It’s an exciting time for fashion, with the new technology of digital textile printing make virtually anything possible! Through digital apparel printing, you can achieve new levels of precision and creative expression.
How Does It Work?
Digital textile printing is ink-jet technology that can print designs directly onto a garment, a t-shirt or dress for example, or can be used to produce larger quantities of fabric. It is absolutely similar to that of the inkjet printer.
In the past, rotary screen printing was used to produce large quantities of printed fabric. In rotary screen printing, each run usually produces several thousand yards of printed fabric. One of the advantages of digital textile printing is the ability to make smaller runs.
Different inks are used depending on the type of fabric (polyester, lycra, spandex, etc). During the printing process, the fabric is run through rollers, while the ink is applied to the surface. After this, heat and/or steam is used to cure the ink, and “set” it into the fabric.
Designs can be created digitally, using any graphic design software, like Photoshop. Existing images can also be used, whether scanned or found online.
What Are The Benefits?
There are several benefits to digital textile printing, including:
Virtually endless creative freedom:
If you can create it digitally, you can print it! Digital printing opens the gate to a world full of possibilities.
You can make runs as small as one yard, versus the several thousand usually produced in traditional textile printing. This is helpful if you just want to create a few garments, or if you want to customize each run.
You can have your finished prints within days or weeks, depending on whether you have a printer onsite.
It’s environmentally friendly:
Digital textile printing uses precise measurements of inks and dyes when printing, resulting in little to no waste. Everything is printed “on-demand.”
The world of fashion is full of creativity. Take advantage of the number of options that digital printing is capable of offering you, like printing in any color, the spectacular photographic resolution with the option of color gradations and larger size than normal.
One of the reasons that digital printing is so highly regarded is because on white garments the ink remains completely integrated into the fabric without any noticeable texture.
For fashion projects, it’s important that you take into account the color of the garment since colored garments will end up being thicker because in the printing process one must add a pre-treatment and a white coat.
The most valuable merchandising for Graphic Design businesses, Advertising Agencies, and Marketing:
If your business is thinking of investing some of its budgets in merchandising, you should know that digital printing is one of the best ways of recovering your investment.
If, on the other hand, you have decided to offer your merchandise as freebies rather than sell them, you will increase your customer base and help reinforce your brand.
Personalized merchandising gifts with digital printing will save you money as you don’t need a minimum order.
Utilize DTG printing to personalize tote bags with the name and contact information of your business so that people remember your business more easily.
Backpacks, T-Shirts, hoodies and any textile that takes your fancy. Remember that for this type of printing, it is recommended that the garment is made of at least 80% cotton to guarantee its quality.
Digital printing doesn’t have to start-up costs:
In contrast to other techniques, DTG printing doesn’t require a lot of initial start-ups which means that the costs of setting up the printer to produce your garments are significantly reduced.
This means that you get a significant saving in the cost of orders with fewer units. This means that if you want to repeat your order or add more garments once ordered, there won’t be additional costs.
Any type of project that requires full-color printing:
Digital printing is suitable and ideal for all projects that require the reproduction of images in full color. This allows you to create garments that feature photographic quality images on the front with various different colors in the background.
The recommended file type for this type of printing will always be the JPEG format, or on the contrary PNG when there are images that contain transparent zones:
It is very important to save your file correctly if it has transparent backgrounds since if it is not saved in PNG, your image will appear with white backgrounds in a square.
Cut your files as close as possible to the edges, so that the size of your print is always correct. Digital printing really works their wonders here!