Q. What fabrics are you able to digitally print?
A. At Palm Printing Co we digitally print custom designs on both natural (cotton, rayon, viscose, bamboo, linen, tencel etc) and polyester based fabrics.
Q. How long does an order take to print?
A. This will depend on the size however the processing time range is 4-8 business days from receipt of payment & confirmation of artwork for most orders excluding shipping.
Shipping depending on your location will vary between 3-7 days shipped with DHL.
Q. How is Palm Printing Co a sustainable & ethical fabric printer?
A. We're Bali's premier digital textile printer that focuses on bringing ethics and sustainability to a notoriously dirty and often unregulated industry.
Along with our sister company Yogi and Boo we are Bali's only SA8000:2014 ethically certified fabric printer & clothing factory - Both companies have been independently audited & certified.
If you're unfamiliar with this, the SA8000 is the world's leading social & ethical compliance program https://sa-intl.org/programs/sa8000/
On the sustainability side we are vastly lowering the amount of energy, water and also waste discharge compared to other printing methods such as screen printing or batik printing.
Our technology uses transfer sublimation printing for polyester and a direct digital printing for all organic & natural fabrics such as cotton, linen, rayon and viscose.
Our water consumption is less than 2% of what is normally required compared to using screen printing or batik printing. Since we use such a small amount of water to begin with we don't create any waste water.
Our inks are all water based and Eco Passport Certified by Oeko Tex, these inks are also biodegradable.
We have Certified ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management System
We use an extremely efficient fixation chamber instead of curing using chemicals such as Sodium Silicate or waterglass to fix the colours to the fabric, this chemical residue is (sadly) discharged into the Bali waterways or ground water by most standard fabric printers.
Our digital printers have no leftover dyes or inks to clean up between jobs which usually results in waste water being created during 'wash up' and our operators are not directly exposed to toxic inks.
Q. Are your inks certified?
A. Yes, all our inks are Eco Passport Certified by Oeko Tex.
How do I order digitally printed fabric with Palm Printing Co:
A. Our order process is as followed:
- Have your artwork ready & prepared; remember it needs to be high-res of at least 150 DPI and sized as required. Our acceptable files are tiff, jpeg, pdf, psd, eps and ai.
- Pick out a fabric from our list. If you’re unfamiliar or would like to order a sample set, please get in touch with us. hello@palmprinting.co
- Please fill out our order form with your quantities, fabric type & artwork name. Remember to read the “how to order section” at the bottom of the document.
- Send through the order form along with your artwork. It’s best to we-transfer or dropbox large files to avoid them resizing through emails.
- We’ll send you a proforma or quote, including shipping to most countries worldwide. Palm Printing Co is based in Bali, Indonesia; we can arrange for domestic delivery throughout the country.
- Once we receive payment, your order will enter the queue, and we’ll provide an estimated completion time. Depending on the order size, this will vary between 3-7 business days. For larger orders or during peak times, it may be up to 14business days.
If you’re uncertain about anything, send us an email, and we’ll do our best to provide the right advice for you.
Q. Can you print on my own fabric that I bring?
A. Yes we can, however there are some terms & steps as per below:
- We require an initial 2meter test print, a minimum of 2meters is required to be supplied where we will test print results & compatibility with our process. Kindly note we will charge for 2 meters regardless of the end result and there is a risk the fabric may not be usable or printable. Kindly note we do not keep any records of test results unless requested and provided extra fabric to do so.
- For bulk & sampling our minimum is 5meters, please ensure to supply an additional 1,5meters for orders under 20meters and 7% for orders over 20meters in fabric on top of the required printed amount in anticipation of shrinkage & minimum feeding amount into our machinery. Example: If you require 6 meters of printed fabric, please supply a total of 7,5meters.
- When supplying outside fabric the first print is considered a test print, we charge for the full amount of fabric supplied regardless of the outcome or print result.
Q. Can I call or drop by to the factory if I'm in Bali?
A. Due to the number of daily orders we don’t provide private tours or consultations for Palm Printing as we work exclusively online. To avoid any potential issues we don't accept orders through phone calls as we have a simple "If it's not written - we don't process it" policy.
Q. If I can't come by to see your Bali showroom, how can I place an order or see your fabrics?
A. Our company is structured to serve online orders only therefore we don't own a physical showroom, our location is a factory which is not open to the public.
