If you’re googling fabric printing companies because you’re looking for a company in the UK to print fabrics for you, we’ve written this post to help you to understand a bit about the different kinds of UK fabric printing companies, and also to help you determine whether we’re the right kind of fabric printing company for you.
Please Note – any reference to lead times are a correct estimate at the time the article was published. Lead times are always estimated and never guaranteed, and for our current estimated lead times see: lead times & deadlines.
Fabric printing has been an industry in the UK for a long time, and Meshtex have been involved in this industry since the early 70’s.
Back then, fabric was printed via screen only, either flat silk screen, or rotary screen, there was no such thing as digital textile printing in the 70’s of course.
We got involved in digital fabric printing in the late 1990’s, but at this point digital was being used mainly for very small production, and for sampling, it wasn’t yet a commercially viable process, mainly due to the cost of digital fabric printing at that time.
Things have developed for digital printing over the years, and it’s now very much a commercially viable process for textiles, with some very specific advantages over screen printing.
But the fabric printing market has evolved, and there have become various different types of fabric printing companies – which leads us to the main point of this article, which is the three main things to consider when looking for digital fabric printing companies.
Digital Fabric Printing Companies – Three Things to Consider.
1: Do you need a digital fabric printer, or a traditional screen printer?
The first thing to answer when you’re looking for information on fabric printing companies, is whether you’re looking for traditional, screen printing – or digital fabric printing. The reason for this is simply that although there are some exceptions, most printing firms are either digital or traditional, rather than doing both.
If you’re not sure whether screen printing or digital printing would suit your designs best, the main things to consider is volume, number of colours and repeat size.
When it comes to fabric printing, we only print digitally, however we still work within the traditional printing industry, as we offer colour separation services and rotary screen engraving for many of the UK’s leading printing firms, so we’re not biased towards digital printing.
Volume
Although screen printing is generally regarded as a less expensive process, this is only truly the case for higher volume printing. For smaller volumes, digital printing is generally cheaper per metre once all costs are taken into consideration.
With screen printing there are set up costs for the screen creation, and you’ll need a screen for each colour in the design, so the more colours, the more expensive the set up will be.
The smaller the volume, the higher your printing costs are going to be, not only because most printers have a sliding scale cost based on volume, but also because when you’re ordering a smaller volume your setup charges are being divided by fewer metres.
For example if your setup charges are £500 and it’s a 50 metre print, then your setup charges alone work out at £10 per metre. You’ll then pay a cost per metre for the print and fabric in addition to the setup charges.
There are no set up costs for digital printing, well – we don’t charge any setup costs, anyway – some other digital printing companies may do, although still these charges are likely to be less than the cost of creating print screens.
So most people ordering in small volumes are going to find that digital fabric printing is the better option for them, unless of course the first small volume print is just a sample print and they’re planning on using these screens to produce much bigger volumes, at which point the total print price is likely to be competitive against digital.
Number of Colours
As you need a separate screen per colour, the number of colours in your design will determine the cost. Also, the number of colours in your design is going to be limited by the number of colours your chosen printer can work with. Some rotary screen printers use 4 colour machines, some use 8 colours or more.
One of the biggest benefits of printing fabrics digitally is that you’re completely unlimited when it comes to the number of colours in your design.
Repeat Size
When using a rotary screen printer, your design size is going to be limited to the screen circumference, so you’ll need to check with the printer what the max repeat size is.
Another benefit of digital printing is that your repeat design is practically unlimited, the only limit is the width of the fabric, which tends to be around 147cm (the maximum width we can print varies from fabric to fabric).
2: Do you need a web to print fabric printer, or a trade printer?
When you’re searching for info on fabric printing companies, it’s worth keeping in mind that not all printing firms are the same.
If you’re the end user, for instance you’re wanting to get some fabric printed for a project at home, then you’ll be looking for a web to print service. There are quite a few companies like this in the UK who would be perfect for you to order from if this describes you.
