Sponsored by Adobe
Technological innovation continues to transform the apparel printing market by enhancing processes while reducing their environmental footprint.
Experts say the evolution is necessary because consumers are buying record-breaking amounts of apparel, which represents a high percentage of the 90 million tons of textile waste produced every year, according to The Roundup – a website dedicated to promoting environmental awareness and sustainability.
Garment printing expert Kornit Digital and software specialist Adobe believe in streamlining the textile printing process to enable print service providers (PSPs) to maximise output and minimise expenditure.
Digital direct-to-garment (DTG) printing was considered a versatile and affordable process when it emerged over a decade ago and – because it uses less water, reduces chemical consumption, and lowers carbon emissions – remains a more sustainable alternative to traditional screen printing.
Rising DTG printer sales have coincided with the proliferation of personalisation and on-demand production. The fashion trend and production model reduce fabric waste and energy consumption while enhancing the consumer experience by easing pressure on outdated supply chains.
Inkjet garment production means smaller batch sizes, with shorter setup times, can be cost-effective. Production can occur closer to the consumer, reducing transportation and storage costs.
The overall timeline from design to purchase can also be shortened because the production process is more versatile. And print designers now have the freedom to create more complex artwork, while respecting and protecting the environment.
DTG technology remains in high demand, despite global economic and geopolitical challenges. The market’s value is forecast to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 4.4% over the next 10 years, according to Future Market Insights.
Garment printing evolution
The figures suggest the garment decoration industry trusts in the technology’s performance and environmental credentials, but it must still evolve to overcome increasing pressures, such as weak consumer confidence and competition from other technologies.
Kornit Digital is utilising Adobe’s PDF Print Engine to preserve the market’s confidence, enabling richer graphics and reliable colour reproduction. The solution has raised the bar for a wide range of garment workflows, from mass production to on-demand printing, and is reshaping the garment printing sector in the same way it has other industries.
Garment designers generally send their artwork to a printer as a TIFF file, but this well-established practice is giving way to PDF. PDFs are trusted in many other industries because they can convey images, text, and graphics at their highest level of abstraction – a guiding principle in every type of prepress workflow.
For a garment designer working in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, submitting the job as a PDF means they can freely employ attention-grabbing effects, such as transparency interactions between graphics and images, which are often quite complex. With PDF jobs, the capabilities of the press – such as ink stations, colour gamut, droplet size, and resolution – will be considered when the design is rendered.
Adobe said its PDF Print Engine is “the market-leading prepress technology for rendering PDF designs in every printing industry”. Adobe invented PDF and has incorporated core PDF technologies across its product portfolio, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, and the PDF Print Engine.
The company added, “the latest version of the PDF Print Engine is optimised for garment printing, with state-of-the-art colour management, automatic white under base generation, and support for spectrally defined colourways”. It produces vivid and sharp garment designs that exceed designer expectations.
Adobe’s PDF Print Engine also adheres to environmental regulations that aim to accelerate the speed at which the textile industry becomes more sustainable.
Kornit Digital describes itself as a global leader in sustainable, on-demand digital fashion and has recently incorporated Adobe’s PDF Print Engine into its new K-RIP solution, which is the next generation of Kornit’s Raster Image Processing software. It is engineered to help brands and producers deliver repeatable, reliable images of the highest quality in digital garment decoration.
Kornit’s chief product officer, Daniel Gazit, said: “We developed a state-of-the-art RIP and workflow solution, K-RIP, to guarantee our customers’ digital designs are precisely reproduced on Kornit’s DTG systems.
“Our collaboration with Adobe truly changes the game by harnessing the richness of the PDF Print Engine module to ensure reliable production of highly complex graphics on every garment.”
He continued: “As the textile, apparel and fashion industries push the envelope of creativity with high-impact visual effects, our solution is well-aligned in our joint commitment to innovation. We share the goal of transforming artistic imagination into sustainable real-world products.”
The Israel-based company’s trust in the PDF Print Engine is an accomplishment for Adobe. Visitors to the recent Drupa exhibition in Dusseldorf, Germany witnessed first-hand the capabilities of K-RIP and the Adobe PDF Print Engine, and how the two companies are spearheading the garment decoration market’s digital transformation.
Green ambitions
Many European garment vendors have built sustainable supply chains in compliance with the European Union (EU) Green Deal – a set of European Commission policy initiatives to make the EU climate-neutral by 2050.
It will encourage circularity, which has become a buzzword within the textile industry. The principle refers to systems, such as DTG printers, that are designed to eliminate waste and protect resources. Adobe’s software innovations are supporting the garment decoration market’s transition.
Proponents of circularity describe it as a closed loop in which things are used, reused, and remade over time. More new garments will be made from recycled materials when circularity is applied to the textile and apparel industry.
Embracing digitalisation
Industry 4.0’s influence on the textile printing industry means there is no longer a trade-off between cost, performance and the environment.
It has also inspired supply chain transparency, which is critical to environmentally conscious consumers. Many brands and retailers are fearful customers will change their buying habits based on where and how a garment is manufactured. There is now pressure on print service providers (PSPs) to print garments sustainably to retain orders from leading high-street brands.
Print houses are implementing digital product passports (DPPs) as part of the shift. They are a product’s digital twin and contain information on its life, such as raw material sourcing, manufacturing processes, sustainability practices and recyclability.
DPPs foster trust and accountability within the supply chain which facilitates transparency, but they also promote a circular economy by improving how a product is designed, used, and ultimately recycled or disposed of.
The information can be accessed via the garment care label using a QR code or an electronic method, such as near-field communication (NFC) or radio frequency identification (RFID). Kornit Digital and Adobe said: “The aim is to provide important information to supply chain operators and consumers, which can be used to validate the authenticity of apparel products and help inform purchase decisions.”
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