DYE SUBLIMATION - IT'S RELEVANCE IN EDUCATION
The process of Dye Sublimation has a significant relevance
in many areas of a modern educational establishment and within
the curriculum. The process is cross-curricular and is
being used widely in the departments and areas (see fig. 1)
within many schools and colleges across the UK.
The process is incredibly flexible. It allows
students of all ages and abilities, to produce a wide range
of ‘true retail quality’ printed items.
These items not only compliment the quality of their computer
aided designs, but leave students with a high satisfaction
level in relation to their finished work.
The Dye Sublimation process offers schools and colleges the
chance to invest in a new technology that is being widely
used in industry to decorate many everyday items that students
can easily identify with.
The printing systems that ISub (Education) offer are identical
in almost every aspect, to the full scale manufacturing systems
currently being sold to industry, by our founding company I-Sub
Limited.
What makes ISub (Education) unique is our understanding of,
and links to, the industrial manufacturing companies
that are using dye sublimation printing systems from our founding
company I-Sub Limited. These include Sportswear manufacturers,
Interior decoration, Furniture manufacturers, Automotive companies
and fashion houses.
Whether you are a school or an industrial manufacturer,
the print quality is identical, the ink is identical,
the paper is identical and the imprintable substrates are identical.....
ISub (Education) just offer scaled down versions of the industrial
equipment to Education.
Dye Sublimation - It's Place in the Curriculum.
As fig. 1 shows the process spans wide areas within
educational establishments. The following sections cover in
more depth the specific areas of the curriculum. You
can click on your specific area to jump to that section:
Design & Technology (Resistant Materials)
Within design and technology, the process of dye sublimation
is excellent for printing onto a wide range of resistant materials.
These can form either stand alone printed products or be integrated
into a student’s project to form part of their coursework.
Examples of the types of material you can print
to are listed below, however you can also print to many other
substrates not listed here:
The process is quick and clean and can be combined
with other equipment such as routers, laser cutters and vacuum
formers to produce stunning end products.
The mock mobile phones on the left were printed
by Mark Sutton, a teacher at Soar Valley College in Leicester
with his year 9 students. They are printed on cast acrylic and
produce a stunning end result.
If you open your resistant materials cupboard,
many of the items inside can be sublimation printed straight
away or with minimal pre print treatment.
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Design & Technology (Textiles)
Dye sublimation is perfect for printing to a wide range of
manmade and mixed content textiles including:
Whether
a student is printing a repeated textile pattern design to be
incorporated into a garment, creating cushions, make up bags,
pencil cases and much, much more, the process of dye sublimation
is simple, clean and easier than other processes, such as silk
screen printing. However, the process allows you to print in
near photographic quality onto textile.
Many schools are using dye sublimation, up to AS level, to
produce full garments such as the example shown on the left
that was produced by an AS level student at Saint Philomena's
Catholic High School for Girls in Surrey. The dress includes
images sublimated to the textile of old maps.
Textiles printed using Dye Sublimation are used in many areas
of daily life, some examples are: Flags | Exhibition Banners
| Textile Wall Art | Bar Mats | Car Interiors | Kites | Fashion
Clothing | Scaffolding Wraps | Sportswear | Upholstery etc.
ISub
(Education) carry an extensive range of textiles from lightweight
Voiles to heavyweight Canvasses.
For more detailed information on the available textiles for
dye sublimation, please click on the link below to email us.
Click here
to email ISub (Education)
Art & Design
The process of Dye sublimation is used widely in Art and Design.
Whether students are creating an image base for a design that
will incorporate other techniques or they are creating textile
wall art projects, the process of Dye Sublimation can help you
to raise the quality of work across the board.
Textile
artists such as Arthur Ridley, regularly use the process of
Dye Sublimation in their works of art. A recent example of this
is Arthur's award winning 'Treasures of the Sea' (see left)
that won the Madeira Threads Embroidery competition.
In industry, many companies have emerged in recent years
that are selling personalised bespoke imaged products, such
as Canvas Wall Art, Cushions, Blankets and Handbags. Many are
using the process of Dye Sublimation due to it's ease of use
and flexibility, which allows them to meet the fast turnarounds
required in today's competitive markets.
One of the market leading companies in the personalised bespoke
imaging market is Contrado Imaging Limited. You can see examples
of the work they are producing in the industrial markets by
visiting their inspirational website at www.bagsoflove.co.uk
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In School Signage
Every school has a requirement to produce signage, yet most
schools seem to outsource this service at greatly increased
cost to the school.
With the Dye Sublimation process your school could print on
to a wide range of materials, suitable for signage applications,
such as Metal, Plastic, Perspex, Acrylic, Ceramics, Anodised
Ali and much much more.
In addition, many schools use post print processing techniques
and produce their own name and identity badges and even to produce
security signage for in school equipment.
The
potential savings for your school are significant and in the
case of a secondary school can easily exceed the cost of an
entry level sublimation printing system.
Due to the flexibility of the Dye Sublimation process, we have
some school users that are even outsourcing short run signage
to local industry and charging for the service to revenue generate.
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Business Enterprise
Dye Sublimation is ideal for business enterprise and recent
months have seen an explosion of schools using the dye sublimation
process for their Business Enterprise clubs, with great success!
Because the equipment used has a low investment cost and the
wide range of low cost blank imprintable items, it means that
the enterprise team’s products will appeal to a wide customer
base.... resulting in high potential sales.
Remember, the quality of the products that the enterprise team
will be able to produce are 'true retail quality'. The most
popular business enterprise products are listed below:
A great example of how a school successfully uses a dye sublimation
print system for Business Enterprise is Kibworth CofE Primary
School in Leicestershire.
They invested in an entry level, Starter Pack A in the Summer
2007 and have been using the system running three business enterprise
companies with Year 6 students.
The school held a Christmas bazaar in December 2007 and raised
£1000 from the sale of goods manufactured by the business
enterprise companies. This resulted in profits of £600.
In addition, the school had an OFSTED visit in October 2007
and was commended for their use of Dye Sublimation in Business
Enterprise for teaching economic wellbeing.
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In School Promotion
Every school has a need to promote itself, whether it is producing
branded garments such as T-Shirts, Polo Shirts, Sweatshirts,
PE kits and team wear or producing printed promotional items,
such as mouse mats to sell at school fairs.
The dye sublimation process is also widely used for printing
textiles which are used to produce costumes, scenery and props
for drama production.
Why not consider using the process to print promotional t-shirts for school drama productions. This is a great way to
revenue generate and afterall, the parents are a captive audience....
Remember that you only have to produce one of each design and
then take orders at the the event. This way you have 'virtual
inventory' and only print the actual number that you take orders
for.
All the garments that are produced are retail quality, fully
washable and ironable.
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In Conclusion
As you have hopefully seen the process of Dye Sublimation is
contemporary and relevant in a modern school environment. It
can offer many benefits, especially within the curriculum, but
also offers many advantages to the wider school.
To discover the equipment required to be able to use sublimation
printing within your school, click on the link below to visit
the 'What
Equipment is required to Sublimate' pages.