Using a web to print company, it’s all done online, you just upload your design, select what fabric you’d like, how much you need, then pay online and get your fabric delivered within a few days.
While services like this are great for retail customers, if you’re wanting to sell your fabric, or make your fabric into items to sell, or if you’re looking for someone to print fabric and make this fabric into textile product for you to sell (we do this too) then you’ll need to make a profit – which means you’ll need trade pricing.
If you look at the pricing of web to print companies offering digital fabric printing, and if you then email us for a price list, you will find that as a trade printer, our pricing is generally much lower.
If you’re starting a new business, or if you’re an artist or designer looking to add a new stream of income by selling printed fabric or products made with your printed fabric, you’re going to need trade pricing. You might go to a web to print firm for sampling purposes, as many people do, but after this, most trade customers would then look for a trade fabric printer in order to achieve profitable pricing.
It’s not only about pricing, though. While web to print companies are used to just receiving an online order and printing it, as a trade fabric printer, we offer a great deal of help and advice to customers before printing begins, in order to ensure the best possible results for the customer.
We usually spend time discussing the project, discussing the customer’s designs, discussing the best fabric choices and so on, which can comprise of several emails and/or telephone calls before we take the first order.
We often hear negative comments about web to print companies, from new customers who weren’t happy with the level of help and support they were given by the other printer, or with the seeming lack of care put into ensuring the right fabric was used for the design and the intended use. But actually, we think this is a bit unfair, as these kinds of companies aren’t geared up for trade printing, so the reason the trade customers don’t find such services to be what they were expecting, is that they’re basically trying to jam a square peg into a round hole.
If you’re a retail customer wanting small quantities of fabric printing for projects at home, then web to print companies are for you – but if you’re investing time, effort & money into having fabric printed with a view to starting a new business, or as a new line of products for an existing business, then you would be better suited to working with a trade printer.
3: What kind of trade printer would you be best suited to working with.
If you’re looking for a trade fabric printer, then as well as knowing whether you need a traditional printer or a digital fabric printer, which we dealt with earlier, it’s also worth pointing out that there are different kinds of printers.
This is quite a difficult thing to properly quantify, and to describe, but the essence of it is that there are print firms who are geared up towards working with larger companies.
Bigger printing companies who are used to dealing with larger volume orders aren’t necessarily as enthusiastic about working with new businesses & individual artists & designers, and this can often be quite obvious, with smaller businesses feeling like they’re having to work very hard to get the attention they would expect.
When we respond to enquiries from potential customers contacting us for the first time, we often hear comments such as “wow, a printing company who actually responds” – or “it’s so refreshing to speak to someone who seems to actually want my business”, or words to a similar end.
This doesn’t describe all bigger printing companies of course, however there are very well established fabric printing firms who’re more comfortable working with larger, established businesses. Also, much bigger textile printing firms often have much longer lead times, and larger minimum order quantities.
At Meshtex printing services, although we do take larger print orders, and we do work with some large & well known brands, we’re also very comfortable working with individual designers & artists, and small start up companies.
We pride ourselves on the effort that we put into helping new potential customers, regardless of the size of the enquiry or of the size of the business making the enquiry.
Why Choose Meshtex Printing Services as Your Fabric Printing Company?
To conclude, we would be a good fit if you’re a trade customer, regardless of how small or large your initial orders are likely to be, and regardless of how much or little experience you have with fabric printing.
If you’re a retail customer just looking for small amount of printed fabric for a project at home, then as we mentioned earlier there are many web to print companies in the UK who would be better suited for you to work with.
However, if you’re running a business of any size, including a brand new start up venture, or if you’re an individual designer or artist looking to turn your designs into products, we would be just as interested to hear from you, than we would if you were an experienced textiles buyer looking to print hundreds or thousands of metres.
To enquire about our fabric printing services, just send us an email, and we’ll respond promptly.