We work by offering full swatch sets of all our fabrics that we can send to most countries worldwide and accepting orders for sample meterage & bulk via email. Once payment has been made we ship the order worldwide. Perhaps in the future we may setup a retail showroom but for now we're focusing on perfecting our craft, sustainable digital textile printing for Indonesia and the world ;)
Q. Do you sell printed swatch books?
A. Yes we do, If you would like to receive a swatch book to an international address please send USD40 to our paypal account hello@palmprinting.co and kindly provide a delivery address (no po boxes) and a contactable phone number. If you are in Bali we can organise for the swatches to be delivered to your address for IDR230k or equivalent in USD/AUD.
Q. Will you share or sell my artwork to other people?
A. No, we have strict IP confidentiality procedures. With close to 40 years of experience in the industry we understand the importance IP protection, this is also a reason we don't allow any visits from the public as our terms & conditions do not allow for any non-essential personnel to view the printing process or artwork being printed. We only show small clips of our printing process on social media with the express permission of the artwork owner/licenses holder.
More info can be found on our T&Cs
Q. What kind of machines do you use?
A. Unfortunately we can't share this information, it took us over half a decade of planning, researching, visiting dozens of trade shows & seminars around the world to put together our 'secret sauce' combination of equipment. What we can say is all our equipment is either made in Italy or Japan.
Q. Are you able to digitally print mulberry silk?
A. We only offer 100% Silk printing on a case by case basis, please send us an email to find out more.
Q. What is your minimum order or what are sample options/service do you offer?
A. Our minimum order is 1meter per fabric type and for samples we have 3 popular options
- 1 meter minimum - printed of your artwork on any of our available fabrics.
- Saturation sample service - We create 7 to 8 colour options per artwork sized at 25X25cm with varying saturation/vibrancy levels and you simply pick the best options. We charge 1 meter for this service that includes our graphic work. You may not receive a full meter as this includes our record in the event you wish to place an order on one of the options.
- Strike off - 30X30cm sized printed sample of your artwork on any of our fabrics
Q. Are you able to organise shipping of our fabric?
A. Yes we send our orders to most countries using DHL couriers.
Q. How much does it cost to ship 1meter of fabric?
A. Our shipping cost is weight based, so the final shipping cost will vary considerably depending on the selected fabric type & amount. We usually recommend letting us know which fabric from the list you're interested in, quantity & postcode for us to provide a shipping estimate.
Q. Do you have a selection of fabrics to choose from?
A. Yes we do, please refer to our fabric & price list here
Q. Do you have a selection of in house prints to choose from?
A. Not at this stage however most of our clients purchase commercial print licenses from websites such as shutterstock or creativemarket.
Q. What artwork file types do you accept?
A. Our file specifications are as followed:
- Formats in either: TIF, JPG, PDF, EPS or AI.
- The direction or length of the print is considered the vertical axis of the file and the width of the print is considered the horizontal axis of the artwork file.
- Ensure artwork is ready to print, sized/scaled & repeatable/seamless (if applicable)
- 500mb or less in size.
- Resolution 150 DPI minimum.
- RGB colour space.
Q. Why did my print result come out really small?
A. We print the files as supplied, we don't adjust or edit the files in anyway. It's likely you haven't checked or sized the file accordingly. We strongly recommend ordering a "strike off" or 1 meter first to check your artwork before committing to a larger quantity.
Kindly note, if you don't check or order a sample first and the results are not what you expected, we're unable to provide any credits or discounts.
Q. Why do the colour & print results differ between two different fabrics even though they're the exact same file?
A. We print the files as supplied and each fabric has a vastly different absorbency & colour reaction when printed. Generally speaking Viscose & Rayons will be more vibrant whilst cottons tend to be a little more muted. We often recommend ordering our Saturation test print to see the difference some slight adjustment to the artwork will yield.
You're also not able to assume a sample printed on a certain fabric will be replicated on all other fabrics, each fabric type will require it's own sample & colour correction even if they're the same composition.
Q. How come the polyesters have far more saturation, it's almost like they've been made by a different printer?
A. Actually, you're right! The polyester based fabrics are all printed using our Dye sublimation printer which results in extremely punchy colours. Polyester also generally has a much high refraction of light so colours look considerably brighter.
Natural & organic fibres such as cotton, linen, rayon and bamboo all use our direct digital textile printer which is also punching above it's weight class for colour result if compared to other natural fibres but they're two totally different results if comparing to polyester.
