Brian Walker kicks off a new series of articles looking at how garment decorators can profit from the latest direct-to-garment digital printing technology. Here, he provides a general introduction to the DTG process: what it can do, and what it can’t…
Over the past two years the sound has been getting louder and louder; the buzz has almost become deafening; it is the sound of digital garment printing.
Digital garment printing, otherwise known as inkjet garment printing (IGP) or direct to garment (DTG) printing, has made a rapid entrance onto the garment decorating stage. You can think of the inkjet garment printer as a document printer on steroids. Printing directly from any professional graphics program, these printers employ either a water-based or solvent based ink system to decorate the garment just
as your desktop inkjet printer prints the artwork on a piece of paper. The inks still need to be cured – either using a heat transfer press or conveyor dryer just like plastisol inks – but the process of printing is more condensed and much simpler.
Whether you screen print, embroider, sublimate, make signs, or do other types of embellishment, inkjet garment printing is going to change the face of the garment printing and promotional products business, and how we make money. The big question is not ‘if’ you are going to eventually go digital, but ‘when’ you are going to go digital.
What DTG really is… and is not
Let’s first take a look at what digital garment printing is not…
DTG is not going to completely replace screen printing (at least not yet). “
It is not the silver bullet everyone wishes they had to solve their every printing problem.
It is not a large production solution.
It is not the Holy Grail for garment decorators.
However, what DTG is, and what it can contribute to your business, is truly the exciting part of how this technology will help to shape the future of garment decoration.
DTG is a great way for you to do full colour prints on limited run shirts and make a great profit, as compared with the traditional screen printing process.
It is a great way to offer your customers jobs that normally would have been either too highly priced or not feasible to have run, allowing you to manufacture what the customer needs and put money into your pocket.
DTG takes up a very small footprint compared to traditional screen printing, raising the potential of reduced fixed overheads.
It is one of the fastest growing segments of the apparel decorating industry. And over the next several years, DTG is going to become even more prevalent in the marketplace forcing those that do not have the technology either into purchasing the equipment or losing more market share to their competition who are employing digital garment printing.
No mess
Imagine a world where anything you create on your computer, you can print onto a garment – within minutes. No limitations on the number of colours; no problems with shading or moiré; no more worrying about the correct screen lines, angles and shape of the halftone dots; no printing film positives; no coating with emulsion or capillary .lms; no screen drying time; no more exposing and developing the stencil, taping out, inking the screens, registering the screens; no pinholes, no reclaiming, no chemicals – no mess.
In essence, digital garment printing is the absence of everything screen printing is, and yet it still achieves a finished printed garment. It is not just the freedom from the processes of traditional screen printing, but the expansion of creativity, as well as time and money savings, that have brought DTG to centre stage.
Imagine a scenario where a single job will be
screen printed and also produced using a digital
garment printer. The customer walks into your
shop and wants a 4-colour process design on
only 50 T-shirts. They give you their artwork on
a CD, which is ready to separate. With screen
printing you would need to prep the screens,
print the films, burn the screens, wash them
out, block out, tape out, register, print, de-ink,
reclaim. All of this takes several hours between
prep, setup, printing, and reclaiming. Printing the job digitally, however, you could easily
complete the job within an hour, or just a little
longer, without even getting your hands dirty.
Making the Monkeys
A friend of mine uses a play-on-words when referring to business and trying to turn a profit – he has dubbed it “Making the Monkeys” or “Making the Money”. Digital garment printing can be a very profitable way to make the monkeys.
Time is money and the only time we are really making money is when we are producing a finished product the customer will pay for. With DTG we can skip many of the traditional screen printing steps and go directly to the printing of the product for the customer. Also, when using the smaller single and dual platen DTG units a single operator can run the machine all day long with very little downtime in between jobs. Traditionally, in screen printing, even in the most ef.cient shops with the best automatic screen printing presses and teams working together, there will still be a fair amount of downtime in between tearing one job down and setting up the next job. This usually entails multiple personnel, which raises your per hour cost to produce a product. With digital, as quickly as you can print or RIP a new image to your digital garment printer you are back in the business of “making the monkeys”.
