Episode 14. Debbie McKeegan from Texintel

Hi there and welcome to season 2 episode 14 of The Print of Use. I'm your host Colin

Sinclair McDermott, aka the online print coach. And today I am joined by Debbie McKeegan

from Texentel. Debbie, thank you for joining me today.

Hello. Hi. How are you? I am good. Yeah. Springs on my tail. It's good.

I know we've just been catching up offline and all the beautiful places we've managed to go

in the industry over the last couple of years. Very lucky. Yeah.

Planning, planning some other trips as well. But listen, for those of our audience who perhaps

haven't come across you before, do you want to just give us a little bit of a background

as to who you are and what you do? Gosh, the short version. I am now the CEO of Texentel,

which is a resource for knowledge, inspiration and innovation for the industry.

And that is kind of materialised really from a whole career, a 25, 30-year career, probably now,

I am getting old although I don't like that. We're about to see. Yeah, yeah. But just for

ever really, dotted as a designer and a vertical factory, actually, a vertical group called

Coaxway and a many years ago, which was just a dream, actually, and it's something that not very many

designers get to do these days. That kind of vertical manufacturing, it exists, but it's nothing

like in the UK, it doesn't exist a lot, really. So I learned to be creative, painting obviously,

copying coordinates for all sorts of things, copying different styles, so both being practical,

and then also generating collections for brands and groups all over the UK. So that would have

been Mox and Spencer's, British home stores, John Lewis, and that would have been

bedlin and furniture collections of wall coverings, so kind of progress then up to starting to

become a stylist working as a, that go between between the supplier and the buyers within all

of these door groups. So you're really good training because you're creating products for a set

demographic and a set price point. So you're talking totally retro at this point. So the price point

would be, you can use eight screens, that's it, and no, you cannot have 24. And colours, just all of

those things, really, lots of, lots of commercial learnings through that time, but in that time,

whilst dormant, they started to get into CAD, it's like right at the onset of Photoshop and all of

that, and they bought a system called Microdynamics, and I was just absolutely bold over with it.

I was completely addicted to it, and just that just became my baby really, and I would, it's funny

because I never, I look back at this, think, gosh, that was a sign, but who would have known,

so I can remember that I used to create scan, do also stuff, create designs within this system,

and then I would print them up to a little HP desktop, but what I would do was, I would spray

starch, fabric, and put it into the HP desert, and then, literally print fabric, all of those years

ago. I mean, where are you here? You're talking like early 90s, early 90s here, it's a long, long,

long time ago now, and then underneath, they had a Hemingroom, and I used to take the samples

down there, and the ladies were like, well, this is amazing, what you're doing, and they used to make

me a little tiny, tiny, weeny duvet covers, and little tiny pillowcases, and I used to put them on

all the storyboards and everything, so that the customer could visualize the product, because even then,

you know, we just touch it now, and it happens, but you know, the majority of the population cannot

visualize what something looks like, whether it's on a dress or a wall, or whatever it was.

So yeah, did that for a long time, then actually went into the computer industry for a couple of years,

because I needed to know how it works, and they wanted me to tell them what they needed,

so we were literally going back to, well, I need swap colors, I need a ruler, all of those things,

and lots of 3D texture mapping and stuff too, did that for a long time, and then got poached

back into the industry, doing a demo, because I missed it so much, I just miss the smell of paint,

I miss pigment, I miss steam, and I miss factories, actually, a lot as well.

So yeah, went back into the industry for a while, again, continually integrating

computer, CADCAM in all of the systems, and then working with my partner in muscle manufacturing,

again, in the late 90s, started to bring digital info sampling, so at that point,

we were manufacturing millions of meters of bed linen and home furnishings, and would have to

create two showrooms a year for all of that, so started to put digital into that too,

we bought our first digital printers in 1998, first ones printed at a meter an hour, the second one

printed at two meters an hour, but it was revolutionary, it was just amazing, and then all of the

samples in the showrooms would be digitally created, and only then we'd still have to color separate

and do colorways and things like that, but then after that, we digitally print, and then if the

orders were taken, then they would go to rotary, so at that point sampling, and then in 2000,

