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Direct To Garment Ink Jet VS. Screen Printing
As manufactures of Screen Printing Equipment we have noticed an increase in our Screen Printing equipment sales across the board in every product category including Printers, Dryers, Exposure Units, Flash dryers and RETEN Frames. How could this be if Direct To Garment Ink Jet printing is taking the market by storm? The answer is simple…DTG printing (Direct to Garment ink jet) does not cover all the production needs in the textile print shop.DTG printing certainly fills a niche in both screen print and embroidery shops, but there will always be a need for a screen printed design just as there will always be a need for an embroidered embellishment. We recognize DTG garment printing as a new and exciting method to decorate finished garments and clearly this technology is here to stay, but the versatility that screen printing offers is hard to beat when you consider the fact that your customer can purchase a small start up Screen Print shop for under 8k that is capable of printing on dark garments, nylon jackets, team jerseys and offer special effect printing like glitter, suede, and puff ink designs that are not currently an option with DTG Printing.
It is important when selling DTG Equipment or Screen Printing equipment to evaluate your customer’s needs and help them make the right equipment purchase to meet their production needs. If money was no object it would be ideal to sell a start up garment decorator both technologies so they could print short run jobs that are restrictive to screen printing on the DTG printer, and have the flexibility to print dark garments or large quantity jobs with the screen print method. There will be circumstances in retail environments where the DTG printer is the best choice due to space restrictions, but in a factory type setting textile Screen Printing still offers the best speed, and versatility for the garment decorator. Textile screen printing is still a growing market and will be around for decades to come and DTG printing is here to stay as HIX embraces the new digital technology by offering a wide range of Ink Jet curing options including the Heat press and Conveyor dryer curing methods. Stop by the HIX booth at SGIA 2008 in Atlanta October 15-18, 2008 (Booth # 1103) to see our complete line of screen printing equipment and to view our new cutting edge DTG ink jet curing technology to be introduced to the industry for the first time! See you there! |
