It is important to understand these differences and how ink chemistry reacts with different textile-based materials, particularly as technologies in the market evolve. This involves knowing which printer settings to use, how to achieve accurate colour reproduction, which transfer papers are best, how to properly clean and maintain printers and generally ensure ‘best practices’ are being followed consistently.
As with inks, the least expensive printing equipment will not necessarily carry the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO). A signmaker needs to understand how well its printheads perform, how much throughput it can achieve, whether the level of startup waste is within industry norms and where it will be possible to achieve savings without compromising graphic quality.
Textile printing represents general, collective market, including only banners, soft signs and flags, but also interior decor, upholstery and garments.
Trends on the rise
As much as fabric graphics are a growing trend, only about one to two per cent of all textiles are digitally printed, so the potential for inkjet-based output is only just beginning to be realized. The use of pigment-based inks has been increasing and will continue to do so, as will the range of textile-based substrates that can be printed digitally.
Printheads will become more stable and capable of producing higher volumes of graphics, which will facilitate higher-capacity printers. Other technological advances will enable faster single-pass printing of textiles and fixed printhead arrays may displace certain scanning configurations.
One question regarding higher-volume production of printed textiles is whether it will be primarily facilitated by centralized, large printing companies or by a large number of smaller printers spread across a local market. This question will be addressed by web-to-print technology, which is already common for textile printing, but will continue to grow. Customers can upload their design files to be fed into an end-to-end digital workflow, dispatched for finishing or, depending on the job, finished on-site.
This will make it easier to customize interior décor and upholstery and switch colourful brands and designs as per the client’s personal choice. The possibilities are exciting as the innovative applications being handled today become larger trends and, perhaps, established practice tomorrow.
Roland Biemans, who has worked in the inkjet printing field since 1996, is marketing director for Kiian Digital, which formulates specialty inks for digital textile printing. For more information, visit www.kiian.com.
