Overview of Printing

Textile Printing

Introduction to Textile Printing

Textile printing involves the production of a predetermined coloured pattern on a fabric, usually with a definite repeat. It can be described as a localised form of dyeing, applying colorant to selected areas ofthe fabric to build up the design.

The greatest change in fashion and design that has ever occurred in European textiles was the general introduction of printed fabrics. The first printed fabrics were produced in India and China over four thousand years ago. European textile printing dates from about the tenth century. Until relatively cheap printed fabrics became available, patterns on European dress were the result of weaving or embroidery. Such clothes could only be afforded by the wealthy.

Modern procedures for printing textile goods may be traced back to the block printing of silks in ancient China. In this method a wooden block with a raised pattern on the surface was dipped into the printing colorant and then pressed face down on to fabric. The desired pattern was obtained by repeating the process using different colors. Printing by brushing colorant through thin metal stencils and the transfer of illustrations to the printed page from engraved rollers in a printing press were also widespread by the fifteenth century.


Block printing remained a practical proposition until the roller printing machine was invented by James Bell in 1783. This enabled six colors to be printed at a rate equivalent to that of 40 hand-block printers. The success of the machine depended on the hard rollers, each of which bore an engraving (i.e. an intaglio engraving, in which the depth of the recess on the roller determines the intensity of the print produced) corresponding to a particular color component of the design. The machines were capable of continuously printing six different colors in sequence, with the rollers pressed againstthe fabric.
One of the earliest methods of textile printing was the painting of a design on the cloth using a bamboo pen or brush.The technique was widely used in India to produce a range of elaborate and beautiful designs. Indian printed fabrics began to be imported into Europe in the late sixteenth century. The designs were based upon floral motifs and these formed the basis for early European printed designs. Pencilling was used in Europe until the early nineteenth century. The method supplemented hand-block printing.

From about 1752 engraved flat copper plates were used to produce printed fabrics. The design was cut into the surface of the plate and it was these lines which held the color.The fabric and plate were tightly clamped together in a press to transfer the design to the cloth. Plate prints were made in a single color, usually either red, purple or blue. Extremely detailed images could be produced with the process.
Most plate prints were used as furnishing fabrics, although some small patterns were produced as dress material. Handkerchiefs commemorating political or public events were also produced in quantity. By the end of the eighteenth century plate printing had been almost completely replaced by copper roller printing.This type of printing was used industrially from the 1920s to produce high quality prints in small quantities.

Initially the process was a manual one with two printers passing a rubber-edged squeegee across the screen to force the paste onto fabric. The screen then had to be lifted and moved to print the next section of the pattern. In the 1950s semi-automatic and fully automatic flat screen printing methods were developed. These cut production costs significantly.

This technique is the most common form of textile printing and it involves the application of the printing paste through a fine screen placed in contact with the fabric to be printed. A design is created in reverse on the screen by blocking areas of the screen with a material such as an opaque paint. The screen is then placed overthe fabric and the printing paste is forced through the open areas of the screen using a flexible synthetic rubber or steel blade known as a squeegee.

In hand screen printing the squeegee is drawn steadily across the screen by hand at a constant angle and pressure. However, screen printing is now usually automated, with hand screen printing confined to the high fashion industry. Fully automatic screen printing involves the continuous rotation of a cylindrical screen which is kept in constant withthe fabric, ensuring continuous movement of the fabric through the machine. As the screen rotates, printing paste is forced through the design (open) areas of the screen with the aid of stationary squeegee. Printing paste is pumped into the inside of the screen from a container at the side of the machine at an automatically controlled rate.

In the mid 1950s a new type of screen printing method involving a cylindrical screen was developed.Rotary screen printing involves a series of revolving screens, each with revolving screens, each with a stationary squeegee inside which forces the print paste ontothe fabric . Twenty or more colors can be printed at the same time. The process is much quicker and more efficient than flat screen printing. Since the 1970s it has grown to dominate thetextile printing market.

Both dyes and pigments may be used as colorants in the printing process, although the mechanisms by which they are fixed to the textile are quite distinct. The same forces of dye-fiber association apply to both dyeing and printing and, in principle, the dyes used to give a plain-coloured fabric could be used to print that fabric. However, there are three important characteristics a dye must possess in order to be used in the printing process.

  • The dye must first be able to dissolve in the small amount of water used in the printing paste.
  • The dye must be able to diffuse at a reasonable rate from the printing paste on to the fiber, leading to preference for dye molecules with a low relative molecular mass.
  • The unfixed dye must be capable of being washed off satisfactorily without staining the unprinted areas of the fabric.
Pigments are widely used in textile printing, with about 45% of all textile prints produced using pigments. Unlike dyes, they do not directly associate with the textile fibers but are fixed to the textile with a so-called binding agent. The binding agent is usually a copolymer which is incorporated into the printing paste and forms a three-dimensional film when heated.

