NEW SOFTWARE FROM AVA SPEEDS UP DESIGN FOR DIGITAL PRINT

The new release AVA 5.1 addresses the growing needs of the Digital Textile Print Industry...

AVA CAD CAM, are a specialist software provider, who’s software has addressed the needs of the print industry for over 25 years. Built on a historic technical knowledge of Design and Commercial print for Textiles associated with Fashion, Home Furnishings and Interiors...

Designing for commercial print is now a highly skilled process.

Once upon a time a designer would simply create artwork, but in todays fast paced print culture, and a new marketplace built for speed and print on demand, the designer must provide print ready artwork. If you’re a designer creating artwork for sale the most popular file format is now digital, and that demands a precise, complex set of creative tools.

Worldwide the print market is switching from analogue to digital, and as such the role of the designer in this process continues to evolve, taking on new responsibilities.

Artwork that is to be printed digitally contains a host of embedded information, all of which must be imputed by the designer. For the design studio that will usually include a piece of artwork that may be separated into layers, pre-scaled to an exact repeat and sold ready for the print buyer to add their final specifications.

Let’s look firstly at how the print buyer uses the purchased artwork to create the finished product, the file must now be assigned to a collection and a finished product, be that Fashion or Interiors. In many cases, the digital file will then be rendered onto a mock-up of the finished item, sometimes for selection purposes but increasingly our clients demand realistic avatars and 3D-Visuals that are used for sale purposes, removing the need for expensive photography and making the item instantly available for print-on-demand purchase.

Previewing the finished product must be accurate, in order to do so, the artwork file must contain the correct colour information, and if for POD (print on demand) the approved, calibration profile for the fabric on which it is to be printed. Without which, the Visual will not be a true representation of the finished product offered for sale.

Once the design file is selected as a line item, for production or online sale all vital information must be embedded so that at a touch of a button the artwork can be printed. Embedding the pre-press information into the artwork file is critical for instant manufacture.

AVA CAD CAM, are a specialist software provider, who’s software has addressed the needs of the print industry for over 25 years. Built on a historic technical knowledge of Design and Commercial print for Textiles associated with Fashion, Home Furnishings and Interiors. AVA’s CAD/CAM functionality is built for both the Creative and the Production environment. As a modular software, it’s a versatile option for many of the worlds biggest Design studios and Commercial printers. AVA CAD CAM offers a full suite of software encompassing Design, Separation, Colour management and Production.

The new release 5.1 addresses the growing needs of the print industry, with the addition of ‘automated tasks” which as the name suggests, automates many generic functions that are associated with either the creation or production of digital textile prints. This is an important addition, and our favourite part of the 5.1 release.

Having run a commercial print studio and digital textile printing manufacturing plant myself for many years, I’m acutely aware that the 5.1 software release not only saves an incredible amount of time for the operator, but importantly reduces operators error. It can be applied to any part of the creative or file prep process, and allows the operator to build their own workflow by simply selecting a sequence of commands and assigning. Once built, the sequence can be actioned as an automated task. It really is that simple…

Other significant functions are “Adobe Export layer” which opens the bridge between AVA and Adobe suite software. Allowing the designer to utilize both suites by converting AVA’s spot layers to Photoshop layers. File handling has also been improved with the addition of LZW compression for Tiff file format, increasing speed of transfer, saving time and disk space.

Black ‘’K” which can often be problematic, is now available as a separate K layer to help control black density on separations without disturbing or compromising the other colour channels. There’s also a clever auto separation tool: HIFI Separation, for spot colour on CMYK images.

As we are all aware, software plays a huge part in the futures of Textile businesses large and small. An automated workflow for both manufacturers and retailers is essential. We demand instant access to the information we require, and often take for granted the complex tasks hidden beneath the surface in all industries.

The automation of Textile manufacturing has brought together designers and manufacturers, who now need to communicate in a standardised format.

AVA’s software facilitates this communication and is no longer a tool of option, CAD/CAM is a necessity for any business that offers design or digital manufacture.