Posted January 4, 2017

 

By Devin Steele (DSteele@eTextileCommunications.com)

 

DURHAM, N.C. – In its first event collaboration, the AATCC, Association of the Apparel, Textiles and Materials Professionals, and SGIA, the Specialty Graphic Printing Association, attracted a sold-out audience of about 140 people to its “Digital Textile Printing: The Future Is Now” conference here last month.

 

Digital printing, of course, is one of the fastest-growing segments impacting the global textile and apparel industries. The market for the digital printing of textiles is rapidly emerging, particularly as technology has improved and the desire for customization has grown.

 

In a report by Smithers Pira, a total of 870 million square meters of fabric were printed on digital equipment in 2016, and was worth $1.29 billion. Additionally, the volume is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 17.5 percent over the next five years, consuming nearly 1.95 billion square meters in 2021 and having a market value of $2.66 billion.

 

The two-day “Future Is Now” program featured some of the industry’s most well-known and respected experts presenting topics essential for those involved in digital textiles. Technology, color management, product performance, testing, design and more were included.

 

Speakers presented under several umbrellas: cutting-edge technology; sustainability and product design; research snapshots; designing for digital; and case studies, business models and product performance.

 

Cutting-edge technology

 

Johnny Shell, SGIA’s vice president of Technical Services, presented a technology overview that included data on global print drivers and market share, the market share of digital inkjet, a review of inks and printer categories and the outlook.

 

Global print drivers, he noted, offer a decline in run length, shorter lead times, full color, variable data, personalization/customization, web-to-print and digital capabilities. And digital inkjet is becoming increasingly important in a wide range of formats and applications, he added, providing multiple benefits and becoming the new decoration process.

 

Textiles, meanwhile, represent an emerging market for digital inkjet technology, and accelerated growth is expected, Shell said. Textile markets include technical, home furnishings and interior design, fashion apparel and graphic, he added.

 

Growth is being seen in all vertical markets (home furnishings, apparel, flag/banner), speed continues to improve, costs continue to drop and production level printers are online, he pointed out.

 

He went on to discuss ink chemistries and printer categories, noting that the latter is typically categorized by their speed. Category IV, single-pass printing, is capable of producing 20 to 100 linear meters per minute, and pigments are in development to support this, he said.

 

“This is a game-changer,” Shell said. “One hundred linear meters a minute exceeds rotary screen.”

 

Four single-pass printers are on the market from MS Printing Solutions, Konica Minolta, SPG Prints and another from a China-based company.

 

Pigment dyeing will continue to be adopted and will grow, he added.

 

“The possibilities with pigment are exciting for a number of reasons – the fiber-type compatibility, for one, and there’s typically no post-treatment or washing required, so it’s a very attractive platform. It’s kind of that silver bullet that you’ve always sought to achieve. So hopefully the chemistries will be figured out.”

 

Meanwhile, David Clark of Huntsman Textile Effects presented an overview of different ink chemistries used to print textiles. He covered basic textile ink chemistries, ink selection, processing points and “tricks of the trade” when printing textiles with certain inks.

 

The segment also included a manufacturer’s panel discussion featuring Bob Rychel of Durst Image Technology; Mark Sawchak of Expand Systems; Sharon Donovich of Kornit Digital; Ken VanHorn of Mimaki USA; and Sangeeta Sachdev of SPG Prints America, Inc. Each briefly discussed their company and its technologies before taking questions.

 

Dave Brewer of Imaging Options presented “Fabric Printing: Color 101.” He explained how color is interpreted and how color often creates optical illusions based on a number of factors, before going over tools and tests used to ensure color accuracy.

 

Rounding out the cutting-edge technology portion of the program was Steve Aranoff, vice president of Sales & Marketing, MCT Digital (Mikkelsen Converting Technologies), who covered digital printing pitfalls and opportunities.

 

Sustainability and product design

 

Ben Mead of Hohenstein Institute USA and OEKO-TEX® USA, kicked off this segment with “How to Know the Inks and Other Chemicals Will Meet Your Customers Sustainability Objectives.”

 

OEKO-TEX is an organization that “enables consumers and companies to protect our planet by making responsible decisions,” he said. More than 10,000 companies worldwide work with OEKO-TEX, which has issued more than 160,000 certificates, he added.

 

Mead provided a detailed explanation of Standard 100 by OEKO-TEX, a system used for consumer protection that can identify and eliminate potential sources of problematic substances at each processing stage. He also delved into the ECO PASSPORT certification system for textile chemicals, dyes and auxiliaries.

 

Meanwhile, internationally renowned fashion designer Alexander Julian, who grew up in nearby Chapel Hill, N.C., discussed how digital printing affects digital design.

 

Research snapshots

 

In this segment, three presenters offered insights into projects being undertaken in the field of digital textile printing. Dr. Harold S. Freeman, professor at N.C. State University’s College of Textiles, covered “Characterization of Lightfast Dyes for Digital Printing Applications.” He shared research insights related to target dyes, experimental methods, synthetic work and structure/property correlations.