Real life
As I mentioned earlier, DTG is not going to replace screen printing as there are still many hurdles and obstacles that face this new technology. One of these is that a single digital machine is not going to be capable of matching the production of an automatic screen printing press. So, very large runs are still better suited to the traditional process. Even a single-colour design might be better printed manually rather than digitally, depending on the quantity of shirts to be printed.
Another reason why digital is not going to replace screen printing is that white ink, though currently being used, still remains a technical hurdle to be crossed. At this time, there are white inks available on the market for most however, and that work will bear fruit at some point. Until that time, the process of inkjet garment printing will not overtake screen printing as a whole - rather, it will add to the user’s arsenal of decorating techniques.
We added a DTG operation to our shop a little over a year ago. Since that time we have printed over 20,000 shirts on a single machine. Our profitability on these shirts has been extremely high, because of the cost and time-savings for the jobs we ran on it compared with trying to screen print the same jobs. Going digital has definitely changed the nature of our business the model and how we operate, and we have benefited from the versatility that inkjet garment printing offers to our customers. As a result, we are hearing a new sound in our shop: it is a constant buzz; it is the sound of our inkjet garment printer "making the monkeys".
IMAGES is published by: CN Publishing, 9a, Kings Road, Flitwick, Bedfordshire, MK45 1ED, England.
Tel: 01525 718890/717655
IMAGES website designed and hosted by Cyberscreen Internet Services
Brian Walker started in the industry in 1987 while still in high school, and shortly after opened his first screen printing business.
He graduated from the Ohio State University in 1994 with a BSBA in Business Administration/Transportation & Logistics.
While building his screen printing business he started the software company CD Tees Software, developer of the T-Quoter shop management software package. In 2005, he purchased his first DTG machine, for CD Tees (his screen printing and embroidery store front). The same year CD Tees was appointed as a distributor for the Brother GT-541.
Direct2Shirt.com is the company's digital sales side, which covers the sales of inkjet garment printers, supplies, transfer presses, conveyor dryers, inkjet printable films for screen printers, as well as other items.
Brian's company is also responsible for the fast growing DTG forums at www.inkjetgarmentprinters.comwhere people can find information on many of the digital garment printers on the market and keep up with the current trends in the industry.
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Most recent articles by Brian Walker:
Investing in Digital
Brian Walker offers some buying tips for businesses looking to invest in their first direct-to-garment digital
garment printer…
Profiting from Digital Printing
Brian Walker turns his attention to how garment decoration businesses can profit from adopting direct-to-garment digital printing technology.
Other articles that may be of interest:
Terry Coombs
Direct Digital printing versus Screen
Terry Coombs argues that the latest inkjet technology complements rather than threatens screenprinting.
SG Brand launches with BTC
SG is being launched in the UK following the merger with BTC activewear by Falk&Ross in March of this year. The merger allows BTC activewear to truly provide their customers with the very best support and service in the industry, and it now enables them to exclusively bring SG to you. With their mid-year CataList out now the BTC activewear team thought it was ideal timing to introduce the SG brand to the UK market.
So who is SG?
SG is the brand new clothing line from pan European distributor Falk&Ross and introduces a simple, clear and competitive clothing range to the UK market.
The perfect canvas is a simply great garment
Created by Steve Ross and Jacqui Gale, whose combined prowess in distribution and a brand development have already made it a definite recipe for success. Falk&Ross founder Steve is well known in the industry for leading the way in the distribution of products across Europe whilst Jacqui has a proven history in creating and developing strong brand awareness across a host of household and industry names.
Having seen that there was a need for a new brand, a brand that had experience of what customers wanted, an understanding of the quality required for decoration today and met the current market and customer needs of being competitively priced, SG was created. Focusing on a range of core products including Tee’s, Polo’s, Sweats, Hoodies and Fleece, SG’s offering is simple; garments for men, ladies and kids with colours and sizing consistent throughout.
Steve comments "We want our customers to have choice; choice of brands, of products, of colours so we can meet all their needs. With the acquisition of BTC activewear we are now able work with an experienced and dynamic UK distributor who puts the customer first with logistics, stock, customer service and product offering – all the things that the Falk&Ross brand stands for. And by introducing SG we bring a high quality garment at a competitive price. We’re using our market experience to offer better quality and better value."
