Tag Archives: digital printing

Snippets: Chats With Creatives – Series 2, Snippet 1

Snippets’. Chats with Creatives. We are back with series two! Here at Digital Fabrics we love everything print, pattern and colour and we love to know what makes designers tick. This second series is all about asking some fun and different questions and learning about the inspirations and ideas behind the artist and their work. We hope to inspire others by sharing snippets of these creative stories. We gave the artists and designers featured a varied and different set from series one list of questions to choose from so we will learn something new from everyone involved, should be fun!

Today on Snippets we are talking to Katelyn Tso, the textile designer behind Indigo Thread, a beautiful brand creating homewares, accessories and clothing as part of the slow fashion movement.

Tell us a bit about yourself, your brand/label name what your creative practice is, how and when you began:

I’m Katelyn, the designer and maker behind Indigo Thread. I’ve always loved design. All through high school I would make my own clothes, screen printing, sewing and adjusting op shop finds. After school I started studying Interior Design, however after the first year I realised that interior design wasn’t for me, rather I loved designing individual textile products. It wasn’t until I became a mum that I found the time to sew again and I started Indigo Thread. I’m now a self-taught textile designer, making accessories, homewares and a clothing range coming soon.

Where do you call home?

I currently live in Sydney but I grew up on The Central Coast of NSW and it still feels like home to me.

What 3 words best describe your creative style.

Simple Shapes – Fun Prints (sorry that’s more than 3 words)

Which part of the creative process is your favourite and why?

Seeing the finished product come together for the first time. Sometimes I skip ahead, not completing the steps in the most effective order because I’m so excited to see the finished product.

How would you describe your work, and what influences your style?

Simple designs and shapes with stylised and fun floral prints inspired by Australian native flowers. My desire for practical yet attractive products fuels my designs.

What does a typical creative day look like for you? How do you stay on plan and organised?

Being a work from home/stay at home mum means that it can be a bit all over the place and my work is very disrupted. I have a little more time now that my eldest has started preschool 3 days a week but I still have to fit work into small time slots throughout the day. I stay organised by writing lists. Daily, weekly and monthly to-do-lists help me keep focused.

Depending on the time of year and if I have a market to prep for, I could be just sewing sewing sewing. Whereas other quieter times I get a chance to design some new products and fabrics, so it varies a lot.

Tell us about your creative space, what are your tips for keeping a creative studio space organised.

My studio isn’t really a studio. It’s a big desk in the living room of my 2 bedroom apartment. My husband hates that I take up so much space in our home, especially when I take over the dining table as well (it’s the perfect place for screen printing and cutting out fabric). I would love to have a studio one day, or at least a separate room that I can shut the door on the mess but for now it’s working for me. I don’t mind a little bit of creative clutter but I do regularly have to re-organise so that I have the space to work and I always feel like I can work better with a clean workspace. The best tip I have is get a good storage system. I have these amazing deep drawers in my work desk (custom built by my dad out of an old pallet) that store all my sewing bits and pieces as well as a cupboard full of fabric.

What/who inspired you to take the leap in to your creative venture, how did you get started?

I just started Indigo Thread as a hobby while I was on maternity leave and I think that made it not feel like a leap, it just kind of happened naturally. I didn’t have the pressure to make money from it straight away which was nice and I think I’ve enjoyed the process more because of it.

Tell us about how you get your creative juices flowing, what is your process?

I am inspired constantly by the beautiful world around me. By colours, shapes and nature. I’m often taking photos of flowers or colour combinations to reference later as well as looking at clothing styles and figuring out how they were made.

What projects or collaborations from last year stuck out, good or bad and what is coming up this year that you would like to plug!

I loved working with my bestie, Nicole from Better Together Paper, on a collaboration of Prezzie Sacks last year. We love a chance to catch up and be creative together.

This year I’m so excited to be launching a range of women’s tops. I’m currently still in the design phase but they will be released in the next month or so. Think simple boxy tops in my Australian botanical fabrics.

