While pundits claim digital printing to be the most significant technological advancement to the textile printing industry in over 30 years, the adaptation of these new systems has been much slower than many had anticipated. Though the technology is gaining ground in the areas of sampling and short run production, the slower speeds, fabric limitations, image resolution and reduced color gamut on process color printers have excluded its use for production.

This is, of course, for companies who have a business model of mass production. For a growing number of artists, designers, interior decorators and entrepreneurs, digital printing technology is providing the tool that allows them to produce customized products that give them a unique competitive advantage in the new world of customization.

Rachael Scandarion, President of Digital Arts Technology, Inc. in Hallandale, FL has been custom decorating textiles since the late ‘80’s. Used in a variety of applications from clothing to interiors and window fashions, Scandarion was hand painting and dying her silks, cottons, leathers, chiffons, canvas, vinyls and meshes to create custom products with no design repeat requirements.

As her business grew in window coverings and architectural interiors with custom art, she realized she needed a printer that would allow her to produce greater quantities of fabric. With requirements including light fastness and wind protection on a variety of fabrics, the only equipment available was large format printers used for outdoor signage and displays. Scandarion found a service bureau running the Nur Outboard continuous inkjet printer with MEK solvent-based inks.

She invested over $150,000 in research and development for fabric testing before discovering that the service bureau was marketing the results of her efforts to other companies. What the service bureau claimed to be "waste" goods in setting up new runs, had actually become sample fabric to potential competitors.

In January of this year, Digital Arts Technology purchased their own printing equipment; the ENCAD TX printer. The company is still pre-treating (a.k.a. "padding") their own fabrics with chemicals that are a combination of soda ash, sodium alginate and urea for fiber reactive dyes used on cottons and adding citric acid to the mix for silks, nylons and wools. They pad their own fabrics because there are no pre-treated fabrics available for the markets they serve. In addition, by controlling this step of the process, the company feels they have a better handle on quality control and can maintain the proprietary nature of their unique products.

Color matching is also a science for which there was a development curve. Not only do the different inks react differently to different fabrics, but the colors also change after a fabric is steamed. As a result, the company has developed an elaborate array of color formulas and charts on printed fabric for both pre-and post treatment.

Aurora Xynthesis of Fallbrook, CA is targeting the hospitality market with its use of digital printing technology. Marketing to architects and interior designers, the company has begun intermixing digital with conventional arts to produce lighting fixtures, room dividers, stage settings, interior settings, window coverings, murals, tile, and wall décor they are creating for hotels, restaurants, casinos and resorts. They are working on natural fibers, silks, and polyesters using the Go ink set from ENCAD as well as Ilford archival inks on ENCAD inket printers. They are backing all of their own fabrics and mixing many of their own inks in order to achieve their own unique looks.

"We are experimenting all of the time" states Alyson LeBlanc, the company’s Creative Director. "It staggers my mind when I think of the opportunities with this technology."

Custom Cloths of Lafayette, LA, a division of Pixus Digital Printing is offering personalized silk ties and scarves via their website at www.customcloths.com. They offer custom designs in minimum quantities of 10 with delivery time of 2-3 weeks. For customers who want to design their own products, the company sends them an Adobe Illustrator template on which to create their artwork. Products are created using the ENCAD NovaJet Pro 50 printer, with inks and fabrics from Jacquard, who offer pre-treated fabric mounted on paper liners.

As these pioneers have learned, the variables in print technology, fabrics, and inks have at times required skill sets that included a combination of artist, engineer and chemist. The key to success for all has come in finding the combination of formulas that work for a targeted range of products and markets.

Jacquard of Healdsburg, CA is one of a growing number of companies who are seeking to capture a share of this burgeoning marketplace by supplying a system of pre-treated fabrics, inks and post-processing steam equipment that will take a lot of the alchemy out of the process. Jacquard has developed a hardware independent system that supports reactive, disperse and acid dyes on over 100 different fabrics available for ink jet printing; including gauze weight silks, metallic silks, cotton, linen, lycra, woven nylon, wool, and poly/cotton blends.

All of the fabrics they offer have been ICC profiled for color management and matched with the proper ink to the proper fabric; fiber reactive inks for cottons and cellulose fibers, acid dyes for silk, nylon and wool and disperse dyes for any fabric containing polyester. All color profiling is done after printing on the cloth, with 1300 patches of color per cloth and ink set. The company is currently working with several ink vendors to profile their inks for a variety of digital printing equipment. They also license their color management system to companies who want to coat their own fabrics. Jacquard also offers custom fabric coating.

At Digital Atelier, a printmaking studio with locations near Boston, Massachusetts; Boulder, Colorado; and Seattle, Washington, fine artists are combining traditional studio and media techniques with digital imaging to produce original fine art and unique editions, including jackets, scarves and tablecloths. Designer Bonnie Lhotka , a self described experimental artist with "an insatiable thirst for new technology," is using the Jacquard ink jet system on an ENCAD NovaJet Pro 50 to produce on 100% silk. She is particularly inspired by the ability to engineer her designs throughout the various garment parts.

In her quest to push the envelope and print on a variety of mediums, the artist has even raised the ink jet head height on the printer, a practice she does not advocate as it voids the warranty. She has also programmed the RIP to do double strikes for richer coverage.

Bonnie is less concerned about the color matching issue, as she is not restricted to a targeted color. She has calibrated her monitors to the output on the silks using the Adobe Gamma software as well as Apple’s Color Sync and has been quite pleased with the results.

As a fine artist, Bonnie feels it is very important to know the RIPs, dyes and machines she is using. "After that" she says, "there are no rules!" We circumvent tradition so that we can come up with items that are unique. I think we can produce wonderful things because we don’t know the rules. Experimentation is what this medium is all about and where the success stories will be found."

Chuck Davis of Regal Computer Graphics in Greeley, CO has been experimenting with digital textile printing since 1994. With a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, Davis has applied his technical expertise to the development and marketing of new products that exploit the new market opportunities supplied by digital printing, including apparel sampling, sailboat sails, home decorating and custom carpet.

In a presentation given at IMI’s Digital Printing of Textiles Conference in Atlanta, Georgia last month, he offered several suggestions on "how to make a buck digitally printing fabrics." In addition to suggesting that short run printing offers the potential for higher margins along with higher waste, he stressed the importance of knowing your strengths and weaknesses, investing in strong technical people, the importance of quality, and the value of good record keeping. "When you are producing custom products and need to repeat the process, the only way to accomplish this is by referencing every detail as to what you did to get your results," says Davis.

As all of these pioneers have discovered, it is not the digital printing technology itself that is the competitive advantage, but rather the products they are producing. None of them are allowing the current limitations in digital printing technology to limit their creativity or drive to be early adopters. As digital printing alchemists, these individuals and companies will define the market through new products and new applications that exploit the technology in a manner which gives them a unique and timely competitive advantage.

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Teri Ross is a writer, speaker and consultant on new technology for the sewn products industries. She is owner and President of Imagine That! Consulting Group. She can be reached via phone at 952/593-0776.