Inkjet Printed Covers

The inkjet experiment that I blogged about back in March has proven to be quite a success.  In the past few months I've had the pleasure of working on several projects which called for the printing of large areas.

While it's been challenging getting the printer to accept the bookcloth, the actual printing has gone very smoothly and I've been very happy with the vibrancy of the colors.

It seems that, at this point, the only real limitation to the process is the size.  My printer can accept a 13" wide piece of bookcloth which limits the size of the printed cover to 12". Fortunately the length is unlimited (I think).  In most cases there are ways to work around this. For example on the blue-grey box pictured below I would normally use one large piece of cloth to wrap around the entire cover, spine and bottom, but in order to incorporate inkjet printing on a box that had a height if 13 3/4", I had to use 2 separate pieces, one for the spine and bottom and a second for the printed cover.

The lime green book pictured below has printing that wraps around the spine and onto the back of the book.  For this, since the height of the book was only 11 3/4", I was able to use a very long piece of fabric, over 35", but with proper planning and registration it worked out perfectly.   

Inkjet printing is a very cost effective way to personalize limited run projects and once I determine that pricing structure and create downloadable templates this option will be available in the online store. Until then please contact me directly if you are interested in having a custom portfolio, book or box made with printed covers.  You can always visit the custom showroom of the website to see more details on these and other custom projects.