The brand has a uniquely open approach. Via their website www.sg-clothing.com they welcome people to share their views on the product, marketing or anything really by emailing any member of the team. They see themselves, together with BTC activewear as working towards becoming true partners with customers, so they bring you the very best products, sales help, marketing support, stock availability and delivery. And with the first 6 months under their belts’, SG has a right to be excited, having seen a fantastic uptake within the market, with the SG15, lightweight t-shirt available in 20 colours doubling their expectations.
Steve Pope, Joint Managing Director of BTC activewear says, "We are extremely excited to join forces with the strongest continental distributor, and to be able to bring SG to the UK market, offering a meeting of like-minded organizations with a passion to deliver the best support and service to our customers"
For more information on the brands' product range and to get to know them a bit better, feel free to visit www.sg-clothing.com, www.btcactivewear.co.uk or request the BTC activewear CataList by emailing c10@btcactivewear.co.uk.
They love hearing from customers and so invite you to directly email them at hello@sg-clothing.com with any comments, questions or just to say hello!
SG is fully committed to promoting ethical standards in all of its factories and fully endorses the WRAP programme. All clothing is also produced in accordance with Oeko-Tex which sets stringent standards on all substances used during the manufacturing process.
SG Brand launches with BTC
SG is being launched in the UK following the merger with BTC activewear by Falk&Ross in March of this year. The merger allows BTC activewear to truly provide their customers with the very best support and service in the industry, and it now enables them to exclusively bring SG to you. With their mid-year CataList out now the BTC activewear team thought it was ideal timing to introduce the SG brand to the UK market.
So who is SG?
SG is the brand new clothing line from pan European distributor Falk&Ross and introduces a simple, clear and competitive clothing range to the UK market.
The perfect canvas is a simply great garment
Created by Steve Ross and Jacqui Gale, whose combined prowess in distribution and a brand development have already made it a definite recipe for success. Falk&Ross founder Steve is well known in the industry for leading the way in the distribution of products across Europe whilst Jacqui has a proven history in creating and developing strong brand awareness across a host of household and industry names.
Having seen that there was a need for a new brand, a brand that had experience of what customers wanted, an understanding of the quality required for decoration today and met the current market and customer needs of being competitively priced, SG was created. Focusing on a range of core products including Tee’s, Polo’s, Sweats, Hoodies and Fleece, SG’s offering is simple; garments for men, ladies and kids with colours and sizing consistent throughout.
Steve comments "We want our customers to have choice; choice of brands, of products, of colours so we can meet all their needs. With the acquisition of BTC activewear we are now able work with an experienced and dynamic UK distributor who puts the customer first with logistics, stock, customer service and product offering – all the things that the Falk&Ross brand stands for. And by introducing SG we bring a high quality garment at a competitive price. We’re using our market experience to offer better quality and better value."
The brand has a uniquely open approach. Via their website www.sg-clothing.com they welcome people to share their views on the product, marketing or anything really by emailing any member of the team. They see themselves, together with BTC activewear as working towards becoming true partners with customers, so they bring you the very best products, sales help, marketing support, stock availability and delivery. And with the first 6 months under their belts’, SG has a right to be excited, having seen a fantastic uptake within the market, with the SG15, lightweight t-shirt available in 20 colours doubling their expectations.
Steve Pope, Joint Managing Director of BTC activewear says, "We are extremely excited to join forces with the strongest continental distributor, and to be able to bring SG to the UK market, offering a meeting of like-minded organizations with a passion to deliver the best support and service to our customers"
For more information on the brands' product range and to get to know them a bit better, feel free to visit www.sg-clothing.com, www.btcactivewear.co.uk or request the BTC activewear CataList by emailing c10@btcactivewear.co.uk.
They love hearing from customers and so invite you to directly email them at hello@sg-clothing.com with any comments, questions or just to say hello!
SG is fully committed to promoting ethical standards in all of its factories and fully endorses the WRAP programme. All clothing is also produced in accordance with Oeko-Tex which sets stringent standards on all substances used during the manufacturing process.
