Abstract

Digital inkjet printing for textile printing represents a key development in clothing production. The application of inkjet printing for textiles follows the trends within both the printing and textile industries in regards to the demand for personalization in order to gain consumer interest and buying power. There has been much research done in the hopes of getting inkjet printed textiles to the public on a mass scale. However, very little is known regarding the consumer on their preferences when it comes to the image quality, look, and feel of digitally printed textiles. This study attempted to address this problem by finding out such preferences from not just the consumer but also the buyer of merchandise, specifically that of the boutique market, for clothing stores. There were two methods utilized within this experiment. The first is the use of structured interviews of boutique owners within the high end boutiques of Rochester, NY to find out what their general feelings on fashion, clothing and print on demand textile options are. The boutique owners were interviewed for approximately 30 minutes through the use of a formatted structured interview. The second part of this experiment was a psychophysical experiment. This part of the experiment dealt with the image quality preferences of the boutique owners and observers, that fell within a specific set of criteria outlined by the researcher, for inkjet printed textile samples. The observers were asked to rank order the different inkjet samples according to preference of image quality, tactile feel and for specific applications. This part of the experiment took approximately 30 minutes for the observer to complete and followed an experiment outline. It is through the qualitative and quantitative data gathered by both parts of the experiment that the researcher has attempted to answer the research objective, "what does the consumer prefer in regards to image quality and feel of inkjet printed textiles?" The findings of the experiment show that the consumer is highly aware of the image quality within their clothing and specifically favor textiles with high OBAs and tighter weaves of fiber. Depending on the application of a shirt or a bag the observer showed that tactile feeling is more important to the observer for clothing but image quality standards are willing to be lowered when dealing with accessories such as the bag as long as the sturdiness of the textile is acceptable.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Textile printing--Public opinion; Ink-jet printing--Public opinion; Clothing trade--New York (State)--Rochester

Publication Date

1-1-2012

Document Type

Thesis

Department, Program, or Center

School of Print Media (CIAS)

Advisor

Riordan, Michael

Comments

Note: imported from RIT’s Digital Media Library running on DSpace to RIT Scholar Works. Physical copy available through RIT's The Wallace Library at: TP930 .V35 2012

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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