While you might immediately see a list of Asian manufacturers of inkjet printers from China, Japan and Korea in your mind's eye when you think of digital printing, the truth is the story began a long time before machinery had even been invented.

Printing has its origins in that faraway mystical land of China, or the Middle Kingdom as it is still known today by the Chinese. While the word "printing" itself automatically conjures up an image of the printed word on a paper substrate, surprisingly enough it was actually textile printing, first developed in China more than 2000 years ago, that spawned what has become a massive, all pervasive, and increasingly digital, industrial behemoth.

The earliest form of printing developed was therefore woodblock printing, a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in ancient times as a method of printing on textiles and later paper.

As a method of printing on cloth, the earliest surviving examples from China date to before 220. Ukiyo-e is the best known Japanese version of the technique. Even our precious tartan is not what we thought it was - it turns out the world's oldest swatch of that quintessentially Scottish design was actually excavated in China. Tartan-like leggings were found on the "Cherchen Man", a 3,000 year-old mummy found in the Taklamakan Desert in western China. Is nothing sacred?

I guess the question we all want an answer to is what exactly is digital printing and what relevance does it have for us in the garment decoration industry?

Digital printing is the reproduction of digital images on a physical surface. It is generally used for short print runs, and for the customisation or personalisation of print media. Every print can be different, because printing plates are not required, as in traditional methods. Because there is much less initial setup, it is very cost effective for small print runs. Digital Printing is used for personalised printing, or variable data printing  (VDP) as well as print on demand for small quantities.

In the garment decoration industry, this basically translates into a direct-to-garment (DTG) digital printer, often simply referred to as an ink jet printer. DTG digital garment printing involves the use of a highly modified inkjet print head with specially formulated garment inks which are heat set with a heat press or tunnel dryer.

Unlike screen-printing, DTG output does not require separations, films and screens. Once your artwork is ready on the computer it is output directly on to the garment. Because of the lack of steps required for DTG, short run orders can be quickly and economically produced in a seemingly infinite number of colours.  RSK Tech was quick to incorporate as many features as possible into their online designer RSK NetShirt to fully exploit the benefits of digital printing.

By its very nature, the online designer is the perfect tool to access the growing market for small fast turnaround custom print runs. Like DTG Printing, RSK NetShirt takes a lot of the steps out of ordering customer designed orders. No phone calls, no quotes, no shop visits; simply enter the online store, select a garment, add your design, pay and go.

The design tool allows for text fonts and logos to be added straight to the printable region of the garment in fully adjustable format so that it is possible to simply click and drag on the text or image box to make the text or image as large or as small as you wish.

Similarly, the user can change the colour at will from a virtually unlimited number of colours available in the colour palette that are fully reproducible by the ink jet printer. Added to that, a full range of text effects such as outlines, italics, curved text, etc, can also be applied to the design and stretched or shrunk at will.

In addition to allowing the shop owner to pre-load a complete library of stock art, graphics and logos, the power of digital printing has also allowed us to incorporate an upload button into the designer that allows the end user to upload hi res graphics or even photographs directly from his laptop or PC.

With the advent of white ink for DTG printers a whole new marketplace for short run and custom dark shirts has developed that is virtually impossible to address with any other form of garment imprinting methods. Adding the white underlay is of course more expensive, however this can be accommodated for in the specially designed digital printing pricing module in the software's back end admin tool.

Using a digital printer also means that it is possible to print the finished design directly from the order confirmation by simply downloading the print ready PNG file and running it straight on the DTG printer with no further intervention or processing. And since no actual set up or changeover is required between individual print runs, it is possible to produce very cost-effectively, let's say 11 team shirts, each with their own individual player name and number, and even apply a volume discount. Once again, this is easy to set in the admin tool.

The Business Plus version of the software even allows you to set up multiple subsidiary stores under the same licence at no extra cost to fully exploit the full potential of a multiple niche marketing strategy based on very small custom print runs in a variety of associated niche markets. So it is in fact possible to create a separate online shop for each individual team or member club of an association, etc.

The net result is that combining RSK NetShirt with a DTG print solution allows you to set up an online store that can offer a range of options from work wear to team wear and from stag and hen shirts to fashion designs where your customers can design and order their own T shirts with the look and feel of a high street label, but with their own personal touch and completely unique appearance.

Taking things a stage further, embroidery can even be added to the equation using our recently-launched embroidery add-on for the perfect finishing touch. So all we need now is something borrowed and something blue and, between RSK NetShirt and DTG digital printing we've a marriage made in Heaven.

For more information on the RSK Tech range of custom decoration designer solutions, call 0800 043 8518 email sales@rsktech.com or visit www.rsktech.com

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