If a textile print is washed soon after printing and drying, most of the colorant will be washed away. An appropriate fixing technique is therefore necessary. Fixing techniques are seldom completely successful and it is usually necessary to follow fixing with removal of the unfixed dye, thickeners and other auxiliary chemicals by a washing process. The efficacy of the fixing and subsequent washing process is extremely important to the quality of the print, and mistakes made at this stage of the printing process can be very costly.

Printed dyes are usually fixed by a steaming process, the steam providing the heat and the vehicle for transfer of the dye from the printing paste to thetextile fiber.

Pigment prints are fixed to the fabric simply by baking printed fabric. When the fabric has been printed to an adequate temperature the binder forms a continuous film that incorporates the pigment particles and sticks to the fiber surface. At the same time, if the temperature and pH conditions are suitable, cross-linking between the binder molecules is achieved.

During the last 20 years a digital revolution has occurred that has touched everyone's life. We are now surrounded by digital telephones, audio equipment, cameras, camcorders, TV, laser barcode readers, etc., and many homes possess a computer with access to the Internet. Digital technology has greatly affected many industries including the textile printing market, not only by the introduction of full-width jet printing machines but also in every aspect of conventional print production, from the design stage, through coloration and recipe formulation, screen manufacture and print paste preparation to the final control of the printing machine itself.

Traditional textile printing techniques may be broadly categorized into four styles:

  • Direct printing, in which colorants containing dyes, thickeners, and the mordants or substances necessary for fixing the color on the cloth are printed in the desired pattern.
  • The printing of a mordant in the desired pattern prior to dyeing cloth; the color adheres only where the mordant was printed.
  • Resist dyeing, in which a wax or other substance is printed onto fabric which is subsequently dyed. The waxed areas do not accept the dye, leaving uncoloured patterns against a coloured ground.
  • Discharge printing, in which a bleaching agent is printed onto previously dyed fabrics to remove some or all of the color.
Resist and discharge techniques were particularly fashionable in the 19th century, as were combination techniques in which indigo resist was used to create blue backgrounds prior to block-printing of other colors. Most modern industrialized printing uses direct printing techniques.

Printing Technology

Textile printing was introduced into England in 1676 by a French refugee who opened works, in that year, on the banks of the Thames near Richmond. Curiously enough this is the first print-works on record; but the nationality and political status of its founder are sufficient to prove that printing was previously carried on in France. In Germany, too, textile printing was in all probability well established before it spread to England, for, towards the end of the 17th century, the district of Augsburg was celebrated for its printed linens, a reputation not likely to have been built up had the industry been introduced later than 1676.
On the continent of Europe the commercial importance of calico printing seems to have been almost immediately recognized, and in consequence it spread and developed there much more rapidly than in England, where it was neglected and practically at a standstill for nearly ninety years after its introduction. During the last two decades of the 17th century and the earlier ones of the 18th new works were started in France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria; but it was only in 1738 that calico printing was first, practiced in Scotland, and not until twenty-six years later that Messrs Clayton of Bamber Bridge, near Preston, established in 1764 the first print-works in Lancashire, and thus laid the foundation of what has since become one of the most important industries of the county and indeed of the country. At the present time calico printing is carried on extensively in every quarter of the globe, and it is pretty safe to say that there is scarcely a civilized country in either hemisphere where a print-works does not exist.

From an artistic point of view most of the pioneer work in calico printing was done by the French; and so rapid was their advance in this branch of the business that they soon came to be acknowledged as its leading exponents. Their styles of design and schemes of color were closely followed-even deliberately copied by all other European printers; arid, from the early days of the industry down to the latter half of the 10th century, the productions of the French printers in Jouy, Beauvais, Rouen, Alsace-Lorraine, &c., were looked upon as representing all that was best in artistic calico printing. This reputation was established by the superiority of their earlier work, which, whatever else it may have lacked, possessed in a high degree the two main qualities essential to all good decorative work, viz., appropriateness of pattern and excellency of workmanship.

If, occasionally, the earlier designers permitted themselves to indulge in somewhat bizarre fancies, they at least carefully refrained from any attempt to produce those pseudo-realistic effects the undue straining after which in later times ultimately led to the degradation of not only French calico printing design, but of that of all other European nations who followed their lead. The practice of the older craftsmen, at their best, was to treat their ornament in a way at once broad, simple and direct, thoroughly artistic and perfectly adapted to the means by which it had to be reproduced. The result was that their designs were characterized, on the one hand, by those qualities of breadth, flatness of field, simplicity of treatment arid pureness of tint so rightly prized by the artist; and, on the other, by their entire freedom from those meretricious effects of naturalistic projection and recession so dear to the modern mind and so utterly opposed to the principles of applied art.