 

Dr. Yi Ding, research assistant at N.C. State who received graduate and Ph.D. degrees from the university, offered a summary of a project entitled, “Comparison of Color Gamut and Fastness Properties by Using Disperse and Pigment-Based Inks for Textile Inkjet Printing.”

 

And Katelyn Lee of Cotton Incorporated explained a project in which she has been involved, “Pretreatment Optimization for Digital Printing with Reactive Dyes on Cotton Fabric.”

 

Designing for Digital

 

Hitoshi Ujiie, director of the Center for Excellence in Surface Imaging at Philadelphia University, presented an interesting overview of surface imaging, a new, trans-disciplinary field of discipline. Surface imaging, he explained, “visualizes any imageries on a wide range of substrates by advancing digital printing technologies, including direct colorations, deposition and subtraction printing.”

 

Philadelphia University is offering an M.S. degree in surface imaging, providing students the opportunity to develop imagery for various physical forms using a variety of advanced digital printing technologies, he said.

 

Surface imaging offers new opportunities for design creativity, requiring no engraving, Ujiie said. Additional benefits include minimal machine downtime, sustainability (minimum dye waste and inventory), personalization, mass customization, short-run production, fast turnaround and no color registration problems, he pointed out.

 

This discipline presents new ways of thinking because design, engineering and business components in the industry have not been properly integrated, partly because they have retrofitted their systems and processes into preexisting workflows, Ujiie said.

 

Xingyu Li, a doctoral candidate at N.C. State University, discussed fabric factors impacting digital printing. She explained the differences between conventional printing and digital printing, then listed the advantages of digital printing on textiles.

 

“In digital inkjet printing on textiles, the print quality, color and appearance is dependent upon many variables,” she said, including yarn structure, fabric construction, fabric density, pretreatment, etc.
 

She then went over a research project aimed at determining the key factors of materials and processes that affect the quality of digitally printed fabrics.

 

Closing out the design segment was Carrie Yates of Cotton Incorporated, who presented “A Layered Approach To Design.” She discussed unique substrates, including layering prints over textured constructions and layering prints over fabrics with novelty yarns, then showed physical examples of each.

 

Case studies, business models and product performance

 

In this portion, Reuben Quesus, director of Business Development at Toronto-based Racad Tech, Inc., discussed ways to leverage open-source technology for web-based garment design and ordering. He went over web-to-print technology, market statistics, ordering processes and traditional/proprietary web-to-print solutions before talking about the introduction of open-source solutions and their advantages/disadvantages.

 

In open source, he said, the original source code is made freely available for collaboration, redistribution and modification, and open source has applied itself efficiently to the majority of the world, he said. Comparatively, traditional/proprietary is a “closed” source of software that is generally compiled and obfuscated, meant to limit access from the broader public, he added.

 

Quesus then talked about open-source content management systems, e-commerce systems and web-to-print solutions.

 

In a dual presentation, Steve Smith of DPInnovations, Inc. and Bill Finley of Catalyst Fabric Solutions, a division of Meno Enterprises, went over delivering print-ready jobs and revenue directly to digital textile printing services. They discussed various online B2A (Anyone) model tools that are functional.

 

Gart Davis, co-founder of Durham-based digital printing company Spoonflower, presented his vision for digital textile manufacturing. The firm was founded in 2008 as the first and largest on-demand fabric website, he said.

 

“Digital textiles is going to be huge,” he said. “It is current, relevant and immediate.”

 

As such, Spoonflower created two online spaces, roostery for home décor, focused on curating the best designs at Spoonflower and making them available in a small suite of products; and Sprout Patterns for apparel, aimed at bringing in another community of indie pattern designers to create a wide variety of garments and accessories, he said.

 

Spoonflower also has engaged with an outside partner to integrate services such as product configurators, IP rights management, surface design libraries, 3D/CAD model libraries, product image rendering, production workflow, single-ply cuttings, assembly, delivery logistics, etc., Davis added.

 

“An entrepreneur who wants to be a shirt designer or whatever doesn’t need to buy a digital printer,” he said.

Wrapping up, he said that “textiles are complicated – really complicated. But I do believe that in another 20 years, well past half of the manufacturing process of all products managed by textile colorists and chemists will be fundamentally digital.”

 

Meanwhile, Expand Systems’ Sawchek, its CEO and co-founder, discussed the state of technology. Comparing conventional and digital by print type, he noted that pigment dominates the conventional realm while sublimation constitutes the lion’s share in digital arena.

 

In addition, digital encompassed 3.6 percent of the total textile printing pie in 2015, and that penetration is expected to amount to 7.2 percent in 2019, he said. He went on to explain the advantages of digital printing and the reasons for its growth and gave several examples of how customers are using digital technology in textiles.

 

And finally, Diana Wymann of AATCC covered quality assurance for printed textiles. The first prerequisite to quality is health and safety, she said, pointing out that flammability, restricted substances and special children’s issues must be addressed.

 

While most textiles are exempt from CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) lead testing, printing inks may not be, she said, so “scrape” tests, component tests and finished product tests are required, Wyman said.

 

Labeling is also important, she said, to include care instructions, content, safety and identification. Other considerations are quality control (colorfastness, strength and durability), performance claims, end-use evaluation and print evaluation, she added.