Still Puffing Along

With renewed demands coming from designers and graphic artists for more printable effects, puff inks continue to retain their creative position in an ever-changing market.
October 01, 2005

While the distressed look continues to lead the fashion charge ignited by Abercrombie & Fitch, the puff inks that sold so many shirts in the '80s and '90s maintain strong appeal in certain niches. They're still fun to use, and because you never know when Joe's Bar & Grill will want some dimension added to a frothy mug of beer on its logo, the wise screen printer maintains a working knowledge of all special effect inks, including puff.

In fact, in recent years ink manufacturers have produced an array of special effect and textured inks that can extend and complement the use of puff ink.

Puff inks, either printed on their own or used in combination with other special effect inks, can enhance your design by adding shape and dimension to an otherwise flat graphic. This shape may be used in subtle areas to bring roundness and dimension to certain objects within a design, such as clouds, or to accentuate text, lettering or even mascots within designs created for schools or teams.

With renewed demands coming from customers and graphic artists for more printable effects, puff inks continue to retain their creative position in an ever-changing market. The ongoing importance of puff in the sports, leisure, urban and fashion retail markets becomes obvious with a visit to any major shopping mall.

Puff Ball

Early on, daring screen printers used puff ink straight out of the can to emboss an entire graphic. These days we see apparel decorators incorporating puff inks in more innovative and subtle ways, often combining it with suede, glitter or other special effect inks to establish exciting new images and multiple embossed effects. Combining puff with heavy amounts of suede or metallic inks, for example, is still hot in urban markets, while customers in the 'tween and girls' markets are more likely to opt for puff combined with gel inks and a bit of sugar crystal.

Hot Puff

When cured at the correct temperature, puff inks produce embossed three-dimensional graphics. Because screen-printed plastisol puff inks are formulated to provide an elevated domed surface, the artist can use them to create shape and contour, enhancing the graphic.

Puff ink is produced by the addition of a raw material called a "blowing agent". With a blowing agent added, an ink dried and cured through at up to 350°F expands upward and outward to produce the embossed effect.

Various levels of puff height and expansion are achieved by varying the ink deposit. Other effects and finishes can be created by varying mesh size in your screens, flashing techniques or by using multiple print passes.

Puff ink can be colored to suit customer demand, but remember that when you add pigment to the puff base, the cured ink may appear more pastel than when it was wet. Why? Because puff ink expands by producing bubbles, which in turn can reduce the color vibrancy of the finished ink.

As a general rule, the higher an ink puffs the more its color may change. To maintain a color's vibrancy, you'll have to add more color into the puff ink base. Be aware, however, that this will decrease the puff expansion.

You'll often want to use puff ink in combination with flat ink or as an overprint onto standard or specialty inks. When printing a multicolor design, you may find it works best to flash an undercoat of flat ink before overprinting with puff. It can be quite difficult, if not impossible, to screen print other inks around puff that has already expanded.

When printing a large area with a puff ink, be aware that some garments might pucker on the side of the puff image. This is due to the puff action pulling in the fabric during drying. To alleviate this puckering, print mezzotint or a dot graphic pattern to break up the large puffed area.

It is also worth remembering when printing puff ink to choose artwork that best suits the ink's printing characteristics. For instance, when working with artwork that calls for small dots and fine lines, it is best to use finer mesh screens between 230-110.

When printing large areas of puff, use more open screen meshes, such as a 60 screen. Expansion of large areas of puff may extend and even distort your artwork so be sure to test your design and ink combinations.

It is also important to use screens that are properly stretched. When printed wet onto the garment, puff ink needs to be flat. Any unevenness in the ink's surface because of low-tensioned screens or poor off contact will produce ripples or pits in the surface of the finished puff print. I would recommend a tensioned screen of around 35 Newtons.

If you pre-test for puff height and final color vibrancy prior to going to full production, puff inks can produce dramatic results. If you don't normally use a lot of puff ink, you can ruin a lot of shirts before you get the right combination of design, puff factor and color.

Frightened? Don't be — special effect inks are here to stay. The sooner you learn how to play with them, the higher your profits will be.