You can follow what Katelyn is upto: Website, Instagram, Facebook.

New Fabric Designs for Mother’s Day

We’re launching a new range of prints at Digital Fabrics! It’s been a little while since we brought you our last set of designs and this time we took a different approach to bringing you new prints. Rather than focus on one cohesive collection, we’ve had three artists create three different prints for you just in time for Mother’s Day!

The collection of prints range from flirty to psychedelic to sophisticated, and feature both hand-painted illustration and digital manipulation. With three very different styles represented, we’re sure there’s something for everyone.

If you’re needing fresh ideas on what to spoil mum with this Mother’s Day, we’ve got you covered and have put together a few DIY ideas that we just know you’ll both love. A custom made gift speaks volumes, and is guaranteed to be a winner with mum this year!

Got accessories in mind for a mum who always looks fabulous? How about making a gorgeous and versatile scarf? For something bold or bright you might want to use either our Roxy or Dilly fabrics. If you were thinking of something a little more sheer we would recommend our super soft Chiffon.

If you think home-wares might be better suited, how about a tablecloth? Our Cotton Linen is an absolute dream for a decadent feeling table setting and our Waratah and Panama fabrics are excellent polyester options for durability. You could also make napkins to match! And we can’t forget the ever perfect gift of a stunning, custom-made cushion! It could be the perfect opportunity to try out our new Organic Cotton Canvas that we’re very excited to introduce! Of course our Cotton Linen, Waratah and Panama fabrics are also perfect for cushion covers too.

So whatever your, or your mum’s style, there’ something here to get you started on any handmade Mother’s Day gifts you might have been thinking about. Let us know how we can help you realise your next DIY textile project!

These prints are now available for purchase in our Design Library!

Simple Repeat Pattern Tutorial For Beginners

It would be safe to say that most of us are creative, we might love to doodle, paint, and create collages. Whilst these are all wonderful and inventive practices, what if you wanted to start developing these crafts into textile designs but didn’t have the digital design software skills to get your file prepared for fabric printing. What we would say is “learn it’! Learn digital textile design in small bites. Start slowly, from converting your art into a digital format and getting to know basic Photoshop tools. Everything new can be overwhelming, but if you take one step at a time and slowly build your confidence, you will get the hang of it in no time. Below are some simple steps that will help you prepare your art for digital seamless repeat printing.

DIGITIZING – CONVERTING YOUR ART INTO A DIGITAL FORMAT

Start with an artwork painted onto a flat, one colour background that surrounds the artwork. For this tutorial we used a simple white plain background for the purpose of being easy, but any colour is fine.

To convert your artwork into a digital format you need to scan or photograph the artwork. Scanning at a resolution of 300 dpi is preferred. However, if you don’t have a scanner, photograph your artwork laid out flat, indoors with plenty of light (natural day light if best), holding the camera directly above the artwork, making sure there are no shadows of any kind interfering with the artwork.

CLEANING – DELETING UNWANTED ELEMENTS FROM AN ARTWORK

Open your artwork in Photoshop by selecting MAIN MENU > FILE > OPEN > CHOOSE YOUR ARTWORK FILE.

Using MARQUEE TOOL select the object or image that you want to repeat.

Now let’s bring the artwork or image that you want to repeat into a new document so you can start playing with it. While MARQUEE TOOL selection is active, (this will appear as ants running around the selected area) go to MAIN MENU > EDIT > COPY to copy selected area and FILE > NEW to open new document. NOTE: Photoshop is a very smart software. The area that you have selected will now determine the file size of the new document being opened. Click OK.

Whilst in the newly opened document select MAIN MENU > EDIT> PASTE to bring your selected artwork into the new document. It should paste by default in the middle of the new document fitting artwork well within the new document space. Nothing should be cropped out or hidden from view.

