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Kornit rides the wave of textile transformation

Technology is fully addressing the new demands for custom apparel and e-commerce.

23rd September 2024

Innovation in Textiles
 |  Israel

Clothing/​Footwear

Online business and digital print companies continue to opt for the technologies and services of Kornit Digital, including most recently Custom Ink, DO Apparel, Mad Engine Global, OGAT, Print Palace Textildruck and T-Formation.

“The apparel industry is evolving, and companies must evolve with it,” says Kornit CEO Ronen Samuel. “Today’s businesses and consumers value the ability to have unlimited design capabilities with fast delivery times and products that are made sustainably. While screen printing has been the standard for years, Kornit’s advanced digital solutions are revolutionising the market.”

Custom Ink

As an online leader in customised wearables and other merchandise for organisations, groups and communities, Custom Ink is currently transitioning a significant share of its printing from screen to digital direct-to-garment production.

Headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, the company owns Swag.com, Swag Space and the Printfection platform for enterprise buyers. It also offers the Custom Ink Fundraising platform which raises money and awareness for charities through the sale of custom t-shirts and other apparel.

Custom Ink has historically relied on both screen and digital printing technologies but the increasing demand for rapid fulfilment, coupled with the need for sustainable and efficient production methods, has accelerated its shift towards digital technologies.

“Our mission has always been to bring people together and build communities through customised products,” says COO Eric Stockl. “As we continue to innovate and adopt faster, more agile solutions, we’ve accelerated our adoption of Kornit’s digital on-demand technology in our production workflows to deliver fast, accurate and premium quality designs.”

 DO Apparel

As a full-service custom apparel company focusing on creative sports garments for major league teams across basketball, football and baseball, DO Apparel, based in Livonia, Michigan, has purchased a second Kornit Atlas Max Poly printer in order to produce designs of the highest quality. This includes photorealistic images, neon designs and 3D effects on the broadest array of polyester blends.

“The quality of this machine has been the best we’ve seen in the industry,” says Matt McKae, owner and COO of DO Apparel. “It’s great for orders of 500 to 1,000 and very beneficial for addressing large volumes of medium-run orders. It’s by far the most versatile machine we’ve worked with and has been a tremendous boost for our business.”

Mad Engine Global,

 As an early Kornit Apollo beta customer, Mad Engine Global is expanding its investment in Kornit Apollo production lines and its Atlas MAX fleet of machines for growing its on-demand digital production capacity – with additional investments expected for 2025.

Offering the exclusive and non-exclusive apparel of major brands such as Disney and Marvel, the San Diego, California-based company is shifting more of its apparel production from legacy screen-printing processes and capitalising on the performance, unit economics and quality of the Kornit technology.

“Our business is built on delivering high quality merchandise to customers year-round which includes producing volumes of all sizes and types,” observes Jaymes Clements, executive vice president at Mad Engine Global. “As the market demand shifts strongly to high quality mid-sized runs, our continued adoption of the Kornit Max technology across platforms is a perfect fit for our needs. Kornit’s recently introduced All-Inclusive Click (AIC) model also improves our predictability and allows us to obtain faster and better-informed decisions when it comes to the type of production capacity we add.”

OGAT

OGAT – One Garment at a Time – is a new Italian brand launched by Pixartprinting, part of Cimpress, creating high quality, sustainable fashion and garments.

Its collaboration with Kornit enables it to move quickly from concept to final product, enabling fast turnarounds and supporting on-demand reordering, allowing brands to instantly respond to market needs and eliminating overstock.

OGAT is a new Italian brand creating on-demand high quality fashion garments. © OGAT

The brand is powered by Kornit’s Presto Max offering the highest quality in on-demand digital direct-to-fabric decoration and  enabling each of its pieces to be easily customised.

Kornit Presto Max offers new NeoPigment Vivido ink that meets elite benchmarks for textile quality with darker blacks and vivid colours. Producing with reduced ink laydown and improved hand-feel, the solution elevates fashion quality and detail standards with a dry, patented single-step process. This enables designers, producers and creators to embrace superior performance across the best available range of applications and the widest capabilities for colour and graphic design.

“In our expanded relationship with Kornit, we are creating a brand that is truly one-of-a-kind, combining world-class digital pigment printing with the most comprehensive production and logistics workflow to produce finished garments in days, with no minimum orders,” says OGAT CEO Paolo Roatta. “We are building on 30 years of Pixartprinting’s leadership in printing and technological innovation where state-of-the-art technology merges with Italian creativity and innovation.”

Print Palace Textildruck

Dortmund-based Print Palace Textildruck is one of the largest custom music and event merchandise providers in Germany and has invested in its first Kornit Apollo production line

Also supported by Kornit’s AIC model, the company plans to use the Kornit Apollo to handle production jobs of up to 500 pieces to improve overall speed and time-to-market, and additionally make its screen-printing business more profitable through a combined production approach.

Print Palace Textildruck is one of the largest custom music and event merchandise providers in Germany. © Print Palace

“During the past several years, we’ve seen the number of jobs of up to 500 pieces dramatically increasing, combined with the demand for high quality, colour vibrancy, and unique designs,” says owner Volker Rehdanz. “This caused major bottlenecks in our screen production. The Kornit Apollo is one of the biggest developments we’ve seen in digital production in years and is an elite solution for medium-run production. Teaming with Kornit, we’re going to be able to deliver to customers what they want, when they want it – and at the level of quality and vibrancy they’ve come to expect from us.”

T-Formation

A leading screen printer for major international brands such as adidas, PVH Corporate, and Champion based in Tallahassee, Florida, T-Formation will also transition large production volumes from its traditional screen-printing to Kornit Apollo digital production.

Changing market dynamics, accelerated demand for rapid delivery and in-season replenishments first drove the company to invest in – and now expand – its use of on-demand digital production.

“T-Formation is founded on three significant promises to our clients,” observes president Alan Gentry. “First, print the highest quality custom decorated apparel. Second, always print at a competitive price, and most importantly, deliver the job on time – every time. For decades, we have relied on screen printing to most effectively fulfil these pledges, but the industry has evolved dynamically in just the past few years. Driven by accelerated customer expectations, analogue production methods such as screen printing didn’t always align with market demands. We’ve had a successful partnership with Kornit for years and found Kornit Apollo the right solution at the right time, enabling us to easily integrate our screen and digital processes to deliver high quality custom decorated apparel to our clients when and where they want it. Digital is a game changer for us and will be the engine that will fuel our next stage of growth.”

www.kornit.com

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