Durability and longevity

OPG’s Alan Watson agrees that key to his company’s testing process will be careful attention paid to the durability and longevity of his Designjet’s fabric output.

"What we’ve got to watch is that we don’t oversell the technology at this stage," he says. "The prints look good and I wouldn’t imagine they’re going to fade overnight. But I don’t know whether they would be as colour-fast or durable as pieces printed with a dye-sub or screen machine, when put though a washing machine twice a week."

Peter Onyskiw, technical director at large-format printers Service Graphics, agrees that latex printing might not be ideal for products washed on a regular basis. Hence, printers wishing to pursue the home interiors market might be best advised, he says, to focus on items which will hang on the homeowner’s wall, with minimal interference from children, dogs, spillages and general wear-and-tear.

"I turned up at my niece’s house recently and she showed me her two sons’ picture printed on a canvas as a pop art type piece," says Onyskiw. "She was really pleased with that, and certainly paid good money for it."

Affordable and attractive

If HP and OPG are proved right and latex technology is fit for home interiors, be that of the hanging out-of-the-way variety or a more hands-on product, this willingness to pay for a product is encouraging. If you take a wall hanging product, while a consumer’s budget may not stretch to a dye-sub or screen-printed canvas, a latex printed piece will be much more affordable and so attractive to the customer.

But while Designjet and JV400 owners can produce wall hangings more cheaply than those using a dedicated fabric printer, will this attract enough business to make some decent money for printers? Printers need to assess whether their technology is up to the job of catering for consumers, but must also have a viable business strategy for this.

Barney Cox, senior consultant at document technology strategy and consulting firm InfoTrends – an organisation about to embark on research into what textile opportunities exist for digital fabric printers –  says that just because a printer can do something, it doesn’t necessarily mean they should.

He says that, although targeting the fine art canvas market might seem a good idea, it is in fact already saturated by the likes of wall art and card suppliers The Art Group.

Cox reveals that printers keen to cash in on the quality of their prints being good enough for consumer products would be better advised to confine their efforts to the UK’s burgeoning personalised photo printing market. Cox warns, though, that even this market requires a completely different mindset to traditional print selling.

"There are a huge number of issues around your order processing and web-to-print setup," he explains. "You have to think: are actually you set up to deal with lots of small value orders? Are you set up to deal with the fact that consumers may send less than optimum files, where you may have to fix problems with colours?"

Marketing straight to consumers can also be costly, he says. For this reason, it is key to consider whether you can afford online marketing and website optimisation. The best solution to the how-to-market-to-consumers conundrum, says Cox, is partnering with companies who already sell to them.

"I think working with local art shops or picture framers who want to offer photo canvases might be the best opportunity for digital printers," says Cox. "Maybe the local high street company has a machine that’s printing onto board at the moment – if you offer a wider range of materials, there could be an opportunity there."

Printers like OPG, though, obviously feel that narrowing their efforts solely to the photo canvas market is a tad premature. And HP certainly thinks the machine is capable of more. Other latex machine manufacturers, along with manufacturers of different digital technologies, may believe both HP and OPG are a tad optimistic regarding the Designjet’s abilities. Likewise, the business case for moving into consumer might not be without problems.

But clearly there is unquestionable potential for digital machines to move in the consumer textiles direction, be it now as some believe or in the future as technology evolves.