Q. Are you able to match/achieve the same colours as a screen printed fabric?
A. This varies between artworks and depends on the colours. Generally speaking digital printing on natural fibres won't be able to 'lay down' as much as ink as screen printing can. This in turn decreases the 'depth' of colour we see, as an example certain blacks, navy or deep midnight may not seem as strong as if it would when screen printed.
On the flip side with digital we're able to achieve a much wider colour gamut(range) than screen printing which allows us to produce photographic quality images.
It's always best to test or sample any artwork prior especially if you're used to working with screen printing results.
Q. What are you washing recommendations/instructions for your digitally printed fabric
A. We always recommend:
Q. Why did my digital print result look different or not as expected on fabric when compared to my computer monitor / screen?
A. Your computer monitor/screen has an RGB colour mode and essentially "produces/emits" light which is in turn the colour you see. Printed fabric on the other hand is made up of a mixture of colours which is CMYK based and unlike a monitor or screen it does not "produce" light but only refracts it.
This means the colours will never perfectly match as the print results are a translation of the colours you view on your screen.
To ensure your print results are within your expectation we recommend ordering a strike off on the fabric you're interested in to test the artwork and overall results.
We always recommend slightly increasing saturation/colour levels by 10-15% and printing strike offs/samples. We recommend providing a few different levels/options to make it easy in choosing the best option. Each fabric will have a different colour results and some will simply be inherently more vibrant or muted than others.
Alternatively please see our Saturation sample service - We create 7 to 8 colour 25X25cm sized options per artwork of different saturation/vibrancy levels and you simply pick the best options.
We charge 1Meter for this service and you may not receive a full meter as this includes are record in the event you wish to place an order on one of the options.
Q. Why does my printed fabric results look different from you compared to when I printed it another company, even though they're both the same file?
A. The two main factors are that each printer may have a vastly different equipment, ink type, fabric type or colour profiles. It's impossible to expect that one company will have the same results as another. Even within large digital fabric printers that have multiple machines you may see a difference in colour if you order the same file a couple weeks apart.
Unfortunately we're unable to match the colour results you may have received printing the same artwork elsewhere.
Q. Why does my digitally printed fabric result look muted compared to the same artwork printed on paper?
A. The short answer is digital printing on a natural fibre fabric such cotton, viscose, linen etc will never have the same intensity or depth as paper printing.
Q. What is a print "Strike off"
A. This is a 30X30cm size sample or swatch, we offer this on all fabric types for the customer to check print results to ensure they are correct and within expectations.
Kindly note, if you don't check or order a sample first and the results are not what you expected, we're unable to provide any credits or discounts.
Q. How many print Strike offs do I need? Can I just order one per artwork or do I need to order one for each fabric?
A. Each fabric has it’s own unique base colour and absorbency levels which will impact the final printed results. We always recommend ordering a strike off in each fabric for every artwork you plan to print. Each fabric will have vastly different results even when printed using the same artwork file.
Q. Some of the fabric we received have these little slubs of unprinted spots, is this a fault?
A. With any natural/cellulose fibre such as Cotton, viscose/bamboo or Linen there will be small little fluffs, loose fibres, tufts and/or slubs throughout the fabric. These little slubs may become lose or move during printing resulting in a small unprinted spot. Larger ones (over 5mm) are considered faults however smaller than this are considered part of the fabric's character & inherent nature of printing with natural fibres.
They may not appear on a strike off so we always recommend placing a 1-2meter sample order to ensure you gain a perspective of possible results.
We do have a screening process where there should be 5% or less affected surface area, more on this can be found in our T&C's
If these simply aren't your flavour we recommend choosing polyester based fabrics.
Q. Do you have a returns policy if my print results has a fault or issue?
A. Yes we do, please see our full terms & conditions here
Q. Do you offer any sewing services?
A. Yes we do! We've just launched a homewares product list which includes tea towels, cushion covers, napkins, table clothes and are expanding it to include apparel.
Q. Do you offer any sustainable or organic fabrics?
A. Yes we do, please check out our price list here
Q. Can I get an phone number to message or Whatsapp you my order?
A. We only work via email to ensure all communication, order information and instructions are kept on the same thread, this avoids important instructions potentially being missed due to our correspondence thread being split between 2 or more platforms.
Q. Why are you more expensive than other fabric printers in Bali?
A. We’re a digital fabric printer (not screen printing) which focuses on zero water pollution & sustainability. Our minimum is 1 meter with no setup/screen costs and no limit to number of colours.
