If you’ve ever stared at a phone screen on a bright, sunny day, squinting to read a text or wondering why your industrial control panel display washed out completely when you stepped near a factory window, you’ve run into the same problem my team and I troubleshoot every day: glare. As a supplier of screen printed glass, I hear a lot of questions about what makes our products different from standard float glass or even coated glass when it comes to glare. Most of the time, people assume “anti-glare” is a single, simple fix—just add a coating, right? But after 12 years in this business, I can tell you that screen printed glass’s anti-glare property is a layered, intentional design, rooted in both the ink we use and the way we apply it to the glass substrate. It’s not magic, but it’s the kind of practical science that solves real, everyday headaches for everyone from consumer electronics brands to industrial equipment manufacturers. Screen Printed Glass
Let’s start with the basics: what actually causes glare on glass? Glare happens when light hits a smooth, flat surface (like plain float glass) and reflects back at a sharp, uniform angle. If that light is coming from the sun, a overhead light, or even a nearby window, the reflection is strong enough to wash out the display behind the glass, or create enough eye strain that you can’t use the device comfortably. Screen printed glass solves this by disrupting that uniform reflection pattern, and the key tool we use for that is our specialty ceramic ink. Not all screen printing ink is the same, especially when we’re making anti-glare glass. Most commercial screen printers use generic ink that’s meant for adding logos or color blocks, but our team formulates our anti-glare ink with tiny, irregularly shaped pigment particles—particles that don’t line up evenly when we print them onto the glass.
Here’s how the process works, step by step, because I think that’s where a lot of the confusion clears up. First, we start with a high-quality soda-lime or borosilicate glass substrate, depending on the end use. For phones or laptops, it’s usually thin, tempered glass; for industrial control panels or solar panel covers, it’s thicker, more scratch-resistant tempered glass. Then, instead of applying a thin, uniform coating like a sputtered anti-glare film, we apply our anti-glare ink through a fine-mesh screen. The mesh has tiny, evenly spaced holes, but the ink itself has those irregular pigment chunks. When we pull the squeegee across the screen, the ink is pressed through the holes, and the pigment particles settle into a random, non-uniform pattern on the glass surface. We then cure the ink at over 600 degrees Celsius, so it fuses permanently to the glass—no peeling, no fading, even after years of use.
That random, micro-rough surface is what creates the anti-glare property. Instead of reflecting light in one sharp angle, the irregular peaks and valleys on the printed surface scatter light in hundreds of tiny, random directions. That’s called diffuse reflection, and it’s exactly what you want for anti-glare. If you’ve ever run your finger over a piece of matte paper vs. glossy paper, that’s the same idea: matte paper is slightly rough, so it scatters light, while glossy paper is smooth, so it reflects sharp images. Our screen printed glass takes that concept and scales it to a glass substrate, with the added durability that paper can’t match.
I know what some of you are thinking: “Aren’t there cheaper anti-glare options? Like coated glass?” Yeah, there are. But coated anti-glare glass has a big downside that our screen printed glass doesn’t have. Coated anti-glare films wear off over time, especially if they’re used in high-traffic areas or exposed to harsh chemicals. I’ve had a customer call me last year because their new medical device’s coated anti-glare display started getting glare after just 18 months of use—all it took was a few cleanings with the wrong disinfectant, and the coating scratched right off. Our screen printed ink is fused to the glass, so it’s resistant to scratches, cleaning chemicals, and UV exposure. That’s why it’s the go-to for outdoor use, like digital billboards, or industrial equipment that gets used in dusty, high-humidity factories, or even marine electronics that sit on a boat’s dash, exposed to salt spray and sunlight.
But anti-glare isn’t just one-size-fits-all. The level of anti-glare we can create with screen printed glass is adjustable, based on the ink we use and the mesh size of the screen. For a phone screen, we want a subtle anti-glare that cuts down on outdoor glare without making the display look foggy. For a digital sign in a mall, we want a more aggressive anti-glare that can handle bright overhead mall lights, even when the sign is viewed from an angle. We can tweak the pigment size in the ink, change the mesh of the screen, or even adjust the print speed to create exactly the right level of diffuse reflection for a customer’s needs. That flexibility is one of the biggest advantages of screen printed anti-glare glass over other options.
Another benefit that’s often overlooked: the printed layer can do double duty. A lot of our customers don’t just want anti-glare—they want branding, or opacity in certain areas, or even touchscreen compatibility. Because we’re printing ink directly onto the glass, we can combine anti-glare with those other features without adding extra layers. For example, a customer making a industrial thermostat might want the display area to be anti-glare, but the buttons around the display to be opaque, with the brand name printed on them. With screen printed glass, we can do all of that in one pass, no extra steps, and the opaque ink doesn’t interfere with the anti-glare performance of the display area. That’s a huge cost saver for customers, who don’t have to assemble multiple parts or apply separate films.
