Screen Printing & Embroidery in New Haven County, CT

New Haven County covers a lot of ground and a lot of different economies. There is a shoreline running from Milford through West Haven, New Haven, Branford and east; a dense urban core; industrial and distribution corridors along I-91 through North Haven, Wallingford and Meriden; the Naugatuck Valley to the west; and a ring of suburban and semi-rural towns in between. Screen Tek has decorated apparel for all of it from our shop in Hamden for over 50 years.

Everything is made in one place

Screen printing and embroidery both happen in house. Nothing is brokered out to a third party, which matters more than it sounds: it means we control the schedule, we can look at a problem garment ourselves, and when a date moves we are negotiating with our own production floor rather than someone else’s.

Being centrally located in Hamden puts most of the county within about half an hour, so samples, proofs and collection stay practical for a large share of our customers.

Choosing between the two methods

Screen printing pushes ink through a mesh stencil, one screen per color. Setup is the expensive part, so cost per shirt drops steeply with volume. It produces bright, opaque color across a large area and is the right answer for event tees, team apparel, fundraisers and anything high volume.

Embroidery stitches the design in thread from a digitized file. With no screens, small runs are economical, and the finish lasts as long as the garment. It belongs on polos, oxfords, work shirts, fleece, jackets, caps and bags – anything worn repeatedly to represent an organization. Fine detail is its limit; text much below a quarter inch closes up.

The rule of thumb: worn once, print it; worn weekly, stitch it.

The range of work across the county

• Healthcare and research concentrated around New Haven – embroidered departmental polos and fleece where matching across reorders is critical.
• Manufacturing and distribution through North Haven and Meriden – durable stitched work shirts, department identification, printed tees for safety milestones.
• Retail, restaurants and marine trades along the shoreline in Milford and Branford – small, sharp embroidered runs built for salt air and hard washing.
• Schools, colleges and youth sports everywhere – screen printed spirit wear and team apparel on a seasonal calendar.
• Municipal departments and contractors countywide, usually alongside hi-vis.

Artwork and lead times

Send vector artwork – .ai, .eps or high-resolution .pdf – and the job goes straight to production. A logo taken off a website has to be redrawn first, which is the most common cause of a late order. Embroidery needs a digitized stitch file; we create it once and keep it on record so every reorder matches. Screen printing inks are Pantone matched so brand color does not drift between runs.

Standard turnaround is roughly two weeks from approved artwork, with blank garment availability rather than press capacity usually the constraint.

Find your town

We publish a page for each of the towns we work in most – Hamden, New Haven, North Haven, West Haven, Milford, Meriden and Branford – with detail specific to each. If your town is not listed, we almost certainly still serve it; just ask.

Start an order

Send the design, the garment you have in mind and a rough quantity. If you are undecided between printing and embroidery, tell us how the garment will be used and we will tell you which we would choose.