqQAlso, we can design printed footballs for free, so don't falter and drop us a design request!
If you’re interested to find out more information about printed footballs, drop us a message with your questions or simply talk with one of us via live chat.
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