Moving beyond the typical commercial applications produced by the signage industry, digitally printed textiles are proving a major draw for customized home décor, including upholstery, drapes, tablecloths, pillows and fine art reproductions.
“As a result, while sign shops are traditionally business-to-business (B2B), some wide-format printing companies are developing a business-to-consumer (B2C) side,” says Shaneyfelt. “The lines are getting blurred with companies like Spoonflower, which lets people order custom-printed fabrics online. They are always seeking new types of textiles, so the fabrics are constantly evolving for different applications, with antimicrobial coatings, ultraviolet (UV) inhibitors and fire-rated materials.”
Many digital wide-format printers have been specially designed or customized for use with fabrics.
“We love fabrics for home décor,” says Elmo Sapwater, a photographic industry expert who blogs as the Imaging Insider. “You can customize fine-art photos for people’s homes and then easily change them out.”
Of course, there is also a commercial market for customized décor, particularly as large corporate office buildings seek to beautify their lobbies and other communal spaces with creatively designed fabric structures.
“Textiles can be integrated into overall building designs,” says Shaneyfelt.
The tools for the job
Already, many new presses, inks and substrates have been specially designed for the digital printing of wide-format fabric graphics. Printer manufacturer HP, by way of example, has focused on developing durable aqueous ‘latex’ inkjet machines in recent years, in part because the company identified digital printing on textiles as one of its major target markets for growth.
“The third-generation HP latex printers optimize fabric graphics with a pre-treatment that enhances the ink’s ability to grab onto the surface, which makes major strides for its durability and scratch resistance,” says Shaneyfelt. “The ability to saturate the substrate differentiates fabric graphics from papers and vinyls, where ink is applied to the top layer of the material. The type of ink can also affect the drape, feel and hand of the fabric.”
“Our printers are being used for temporary textile graphics—in contrast with dye sublimation for permanent ones—and their odourless inks are a good fit for applications that need to meet indoor air quality (IAQ) requirements, such as in schools, hospitals, restaurants and hotels,” says Mike Duggan, national high-volume sales manager for HP Canada’s Scitex printers. “Unlike dye sublimation, they can print on unique and natural fabrics, including porous textiles without liners. This is why we’ve expanded our media options.”
“Textiles are great for storefront window displays,” adds Tina Forbes, graphic design and colour management specialist for Coveris Advanced Coatings, which develops, manufactures and distributes coated papers, films and other substrates for digital imaging. “Pole-pocket displays can be arranged with lamps for backlighting or uplighting in the store window. A 100 per cent polyester-woven fabric will ensure strong black ink density.”
Trade show exhibitors have benefited from lower shipping and assembly costs for booths that combine fabric graphics with framing systems.
For all of these reasons, polyester-based textiles are now dominating the soft signage market. They can handily be dye-sublimated for permanent graphics or latex-printed for shorter-term applications.
“Some shops start out printing on cotton and nylon, but then see the benefits of polyester-based fabrics,” says Shaneyfelt. “They might bring in a latex printer for a small set of applications and then apply it to more as they see what it can do. Then they end up adding a heat press to create a ‘hybrid’ business. And on the other side, applications that were previously only possible with dye sublimation transfer printing are now transitioning to digital direct printing. There used to be a dye-sub/latex split, as each technology has its ‘sweet spot,’ but now the envelope is being pushed on both sides.”