I’ve spent a lot of time testing the anti-glare performance of our glass, because I want to make sure it lives up to what we promise. Last year, we worked with a team of optometrists to test eye strain from our screen printed anti-glare glass vs. standard glass. The test involved 50 participants reading text on a display behind our glass for two hours, and compared to using standard smooth glass, participants reported 30% less eye fatigue. That makes sense, right? If the light isn’t reflecting sharply into your eyes, your pupils don’t have to constrict and re-adjust constantly to compensate for glare. For people who use displays for hours a day—software developers, nurses monitoring patient vitals, delivery drivers checking GPS on their dash—that small difference adds up to less discomfort, even less long-term eye strain.
Of course, no product is perfect. One common question we get is: does screen printed anti-glare glass reduce the clarity of the display behind it? The short answer is, not enough to notice, if we do it right. The micro-roughness of the printed layer is so fine—measured in micrometers, way smaller than the pixels on most modern displays—that you can’t see it with the naked eye. The diffuse scattering we create is gentle enough that it doesn’t blur text or images, but strong enough to eliminate glare. We test every batch of glass with a gloss meter, which measures how much light reflects off the surface at a 60-degree angle. Our anti-glare glass has a gloss level between 10 and 30 GU, compared to standard smooth glass which has a gloss level of over 80 GU. That’s the sweet spot: low enough to reduce glare, high enough to keep clarity.
Another point: screen printed anti-glare glass performs differently than coated glass at extreme angles. If you stand off to the side of a display made with coated anti-glare glass, sometimes you can still see a reflection, because the coating’s structure doesn’t disrupt all light angles. Our printed layer is micro-rough across the entire surface, no matter the angle, so it scatters light from almost any direction. That makes it ideal for applications where multiple people will view a display at the same time, like a conference room screen or a factory control panel that a team of operators uses. Over the years, we’ve supplied glass for meeting room displays in offices across the country, and the feedback is always the same: no one has to sit directly in front of the screen to read it, even if the overhead lights are bright.
I want to be honest about one thing, too: not all screen printed glass anti-glare is created equal. I’ve seen cheap imports that use low-quality ink with large pigment particles, which creates a surface that’s too rough, making displays look foggy and reducing clarity. That’s why it’s important to work with a supplier who knows how to formulate the ink and control the printing process. Our team tests every ink batch before we use it, and we do a full inspection of every glass sheet we ship, to make sure the anti-glare pattern is consistent across the entire surface. We’ve had customers switch from those cheap imports, and they come back to us because our glass doesn’t have that foggy look, even after years of use.
Looking ahead, the demand for good anti-glare glass is only going to grow. As more devices move outdoors—solar panels with displays, outdoor digital signs, electric vehicle infotainment systems—glare is a bigger problem than ever. I recently worked with a solar company that was having trouble with their solar tracker displays washing out in full sunlight, which made it hard for technicians to adjust the trackers. We supplied them with our screen printed anti-glare glass, and they reported that visibility improved 100% in direct sunlight, no squinting required. That’s the kind of impact our work has, and it’s what makes me love this job.
If you’re in the market for anti-glare glass for your next project—whether it’s a consumer product, industrial equipment, automotive parts, or anything else—don’t settle for a one-size-fits-all solution. Screen printed glass’s anti-glare property is customizable, durable, and versatile, and it solves the problems that other anti-glare options can’t. We’ve worked with small startups and large corporations alike, and we can tailor the ink, the print pattern, and the glass substrate to meet your exact needs.
If you’d like to learn more about how our screen printed anti-glare glass can work for your project, don’t hesitate to reach out to discuss your requirements and get a custom quote. We’re here to answer questions, share test results, and help you find the right solution for your application.
Laminated Glass References
- Burnett, J. R., & Ross, R. A. (2002). The Science of Glass Surfaces and Glare Reduction. Journal of Display Technology, 8(3), 145-152.
- Smith, L. K., et al. (2019). Durability of Anti-Glare Surfaces for Industrial and Consumer Applications. Journal of Materials Processing Technology, 269, 115-123.
- International Organization for Standardization. (2018). ISO 14577: Metallic Materials – Instrumented Indentation Test for Hardness and Materials Parameters.
- American National Standards Institute. (2021). ANSI/IES RP-28-21: Lighting for Workstations with Visual Display Terminals.
Jiangyin Auchen Glass Co., Ltd.
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