Grand-format textile printing was once the realm of a few shops, but as technology has come way down in price, it has made the technology more mainstream.
“We’re printing at a higher resolution today, at faster speeds and at reasonable acquisition costs,” says Mike Wozny, senior product manager for EFI in Meredith, N.H. “It is really driving growth in this space. Each and every day new applications are coming online.”
From huge wall murals and awnings to umbrellas and backlit signs, grand-format textile printing is only limited by someone’s imagination.
The prices of these machines have not come down, but instead of printing 200 to 400 square feet per hour, they can now print more than 8,000 square feet per hour.
“We’re not charging 10 to 15 times the printer costs that we were 12 years ago. If you look at it from that perspective, we added value into the printer,” he said. “The total cost of ownership is a whole lot less today because of the square footage we are printing, at the acquisition prices we are charging.”
Jason Bartusick, president at Media One USA in Garden Grove, California, tells clients they should expect a three-month learning curve on this technology so they should budget between $15,000 and $20,000 for waste right off the bat. Even though that seems like a lot of money, Bartusick points out that sign companies need to make this move. “If they continue selling vinyl, they will get squashed,” he says.
Dye sublimation transfer printing is the best option because the ink penetrates into the fabric and won’t scratch off, like latex, he says.
At Media One, the cost to own a 10-foot printer is $250,000. The company sells 6-foot and 8-foot printers as well, which range from $50,000 to $110,000 apiece. It really depends on what market the sign shop is targeting whether it needs the grand-format printer.
Shops that move toward grand-format can produce all of the most popular items on the market today, including silicon edge graphics, trade show graphics, flags, table throws and architectural displays.
“A lot of people are asking about it,” Bartusick says.
If a company moves into grand-format textile printing, they also should invest in an industrial sewing machine to finish off the pieces after they are done printing, he says. To cut the material, owners should look into a projection laser cutter. Unlike the i-Cut system, which uses dots to help align a graphic on paper and other substrates, a projection laser system projects the final image onto the cloth so that it doesn’t stretch, warp or bow as it is printing. It stays exactly the right size, he says.
If a shop only plans to print small things like flags or only sell to the retail market, they can get away with a smaller machine, he says.
“A lot of people getting into the 10-foot grand-format arena typically already have business,” says Ryan Burton, senior account specialist at Media One. They usually sub out this work to large wholesalers, but “once they get enough traction, they’ll make the investment into grand-format.”
Burton suggests that people just starting out in the textile printing industry should start off with a smaller unit. Spend time building up that business and when they reach capacity, expand up into a larger machine.
There are a lot of advantages to going with fabric, he adds.
“You can basically do any type of application you can do on a UV, solvent or inkjet machine, Burton says, including backlits, SEG framing systems, flags and point of purchase displays for retail stores. Textiles are higher quality in both look and feel. It costs about the same to print on textiles as it does to print on vinyl, and fabric has the added benefit of being lightweight, so it packs small and can be shipped across the country. It also doesn’t crack or bend if it is folded so it can be reused over and over again, unlike many vinyl signs.
Another benefit is that the dye sublimation inks used in textile printing are water-based so they are environmentally friendly. There are no toxic volatile organic compounds released during printing.
“That’s why you see the market doubling and tripling year-over-year. I’ve been in the industry 20-plus years. I started out doing black and whites. I have watched it evolve. There is no question that the hottest thing is printing on fabric,” Burton says.
Silicon edge graphics are the most popular application currently because retail establishments can change out the graphic every month or every three months and they don’t require a special company to come and make the switch. Any employee can switch out the silicon edge graphics. Airports, train and bus stations, sports venues and auditoriums have all moved in this direction.
The graphics they want to hang around their venues are usually so large that printed vinyl just wouldn’t work. They are too heavy to hang from the ceiling. Fabric makes that side of things much easier, says Michael Maxwell, senior manager marketing and business development at Mimaki USA, Inc. in Atlanta.
The move to SEG is making it hard for sign shops that rely on installation charges or bucket truck rental fees to make ends meet, he says. Mimaki is uniquely positioned in the grand-format textile printing industry because it offers all of the different textile printing techniques, including sublimation, solvent, UV curable and textile pigment.
The company assesses each client’s business to make sure the printer chosen fits the 80/20 rule. If 80 percent of a shop’s business is geared toward one product line, they should purchase the printer that helps them achieve that.
“If they are coming from a cut vinyl traditional, very small printing scenario, then they should look at solvent and latex where those two give them the ability to continue to manufacture on vinyl and things they are comfortable with,” Maxwell says. “If they are coming from textile sublimation, display graphics and backlits, then they’ve already got stuff in place that would give them the ability to branch into vinyl graphics.”
He points out that there isn’t just one answer to the question of what type of printer to buy.
If a large sign shop would like the flexibility of being able to print trade show graphics, they should look at UV curable, solvent or latex technology “to give them that flexibility to go into soft signage and [continue to] manufacture things that are at the core of their business,” Maxwell says. “We’re able to steer customers in many different directions, not just funnel them into one specific technology.”
When a company moves into grand-format textile printing, it means they can produce more at a faster speed. If the company is printing mostly flags, they can use the grand-format textile printer to double up on the print orders, meaning they can print three to four times faster than smaller machines.
Shops also need to align with a company that doesn’t just sell them a printer.
“There’s a lot that goes into being able to produce … good color consistently, roll to roll, batch to batch, job to job,” says EFI’s Wozny. “That provides a significant competitive advantage once you have that knowledge. The quicker you have that, the quicker you have a competitive advantage in the market.”
He adds that shops should not ignore the finishing side of the business.
“When you are printing 8,000 square feet per hour, you can produce quite a large amount of material,” he says. That means shop owners need to spend just as much time investigating the backside options as they spend looking into which textile printer to buy.
The margins in grand-format are still fairly healthy because not everyone is doing it, Wozny says. As long as companies utilize their grand-format machine 10 to 15 percent of the time, they can still make money.
“We were one of the early ones to get into this market and help drive its acceptance,” says Wozny. “With our purchase of Reggiani, we see this as a significant market opportunity.” |
