The Details on Digital Fabric Printing
Digital printing has become a widespread option in the fabric community in the recent years. This has allowed us to produce some prints we would otherwise not be able to do, such as our Charley Harper poster panels. These prints are a very large scale and use more colors than traditional screen printing would allow.
We are also producing entire collections digitally, which leaves many questions from our stockists. We hope this post will shed some light on why, and what the benefits of printing digitally are.
Design Flexibility and Precision
One reason we print some designs digtally is the wide range of colors and precision. Often with more intricate prints with fine detail and over 18 colors, digital is the only choice. Charley Harper’s designs style is often very clear, with striking sharp and precise lines, traditional screen printing is quite easy to accurately show off his perfectly geometric patterns. However, some paintings are so much more intricate, textural and with many colors and nuances that would get lost in the limited application of screen printing. As Charley’s prints are created from his paintings, some are only possibly via digital printing.
We always get a few yards of digitally printed samples, to make caps, samples, and for initial photography. This also helps us to see if anything needs to change in the design before screens are made for strike offs. Strike offs are the first samples made from the screens in traditional screen printing, and there is a screen for each color, maxing out at around 15 colors, depending on the manufacturer.
You can see with the sample above, the digital version is crisper and clearer, with less bleed, which is the overlapping of colors. With more intricate art, screen printing can get really messy with blurred lines, and strange intermediate colors when complimentary colors bleed together.
You can see here how close the digital print (right in above and below images) matches the web image, as well as the accuracy and precision in the lines and colors.
Continued Eco Conscious Measures
As the “organic” design house and textile supplies that we strive to be, printing digitally gives us the opportunity to bring a wider scope of prints on our beautiful organic cottons. Fabric printing can create a great amount of waste in production. with traditional screen printing, you must print hundreds of yards of fabric for each print, which is subject to misprint, therefore that section of fabric is scrapped. This can sometimes be in excess of a couple hundred yards! This does not happen with the precision of digital printing!
Water waste is also a notable area that digital printing triumphs traditional screen printing throughout the process. Each color requires its own screen, and therefore requires washing and large amounts of ink.
Why are some of our collections digital?
Digital printing has opened up a new way for us to bring a wide variety of prints on our lovely organic cotton poplin and lawn substrates! Below you will see a new print from Oana Befort’s collection Flourish, which we have a digital sample (left) and a screen printed strike off (right) side by side, where the difference is almost entirely undetectable.
We feel that adding some digital options to our library of prints furthers our opportunity to offer a wide array of organic fabric to the quilting and crafting community, which has been our mission since day one.
We’d love to hear your feedback and questions! Shoot us an email at [email protected] to chat further.
