TEXTILE PRINTING
The textile revolution W
By Duncan Jefferies of Hybrid Services Ltd
e’re seeing something of a revolution in textile printing. It’s a subject that’s all over the trade press and
exhibitions and is frequently debated online, but is your company part of it, or has the revolution passed you by?
Textile printing is as old as the hills – decorating fabric with designs goes back almost as far as civilization itself and in many ways, the technological requirements haven’t changed much since! At its most basic, a design can be imprinted on fabric with a simple stencil, block or screen print but there are plenty of advantages for looking to the latest technologies. Volume textile printing has (in more modern times) been produced using screen print techniques – be it flat or rotary screens, where a restricted number of colours are used to build up complex designs. But it has its limitations, so
the arrival of digital print has breathed significant life into the textile printing industry, offering a whole array of new applications.
The impact of digital
For many, textile printing is considered to simply cover the core markets of fashion and furnishings and of course, this makes up a lot of the currently produced digital output. The transformation of how bedding and interior textile companies create pattern books in order to sell collections of designs completely altered the home furnishings market around ten years ago. Prior to the first Mimaki textile digital printer (the 1sq m/hour Tx1600S), pattern books were made from existing printed stock which relied on a gamble that particular designs and colourways would sell, and required large inventories to be held. Nowadays, speculative
designs in a significant number of different colour choices are offered to buyers, with only the ones required going to production; resulting in a total sea-change in how manufacturers work. In the fashion market, delivering a photo- quality print to a garment has also become reality, as have personalised items, bespoke pieces and true ‘one-offs’. In the haute couture sector, producing runway pieces for the high profile fashion weeks in London, Paris and Milan is now possible without incurring the substantial costs and lead times; let alone restricting any creative juices.
The impact on the clothing market is far broader than this though, with a substantial amount of polyester sportswear produced digitally too. The cycling and rugby markets were among the first to adopt digitally printed strips and the technological advances in polyester fabrics allow kit manufacturers to not only create stunning designs but also the high performance garments that sportspeople have come to expect. Typically produced using a dye sublimation printing process, the design is printed in reverse to special transfer paper, and then heat pressed onto the white fabric. The dyes bond with the polyester and deliver a print that doesn’t alter the handle or structure of the garment, is wash and light fast and looks great too.
The advantages of a digital print in these situations are obvious as player numbers and names can be imprinted at the same time as the main design, as can sponsor logos and club crests. The bright and complex designs popular in the likes of the cycling market are easy (and cost effective) to create and where small clubs and local teams would historically have been limited to stock designs, a completely bespoke option for as few as a dozen shirts can be as inexpensively created as if for thousands.
Applying the principles
So where does this all fit in for the wide format printing company? The same models can be
14 SCREEN PROCESS AND DIGITAL IMAGING l July/August 2011 Visit us at
www.spdi-online.com
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