This is our whopping 3.2m wide heatpress that transfers the image from transfer paper to any synthetic fabric up to 3.2 meters wide. We put this to use mainly for large textile banners and signage especially for high quality exhibition graphics. Soft signage is becoming ever increasingly popular due to the ease of packing and transport. It is light and can be easily folded for packing getting around the need to ship heavy large rolls of media.
DYE SUBLIMATION PRINTING - SYNTHETICS
We print on a wide range of synthetic fabrics. Even carpets!
Soft Signage – Exhibition Graphics – Flags and Banners
Home Furnishing – Sportswear & Fashion
Dye-sublimation printing is the preffered digital printing technology for polyester and other synthetic fabrics and media.
(It does not work on cotton or natural fabrics)
The process uses the science of sublimation, in which heat and pressure are applied to a solid, turning it into a gas through an endothermic reaction without passing through the liquid phase. The image is first printed to a special transfer paper. It it then feed through a high pressure roller heat-press which effectively turns the ink in the paper to a gas. The polymer molecules of the polyester or other synthetic fabrics softens under the heat. It “opens up” on a molecular level. The ink which has now turned to gas is transferred INTO the fabric structure which then closes up when combined with the ink.
Once transferred on the heat-press the printed and transferred fabric goes to our finishing dept. for any finishing that needs to be performed before the textile is delivered and put to work.
Sublimation is terrific Lycra/Spandex and other sportswear fabrics.
Gustav Klimt Roman Blinds in our offices – sublimated onto poly-twill
Sublimation onto synthetics is perfect for inflatables like this delightful castle from Airspace
Hot of the press graphics for Potluck Restaurant.
This is where it gets serious! Giant exhibition panels sublimated onto polytwill for a CTICC exhibition.
It is also great for hard wearing upholstery applications – Custom chairs for Gate 69
FAQ's
With digital textile printing there is no limit to the amount of colours you can use at no extra cost. The inks allow for a palette of over 17 million colours! (Black and White printing costs the same as full colour)
A major plus of digital textile printing is there are no minimums. We can print as little as one meter! (Please note there is a setup charge of R250 on orders less than 5m).
And we can print up to 000’s of meters with terrific volume discounts. Be sure to enquire …
Digital printing is a whole lot quicker than traditional processes. Generally we like to offer a 7 working day turnaround but this depends on current workloads. If you have pressing deadlines we may under certain conditions be able to expedite your order to a shorter turn-around. (This is at our discretion and a surcharge may apply)
Yes – Our digitally printed fabrics are wash-fast. Sublimation onto synthetic fabrics is particularly washfast while our Pigment printing onto natural fabrics benefit from a more gentle wash and drying for optimal colour retention. Please require at the time of printing on the best care instructions for your fabric and ink type.
We can work with most file formats but ideally your art should be supplied as a RGB Tiff or Jpeg at a minimum 150 dpi at the print size. We don’t need more than 150 DPI in order to give you a great result by the way!
We can accept large files via the web. You can email file sup to 20MB via email. Please use Wetransfer for files over 20MB. (www.wetransfer.com/)
Our pricing off our price-list does include printing and the fabric. Where clients supply their own fabric only the print charge is applicable and great savings are possible.
If your design is a seamless repeatable panel you do not have to do the repeat yourself. We can do endless repeats at the print stage. Simply ensure that your repeatable graphic is to the correct size – we will do the rest!
N.B. It is the responsibility of the client to ensure all artwork supplied to be repeated is 100% accurately set-up to repeat seamlessly. Artlab will not be liable for repeats that do not tile accurately from art supplied by the customer.
At ArtLab all our printing processes are calibrated to the highest industry standards. However – textile printing is DIFFICULT (otherwise everyone would be doing it!) and there are a number of variables involved right down to air temperature and humidity that can affect colour from one batch to another. Various batches of fabric have different cellulose content and other chemicals and factors involved that means there are often batch to batch variations. While our colour matching is generally world class, it must be accepted that there could be variances from screen and from batch to batch.
We do not warrant or agree to undertake any absolute colour matching. Especially to clients monitor colour. (which is meaningless unless the screen has been properly calibrated to a set standard).
We are happy to supply a Pantone chart at a nominal charge on the fabric of your choice for best possible colour matching purposes.
(We also offer a monitor calibration service to help your monitor more closely match printed output. Enquire for details.)