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While this prediction by Smithers Pira is aggressive, it’s certainly within the realm of possibility, and the firm has done its homework. As the price of digital textile printing falls, and the quality and customizability of these products continue to rise, you can expect to see a giant boom in this market segment in the next half decade and beyond as growth levels off but continues to rise steadily.
The digital garment printing industry is starting to make its stamp within the larger printing industry. It has enjoyed significant growth in recent years and it looks set to grow even further in the future. Smithers Pira predicts double digit growth across 2016-2021, and is therefore making the digital textile printing one of the most exciting market opportunities in the print and textile industry.
The company’s new report, The Future of Digital Textile Printing to 2021, forecasts an average annual growth rate of 12.3 per cent and expects the global market to more than double in value over the next five years, from nearly $2 billion in 2016 to more than $4 billion in 2021 (all figures in Canadian dollars). The soft signage and display materials sector is expected to maintain double-digit growth during that period, but the largest increase is expected in the clothing and household textile sector. This rapid and lucrative market expansion is being fuelled by a series of factors, including technical innovations and evolving end-user demands. The market in 2016 for the digital textiles market share was about 2.8% of the overall print volume. But the digital print share is set to boom in a segment where the mean growth is just 3%.
According to the Smithers Pira report, “The greatest acceleration across the study period will be in clothing, which has the key sub-segments of fashion, haute couture and sportswear. Household textiles are predicted to grow at the next fastest rate. Displays and signage are growing somewhat more slowly – from a larger base – but will maintain double digit annual growth across the Smithers study period, which will convert into the largest absolute increase in value for 2016-2021. Technical textiles will lose ground slightly, which is indicative of a lack of visibility of, or focus on, these smaller niche markets.”
Mike Horsten, GM of Marketing at Mimaki EMEA says, “There is a big change happening in textile printing. This is being driven by a number of factors, including the advancements in digital textile printers and inks, as well as the demand for shorter runs, faster cycle times and more customized textile-based products for home and fast fashion. Digital textile printing addresses these market requirements and offers a new, greener way to produce outstanding textiles.”
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Other factors
Quick turnaround is an increasing priority as the fashion segment embraces multiple mini-seasons and print-on-demand delivery models, said the report. This specifically suits inkjet production with its reduced set-up times. It’s also supported by the growing availability of web-to-print platforms. These portals are also enabling “value web” approaches – generating direct online sales of digitally printed clothing, and increasingly household décor as well. Finally, global textile industry dynamics are changing and the importance of Asian economies continues to increase.
Digital textile printing inks contribute to dynamic industry growth
Digital textile printing methods have contributed to an emergent industry and its growth has augmented the progress of the digital textile printing inks market. The inks that are used on small garments as well as on large format rolls of textiles have earned widespread popularity across various applications. The increase in the demand for 3D printing technologies has also boosted the market for digital textile printing inks, whether for clothing, household technical textiles, or displays. The development of various fashion trends has also augmented the growth of this market.
The global digital textile printing inks market was evaluated at $698 million in 2016. It is further expected to reach the impressive figure of $2.114 million by 2023. According to Allied Market Research, this would happen with a projected CAGR of 17.2% in the forecast period. The industry is expected to grow at a swift pace, owing to the rise in the number of investments by top market players. Moreover, the R&D projects that focus on better, cost-effective digital textile printing ink formulations are expected to provide ample growth opportunities for the entire market.
The future of fashion, according to Epson, is all about customization – from the prints and colors we choose to wear, to indeed the size and shape that best suits us.
Tie together digital printing, a bit of artificial intelligence and some robotics on the end, and it’s a vision that’s not too far off, which is precisely what the technology company is hoping to help make possible on all accounts.
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Fabric is printed on a larger printer at Spoonflower in Durham which gives designers the freedom to turn their own designs into custom textiles. Israel Schwartzberg
Digital fabric printing is one of the hottest new trends in the fashion industry. And the Triangle is at the forefront of this trend with facilities such as N.C. State’s new digital textile printing lab and Durham’s Spoonflower, a company that produces custom fabrics through digital printing techniques.