Now to clean your artwork. If your white background is slightly messy or the texture of the paper is visible, you will need to clean this up, since whatever you see on the screen will be printed onto fabric. To quickly ‘deep-etch’ or in other words ‘clean-up’, select the layer that you just brought in. Then select the MAGIC WAND TOOL. Change the tolerance to low (we selected a tolerance measure of ‘4’ but you might need to adjust this number as it is based on your artwork). Tolerance is the rate at which the same or similar colours are selected when using the MAGIC WAND TOOL. The higher the tolerance the more of that colour will be found and therefore selected within the artwork.

Make sure the CONTIGUOUS box is ticked, this will ensure that only space around your artwork is being selected, and not that which is inside or a part of the drawn objects. Now once everything is prepared for selection click on the white background to select it. You can see on the image below that only the white background area is selected. While it is selected hit the DELETE button on your keyboard. This will remove the white selected background.

As you can see there is a little bit of another flower peaking through on the left side. Lets clean this up by using the simple ERASER TOOL. You can adjust the size of the eraser as needed at the top left of the screen. You can make the background layer invisible (this will then appear as little white and grey squares as seen below) to check that you have cleaned up all of the image. Simply zoom in to check the edges of your artwork and any potential unwanted marks left behind.

ADJUSTING COLOURS

The image is now clean, but colour wise the artwork is not strong enough. To brighten and intensify the colours of the image select MAIN MENU > IMAGE > AUTO CONTRAST.

You are almost done! To flatten your image select MAIN MENU > LAYER > FLATTEN IMAGE. All layers have now merged into one. Save the image as a JPG high quality file MAIN MENU > FILE > SAVE AS > SAVE.

Now you are done and ready to upload your file to print on to a fabric of your choice!

REPEATING A PATTERN USING OUR FABRIC UPLOADER

Open the Fabric Uploader page.

Drag & Drop your image or click on the SELECT button to upload your ready to print artwork. Once your file is uploaded, you’ll be able to see it in the fabric preview window. You can scale your artwork up or down, simply by typing in and adjusting the artwork to the size you want. Keep an eye on the DPI! This is the resolution and quality of your file. If your artwork is low resolution and is scaled up, the print result can be blurry.

Next step is to choose your Repeat type. This is the fun part! Play around with the different options and see how the variations impact your artwork in the preview window. Compare how the different options distribute your artwork across the width and the length of the fabric. Pick the one that suits your design idea best!

FULL DROP REPEAT

MIRROR REPEAT

Choose how many meters you wish to print simply by typing it into the quantity box and then select the fabric you want to print on. Remember that each fabric stock has a different width so be sure to check that the fabric you choose meets your needs.

P.S. This tutorial is designed to be very basic. If you are still struggling to prepare your artwork files, we recommend you attend one of the workshops on offer at our Digital Textile Design School to help you nail those Photoshop basics!

Check your artwork repeats seamlessly with Offset Filter in Photoshop.

Open your file in Photoshop. Main menu > File > Open
Check size of your image. Main menu > Image > Image size. Take note of the pixel dimension (PX) at the full resolution size.

Change the resolution to half of its value and take note of the changed pixel dimension. Keep these numbers handy as you will need them to offset your artwork. Don’t click OK at this stage, as you don’t want to change the resolution size, you only need the pixel information.

Once you have pixel dimensions noted you can offset and check your file for seamless repeat. Go to Main menu > Filter > Other > Offset. In the open box enter that half pixel values that you have noted down. Select option Wrap Around and tick the Preview option, so you can preview what is happening to your artwork. The side edges of the artwork will now be visible in the middle and the middle will become the sides. In other words the artworks sides got folded into the middle.

If your artwork in not in seamless repeat, you will see it in the middle of your artwork, through vertically and horizontally missed joins and miss matched lines. In some artwork this will not be obvious and you will need to zoom right in to the joining pixels to spot the issue.

When your artwork repeats seamlessly, there is no miss matched lines and elements of the artwork flows seamlessly.

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If you are at the beginning of your textile and surface design journey you might want to consider our workshops and classes on offer or continue learning more online through our available tutorials.

Holiday Break

This year Digital Fabrics will be closed on 22rd of December and re-opened on 8th of January with a skeleton staff, production commencing on the 15th January 2018.

