What is DGP?
There are many terms – Direct to Garment Printing, Direct to Textile, Digital Garment Printing. The terms may change but the basic assumptions are the same. An ink jet style printer is used to print textile ink directly onto a shirt or any garment. This method is contrary to other methods of t-shirt printing which may be considered non-direct. The main stay: screen printing is not necessarily a direct method of printing, since a a screen is needed to create the image that is printed on to the shirt. There is also heat-transfer printing. Again, this is a non-direct printing method since the ink is printed onto paper first and the image is then transferred to the shirt by heat pressing the paper on the shirt.
When?
Direct Garment Printing has been around for many years. Some of the early machines were manufactured by Kornit and Mimaki. These machines cost tens of thousands of dollars. Circa, 2004 US Screen (now USSPIT) developed some direct garment inks and converted the Epson 2200 printer into a Direct to Garment Printer. Initially the system, branded the T-jet, had 7 colors – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black, Light Cyan, Light Magenta, and Light Black. The same colors as the original Epson 2200. This printer was only capable of printing on white and light colored shirts, since there was no white ink to be used as an underbase. The T-jet created a stir in the industry due to its price. A DGP machine now cost less than $15000. In the Autumn of 2005 USSPIT started selling an upgrade to the T-jet, which had white ink and allowed for printing to dark colored shirts. The Light Cyan, Light Magenta and Light Black were replaced by white ink. This development spawned an era in which many machines based on the Epson 2200 came to market. A list of other machines can be found here.
Second Generation?
Between 2005 and 2007 many Direct Garment Printing machines came to market. Some machines got larger and printed more shirts in one run. Some added features, such as printing to non-textile items, such as golf balls and tiles.
Where to Next?
Where will the DGP market go next? One would think that as more people start to print and more machines are sold and more competitors enter the marketplace the machine prices would decline. However, as September 2007, the T-jet3 is $16000. This machine has many improvements form the earlier T-jet. But it is still based on an Epson printer, although the inks have improved. What is the magic price that will drive every mom-and-pop shop to buy a direct-garment-printing machine? Is it $10000? Is it $8000? Maybe $5000? Who will be the next disrupter in the marketplace.
