fabric choices & sourcing

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Digital Decor

"Welcome to the world of digital printing

From man's earliest beginnings individuals have aspired to be different and express themselves in unique ways.

This could be achieved by decoration, which might include his body, clothing, or his home. Primitive man made cave paintings to depict their lives, or record special occasions, becoming the first interior decorators.
For centuries interior decoration was created by artisans and craftsmen as single piece art works, often commissioned by the wealthy or the church.
The industrial revolution heralded mass production of items previously unavailable to the masses. Soon everybody could have the same matching clothing, homeware and interior design. Individualism was lost!

The Age of Mass Customisation

Digital printing has heralded the age of mass customisation. Giving many individuals who aspire to put their unique thumb print on their surroundings, the opportunity to achieve this at an affordable cost.
Digital Décor works with architects, designers, photographers, artists and individuals to create exclusive custom designs on a range of fabrics, tiles and other substrates so your living space can be transformed into a work of art.

Digital textile printing technology is revolutionizing the textile industry, with many new market opportunities opening because of the flexibility of small runs or one-offs of custom designed textiles.

Traditional textile printing industry mass production model of high volume and low cost are being challenged by designers, artists, interior designers and architects who want to create imagery and designs which are exclusive, original and unique. Digital Décor's™ ImagedFabric™ is meeting these inspired individuals needs.

The traditional textile printing processes have disadvantages of high setup costs, limited colours, long turn around times and small quantities are often uneconomical.

Digital printing has none of these disadvantages, with minimal set up costs, unlimited colours, superb photographic print quality, quick turn around of samples, final production and one offs if necessary.

Digital Décor™ textile printing should be seen as short run, customized production of textiles. Prints can be richly detailed designs of unlimited colours, special photos, a favourite painting, company logo or any other digital artwork. We mainly print on polyester fabrics, because of their durability, easy care, light fastness and UV stability. Polyesters can be made to look and feel like many other fibres; silk, linen, cotton, wool and suede. Plus will perform better.

We welcome the opportunity to work together with your own designs for exclusive ImagedFabrics"

Digitex

Lead the way with digital textile printing.

Digital Textile Printing is revolutionizing the textile industry worldwide. Traditionally textile printing has been based on a mass production model where fabrics are produced by rotary screen printing in large volumes. The benefit of this method was high volume product at a low price. However there are many disadvantages to traditional textile printing. These are high setup costs, lengthy and expensive sampling process, slow turn around, limited number of spot colours per design and short runs

Digital Textile printing is the key to opening new markets. It does not have any of the disadvantages of Traditional Textile printing while offering the ability to use an unlimited number of colour's, excellent reproduction of continuous tone images, unlimited repeat sizes and the ability to print multiple designs.

Standard Fabrics

We can print up to 1600mm wide from the roll on to:

• Cotton

• Silk

• Polyester

Supplying fabric

There are some limitations on the type of fabrics that are suitable for digital textile printing and it is important that you talk to us to discuss your needs. As as guide we can accept almost any 100% polyester fabric you supply, however all other fabrics such as cottons and silks must be pre-treated before printing.This pre-treatment process requires a minimum of 50 meters of fabric.

How best to take advantage of Digital Textile Printing

When considering how best to take advantage of Digital textile printing it needs to be looked at it from the perspective of a short run, customized production of textiles. The traditional textile industry looks at digital textile printing from the perspective of what it can’t do, rather than from the perspective of the new markets it will allow them to enter. The challenge to the textile industry is in learning both the digital printing technology as well as a new business model under which to sell their products.

Implementing digital printing effectively means rethinking your overall system. It means designing different types of products that leverage the advantages of digital printing. It means sales and marketing strategies that leverage short run production. It means thinking about your business from the perspective of mass customisation as opposed to mass production.

Think outside the box

Bottom line, digital printing for short run production requires thinking outside the box. It requires an entirely new approach with new products and new marketing strategies that leverage not just printing technology, but CAD systems, cutting systems, information systems and even the Internet.

The Advantages of Digital Textile Printing

To make the most of Digital Textile Printing its important to understand it capabilities and focus on value not cost.

• Multiple colour-ways
• HUGE Reduction of Downtime
• Just in time delivery
• Shortens the overall process from design to production
• No engraving
• No finished goods inventory
• Allows Mass Customisation
• Elimination of Screen Cost in Sampling and Short-run production
• No more registration problems
• Elimination of Costly Machine Strike-offs
• Eventual Reduction of Chemical Cost and Waste
• Brings New Products to Existing Markets

The myth about speed and price

The traditional textile industry looks at digital textile printing from their traditional mass production business models and complains it is too slow and too expensive relative to the conventional screen printing technologies most commonly used in the market today. This is failing to recognise the 

opportunities and savings digital textile printer offers.

Cost Savings of Digital Textile Printing

To date, the key drivers in adopting digital textile printing technology for traditional textile printers has been the reduction of sampling costs and time to market. In conventional textile screen printing, the development cost for strike-offs and samples are thousands of dollars per design, with the cost fluctuating based upon the number of spot colours used in a design. The development of these screens and strike-offs takes from 2 to 5 weeks. With digital textile printing there are no screen costs, and a sample can be printed upon demand.

Just in time delivery

The single most costly element in today’s soft goods business is the holding of product and parts in anticipation of a sale. This process supports the idea that the best way to create profit is to mass produce and discount the surplus. To make this gamble work the apparel delivery system has developed cumbersome structure designed to stockpile the inventory in staged production surpluses, then to sell finished product in tiered discount and therefore reduce the risk for each participant. While this process has in fact lowered cost, it has also lowered profit and customer choice.

Become an industry leader

Leaders in Digital Textile printing are looking at this technology with an eye towards what it can do, as opposed to what it can't do:

• Offer a unique print and selling point
• Offers Immediate Results
• Offers Flexibility
• Saves Time & Money
• Minimizes Inventory
• Is A Breakthrough Technology
• Allows Mass Customisation

Other fabrics freely available in Wellington City through such stores as Global Fabrics where my fabric was bought from.