The new printers offer an alternative to traditional screen printing, which can be a costly process.
Bringing custom printing to consumers
Durham fabric producer Spoonflower (spoonflower.com) utilizes similar digital printing technology to create custom textiles (along with wallpaper and gift wrap) for designers and pretty much anyone else who’d like to create their own fabrics. The company allows customers to upload digital images – anything from photographs to original sketches or paintings – choose their fabric type and have their design produced in the quantity they need, from a yard to hundreds of yards.
EASY-TO-USE, AFFORDABLE SERVICES LIKE SPOONFLOWER ALLOW BUDDING DESIGNERS TO PUT THEIR STAMP ON THE FABRIC ITSELF, AS WELL AS ON THE DESIGN OF THE GARMENTS THEY PRODUCE. THE GREAT BENEFIT OF ALL THAT IS THAT THE INDUSTRY BECOMES MORE DIVERSE, AND CONSUMERS HAVE MORE CHOICES ABOUT HOW THEY CHOOSE TO EXPRESS THEMSELVES THROUGH FASHION.
Stephen Fraser, co-founder of fabric producer Spoonflower
Stephen Fraser, who co-founded Spoonflower in 2008, says digital printing allows designers to take creative risks at a minimal cost, both moneywise and timewise.
“The biggest impact that digital printing has had for designers has been to allow an unprecedented amount of experimentation,” he says. “Before digital fabric printing services came along, creating a unique fabric was difficult and expensive. But because a digital process does not require any minimum order, designers are free to create and print as many designs as they like, with far fewer limitations in terms of color and design. This has the effect of expanding both the number of designs available, and also the pool of artists who are experimenting with fabric design as a medium.”
“It’s important to be able to clearly communicate our end result and do it quickly,” says Hilder. “A consumer is used to fast fashion and quick turnarounds, so to be able to get it quickly is very important.”
That speed is even more critical in a time when Internet sales are increasing and product demand is higher than ever.
“What’s really changing our industry right now is Internet sales,” says Chapman. “In stores, they can pretty much predict the amount of goods they need to produce, but with online, it’s very hard to predict what they’ll need year to year. Trying to predict that is really going to be a challenge going forward, and everyone’s looking at technology as a way to respond to that.”
Digital textile printing also helps eliminate the middleman, so to speak, giving designers the ability to control the production process.
“One of the issues that’s always frustrating with designers is the design and production process are always very separated, and a lot of times the designer has to compromise their design, and concepts of their design are lost in the production process,” says Chapman. “With digital printing, the design and production are the same; the designer is creating the production, as well.”
“All the mishaps that can happen when you have cultural and language barriers when you design something in New York and you’re having it produced in Taiwan or Europe – there’s a lot that can be missed in translation. There’s also a lot of time involved when the designer sends their design over and then production produces a sample, and then there’s a lot of back and forth; with digital there’s none of that.”
But perhaps most of all, digital fabric printing has helped to level the playing field in fashion, making the industry more accessible for emerging designers who are trying to break into the business and get their clothing into the marketplace.
“Just as it has in music, video and other content forms, the digital revolution makes the world of design much more democratic,” says Fraser. “Easy-to-use, affordable services like Spoonflower allow budding designers to put their stamp on the fabric itself, as well as on the design of the garments they produce. The great benefit of all that is that the industry becomes more diverse, and consumers have more choices about how they choose to express themselves through fashion.”
http://www.newsobserver.com/living/fashion/article50039470.html
https://vimeo.com/131786000?from=outro-embed
It’s already possible to use tiny granules of glass in a powder bed with conventional 3-D printing techniques like jetting and sintering, but the products turn out opaque. Now researchers at MIT have demonstrated the first-ever machine that can print molten glass through a nozzle and make transparent glass objects layer by layer according to digital instructions.
The most challenging aspect of printing glass is that it must happen at extremely high temperatures. To flow well enough to be extruded through a nozzle, the material must be kept at a temperature greater than 1000 °C.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/540926/3-d-printing-breaks-the-glass-barrier/