Resource Centre

Information about printing ribbon

The best way to print ribbon is to have the printed image in a darker colour than the fabric. For instance printing brown ink onto a pink ribbon is easier than printing pink ink onto a brown ribbon.

Printing onto narrow ribbon fabrics presents some special problems when it comes to getting a good ink coverage on a darker base. Tee shirt printers have it easy! The large area of the tee shirt is stuck down onto a flat platen and it does not move. The printer prints a white undercoat on the dark fabric and then prints the pale colour on top of the white. Printing a continuous ribbon of, say, 25mm (1 inch) width is a different proposition. As the narrow fabric is moving through the machine ‘reel to reel’ keeping it steady enough to print a white undercoat and then the colour exactly on top is very difficult. The more complex the print, the slower the press has to run to be able keep the ribbon in position (on register). Modern inks are a great help.

We have an ink mixing system which allows us to mix the ink to the required Pantone colour number. The Pantone matching system is an international colour coding classification. A person in Aberdeen can tell another in Zanzibar exactly the colour required. Everyone is singing from the same sheet. Most computer design programmes can show you the nearest Pantone colour to the colour on your screen.

Our printing methods include: Screen Printing and Hot Foil Blocking

You can also see some of Our Machinery that we use in our printing processes.