Printing Style | Style of Printing | Different Types of Printing Style | Direct Printing Style | Discharge Printing Style | Resist Printing Style

A process for producing a pattern on yarns, warp, fabric, or carpet by any of a largenumber of printing methods. The color or other treating material, usually in the form of a paste, is deposited onto the fabric which is then usually treated with steam, heat, or chemicals for fixation. 

There are three different printing 'styles' used to produce patterned effects on textiles, these being termed direct, discharge and resist. Each of these will be described in turn.

Direct Printing Style

This method involves the direct application of the colour design to the fabric and is the most common method of textile printing. The dyes used for direct printing are those which would normally be used for a conventional dyeing of the fabric type concerned.

Discharge Printing Style

In this method the fabric is pre-dyed to a solid shade by a traditional dyeing process and the colour is then destroyed locally, by chemicals incorporated in the print paste especially for that purpose. The result is a white patterned discharge on a coloured ground. In “white” discharge printing, the fabric is piece dyed, then printed with a paste containing a chemical that reduces the dye and hence removes the color where the white designs are desired. In “colored” discharge printing, a color is added to the discharge paste in order to replace the discharged color with another shade.

Resist Printing Style

In this method of printing the fabric is first printed with a substance called a ‘resist’ which will prevent the dye from being taken up in a subsequent dyeing process. The resist functions by either mechanically preventing the

dye from reaching local areas of the fabric or by chemically reacting with the dye or the fibre, to prevent adsorption. 

A printing method in which the design can be produced: (1) by applying a resistagent in the desired design, then dyeing the fabric, in which case, the design remains whitealthough the rest of the fabric is dyed; or (2) by including a resist agent and a dye in the pastewhich is applied for the design, in which case, the color of the design is not affected bysubsequent dyeing of the fabric background