Abstract
This paper is a part of a broader research into textile design technology and trends across the world and their reflection on the local Ghanaian textile industry. It places conventional manual screen printing and digital textile printing technologies side by side and discusses the various drawbacks of screen printing as against the advantages of digital textile printing to illustrate a path for a wider consideration of the latter in Ghanaian small to medium scale textile production. Short-run textile printing commissions are the main source of jobs for small to medium scale textile producers in Ghana. And manual screen printing is the main process employed by these small-scale textile printers. However, screen printing has various layers of limitations such as poor registration of the design, stains, pinholes, colour correctness, colour consistency, colour smear, dye migration, scorching, improper curing, amongst others. These layers of limitations negatively affect the overall outcome of the prints. So, as it stands now, short-run textile printing commissions are either produced manually, of course, with several inconsistencies or outsourced to China and other countries at a higher production cost. This is because, the large-scale textile factories in Ghana could print a minimum of 2400 yards due to their machine settings, calibration and running cost to make the least returns. This study highlights some of the milestones in the development of digital textiles print machines and examines some of the key aspects of their tremendous production aptitudes for short-run textile commissions. The case study research method is used because data comes largely from documentation, archival records, interviews and physical artefacts.
 Keywords: Textile Design, Digital Textile Printing, Screen Printing, Short-run Prints.
Highlights
This study is an exploratory exercise into the realm of Digital Textiles Printing that primarily seeks to make a case for the consideration of technology to revolutionalise textile printing by small to medium scale textile printers in Ghana
As mentioned earlier in the methodology, semistructured interviews were conducted to ascertain the level of knowledge of digital textile printing amongst small to medium scale textile printers in six regions of Ghana
The digital textile printing market was given a further boost in production levels with the introduction of the first ‘single pass’ production machine, using the Kyocera KJ4B print heads by MS of Italy in 2012, the MS LaRio machines which have production speeds up to 75 linear metres per minute
Summary
The study seeks to give a background and trigger discourse in the area of digital textile printing and to raise awareness of its production potential. Digital textile printing is a generic term used to describe all methods of printing where a digitised image is transferred onto the substrate (Bowles and Isaacs, 2011). Piezoelectric DOD inkjet technology is currently the primary method for digital printing of textiles. As the most significant advance in fabric printing technology since the invention of the silk screen, digital textile printing is bringing about a revolution in textile design. According to Anand and Horrock (2004), the latest advance in textile printing can be attributed to the introduction of digital inkjet printing machines, capable of printing fabrics up to 2m in width using acid, reactive or disperses dye ink set. The fabric is normally pretreated and placed in the machine in role
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
