The May edition of the Impressions magazine dedicated a wide section to Companies and personalities leading the decorated apparel industry at the vanguard of the sector.
A sector that is more and more demanding.
The major clothing brand as well as the printers requires the best products in terms of quality eco sustainability, aesthetical research and manufacturing costs reduction.
Request to which the protagonists of the sector should give innovative and sustainable answers and solutions.
Virus couldn’t be missed among the main innovators of the textile screen printing!
Hereby follows Beppe Quaglia’s interview, President of Virus®, published by Impressions magazine.
What is your philosophy regarding innovation in this industry?
The innovation which is an end in itself is like a beautiful empty box. True innovation is based on three fundamental phases: imagination, Innovation and Cooperation.
What makes a product truly innovative?
A product can be considered truly innovative when it’s able to change an idea or a process, making it more effective and capable of developing dynamic solutions or implementing your services.
In your opinion, what drives innovation, and how can its impact be measured?
The innovation, generally speaking, stimulates those people or organizations that have the ability to see things in perspective as first, thus thinking ahead on how to improve them.
Certainly all that must be supported by passion, deep knowledge, even scientific skills sometimes, allowing to be the first to develop their own intuitions into practical ideas implementing them into the daily reality.
What did you see lacking in the marketplace that inspired the development of the inks with WOW technology?
We all know how much water based inks are dreaded in USA although I am truly convinced that it’s only the consequence of preconceptions and much misinformation.
Printers have built their certainties and abilities using plastisol inks so having the same approach toward water based inks as the one toward plastisol. This is the main reason for their problems in using water based inks.
This is the reason that pushed us to find a water based ink able to perform in a similar way as plastisol.
The first challenge was to prevent ink clogging and guarantee a much longer stability in the screen than the conventional water based ink currently available.
The second challenge was finding a solution that allowed the “wet on wet” printing as it was already possible with plastisol. A long job of research and development permitted to achieved the aimed target.
In March 2017 we launched Virus WOW® range, the first water based inks the market certified for wet on wet printing.
Discuss the advantages of these inks and why they will help screen printers compared to other inks.
All kind of inks can print but not all can ensure performances that guarantee great results and real competitiveness. The key topics of the Virus projects are:
1. Sustainability. All Virus inks range meets the parameters required by the strictest chemical restriction and environmental respect parameters imposed by the Brands.
2. Consumption reduction: an advanced manufacturing process and the use of top quality components ensure a highly performing product that allows printing with a higher mesh count if compared with the usual standard. That feature alone cuts even more than 40% of consumption.
3. Energy saving: WOW Technology has incremented savings for printers avoiding the use of flash units in between colors. Saving that can be calculated as about 65% less than the standard proposals.
4. Optimization of the equipment: the use of several flash units will reduce the number of print heads available. Getting rid or reducing the number of flash units for the printer means an increment of available print heads to add special effects but also print the same number of colors withy smaller and less expensive machines.
5. Ecology: ecology doesn’t only mean environmental concerns or following chemical restrictions. We often underestimate the consequences, in terms of pollution, caused by the side effects of our manufacturing processes. The indiscriminate use of the electricity is an element of great impact on the environment and natural resources. Thus, the reduction of inks consumption can be considered as a reduction of chemical products involved and less environmental impact.
6. Services: Virus offers specific training courses as well as transition programs for all those Company interested in a change.
Read “The Innovators” published by Impressions magazine May 2018 edition. CLICK HERE