How about if you still want to order fabric? Don’t worry, we will be accepting all online orders during holiday to be printed when we are back in action in 2018.

After the holiday first orders will be due to dispatch on Wednesday the 17th January.

Stay smart during pre-holiday rush, don’t rely on couriers services, they are busy! If possible, arrange a pick-up of your order from our Marrickville studio, we will be happy to say Hi.

CREATE YOUR OWN FABRIC CREATE YOUR OWN CUSHION COVER

To avoid pre-holiday stress and to receive your fabric before Christmas please note super important dates below:

Cut off times, if you require shipping

· 4th December – for Print and Make orders such as cushion covers, banners, scarves etc

· 11th December – All fabric printing orders that needs to be shipped and delivered before holiday. As much as we would love to, we cannot guarantee that orders submitted after this date will reach to you on time before Christmas.

· 12th December – last Express order for fabric printing or Print and Make orders

Orders for delivery, submitted after 15th December more likely to be printed and dispatched in New Year unless it’s an express order.

Pick-up orders cut off time

· 11th December Print and Make orders such as cushion covers, banners, scarves etc

· 15th December fabric printing orders

· 18th December last express order for fabric printing or Print and Make orders.

3 pm is our daily production cut off time, which means, if you placed an order after 3 pm, your order will be rolled over to the next day. Be that just an extra little careful when planning your fabric printing orders.

And as always, if you have any question, we are only a phone call away.

CREATE YOUR OWN FABRIC CREATE YOUR OWN CUSHION COVER

Palm Springs Competition Winner

Thank you to everyone who entered our ‘Palm Springs’ design competition, we had so many great entries and loved all the different design styles and mediums used to create them. It was a difficult decision choosing the winners but we are happy to announce them today!

The top Ten were chosen by you the public :

The team at DF have chosen the following designs as the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd prize winners:

1st Prize goes to Tyago BK – This design was inspired by photographs taken of Palm Springs landscape and architecture.

2nd Prize goes to Sandra K Stewart – This design was inspired by it’s shopping district, vintage boutiques and fashionista vibe including the Coachella festival.

3^rd Prize goes to Lang Matkovic – This design was inspired by a pastel coloured palette and the palms of palm springs.

The prizes are as follows:

Tyago BK

1st Prize $250 worth of custom printing and a 45cm x 45cm cushion with the winning design artwork on it.

Sandra K Stewart

2nd Prize $100 of custom printing and a 45cm x 45cm cushion with the winning design artwork on it.

Lang Matkovic

3^rd Prize $50 worth of custom printing and a 45cm x45cm cushion with the winning design artwork on it.

Thank you to everyone who entered, we are always blown away by the talent in the designs. We shall of course do another one next year so keep your eyes peeled.

Stay creative!

DF team.

Create a strong identity for your brand through Fabric Print and Design

We live in a hyper-visual world, where imagery dictates your rating. The increasing need to have a positive impact on sales especially high in a vast and competitive design world.

That is why print design is becoming an increasingly utilised tool in any designer’s tool kit, be it swimwear, stationery, fashion, brand or home wears designer. Print designs, surface design, patterns they called different but carry same purpose, is to capture people’s interests in instant, unifies the design collection and creates point of difference from other brands.

For example Tigerlily always been known for they boho and travel inspired prints and easily recognised in Australian fashion market.

Say, We Are Handsome and beautiful swimwear with stunning photographic print design are evoked.

But what if to take print and fabric a bit further? Doesn’t this collaboration open more door? There are so many ideas and product that can be created with using fabric as a base medium. Don’t think of a fabric as a cloth on a roll.

Would be a wedding invention a luxurious idea to make your invitees fill extra special and setting the tone of your weeding?

Fabric packing is very unique concept too, wrap your product, or even how about envelops or business cards?

To archive all the above ideas is a breeze now days. We live in the new era of digital printing technologies. Fast, cost efficient, ecofriendly they opens doors to the craziest creative projects!

That is why we are in love with digital fabric printing!

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