production capability, a unique personalisation and customisation capability, and an unprecedented high-quality, process-image printing (up to 630 dpi) and colour gamut.

“We specifically designed our directon- garment digital presses to be industrial strength machines,” says Mr Sarel Ashkenazy, Marketing Manager of Kornit. “They are manufactured by ITS, a company who makes large format presses, with a lot of experience making machines for high-volume uses.”

On the line of their high-speed digital inkjet printing machines for the garment and apparel industry - the first digital industrial machines to print direct-on-garment, Kornit has succeeded in printing on dark garments with a direct-to-shirt inkjet. Attempts by others to deliver direct-toshirt printing solutions failed because of their inability to print on dark garments or on different fabric types or substrates.

Kornit introduced the new presses in October of this year, and from all reports, the technology can be the start of a new era.

“We aimed these presses at three main markets,” Mr Sarel says. “First, garment decorators, second, fashion decorators, and third, the promotional market. This last market includes big digital shops doing large format work for events, indoor signs, public relations and promotional work. They are used to working with digital processes, and are already in the business where their clients are buying promotional items. Why not allow them to digitally print garments for these same clients? In fact, our first three sales at the show were straight into this market space,” he said.

Speed and print quality will be key to Kornit’s success, Mr Sarel predicts. The 930 and 931 can print a garment in 15 seconds, compared to an average two minute print speed for some other direct-to-garment printers.