we started our own digital printing bureau, first of all, doing roller blinds for John Lewis,

and then that grew and grew and grew for 18 years, actually, so that's kind of where the depth of

knowledge comes from in that I share so many of the challenges and the pain points with the

people that I speak to, because we've printed across every ink set, whether it was gosh, early on,

it was solvents, and then reactives and acids, and then pigments and latex and all the other things,

so it's just it's just going to joy really from start to finish, we stopped printing in 2018,

and that's when text intel started, really, as a knowledge base because the industry needed,

really needed. I'm going to come back to the text intel just shortly, going back to those early days

when you come into this space, like, what was it that excited you, and kind of got you hooked

on this, like from the beginning, can obviously you left for a short spell, but you came back,

and like, what was it about this industry that had you wanting to spend the rest of your life doing

this? I don't think you could help it, I think, as a creative one through the textile industry,

that's it, you know, you're in it, and it's the creativity that it empowers everybody within

the process, really, to create exactly what you want to create, you know, way back then nobody

really spoke about energy efficiency or sustainability, but, you know, go full circle to where we are now,

it's just it's the future, it really is, and you know, the markets change so many things have

changed along that time, and this is kind of like the sweet spot, I think, for digital technologies.

The stars are all aligning, we could say. Over all that, I mean, we'll see, fit 25 years,

we won't see theater tickets, that makes us do so. Yeah, I'm actually really old.

But what do you think of being the big tonn and points that have shaped how you see the textile

and interior kind of decor industries now? Cos you were behaviour, really. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

I think the big shift that will move the B-moss and the Duganorts really is the demand for

customization and personalisation and on-demand manufacturing, really. And that's comes down to lanes,

doesn't it, really? It comes from manufacturing efficiency, but it also comes also to the

from the consumer who does not want to, I suppose the best way to, in many ways to explain it is,

you know, when I was a kid, I used to go window shopping with my mum, and we'd go in like,

she'd say, okay, fine, you know, in four paydays, you can have this, or you can have that, or

you would buy things for our house, and you would look at what you're going to get, and you'd go back,

and you'd save up for them. We've got this neurosis now, it's become impossible to do that,

if you want to buy something now, you have to buy it in the next two weeks, otherwise that

that iteration has gone completely. So we're coming out of that wave of fast fashion, but

that fast fashion has generated that neurosis for something new, install all the time,

and retail reinventing itself by placing things in store to entice the customer, or online,

you know, wherever it's going to be, really, by now, because everything's almost a limited edition,

really, whether that's limited by knots, or what all zeros, and the technology can cope with both,

so yeah, I think there's the main markers, really. The technology moving along with the

consumer behaviour. Yeah. Now, I want to touch on, obviously, you guys, you guys,

were involved in a fairly substantial manufacturing business. What did those experiences from running

that business teach you that you still can draw on today from experience? Do your research leave

no stone unturned, no stone unturned? I mean, I'm not truly a perfectionist, and I think I cannot

leave something if it's not right. I can't just move on. I have to get it absolutely right,

and I think also building a great team, there's no I-in team is there, so you have to have

and support and the knowledge, the creative skills and professionalism of all of the people around

you in a textile plant, because it's basically, doesn't matter what scale it is, it's tiny or small,

it's a reload race, really, to take that initial inspiration, whether it's come from a creative studio,

whether it's come from a client, and to deliver it into a retail store, it has many, many touch points,

and all are equally important. Definitely. Now, obviously, we've touched on

text intel, and you mentioned there, there's a specific need for this, like,

what was the gap that you recognized in the market when you created text intel?

I think I'll roadtry it whenever, really, our own kind of pioneering, really, because,

you know, when we started printing in the UK, there were three people. That was it. There was

there was R.A. Smart, and there was lovely dog over at the silver array, that was it.

So there was just no feedback, there was nothing, it was like, you know, get on with it, really,

you're finding everything out for yourself, and quite often the hard way, really, with, you know,

machinery that wasn't necessarily doing exactly what it was supposed to do, just supply and demand,

materials, substrates, inks, all of these things, it was a huge learning curve, where it was,

yeah, but I wouldn't turn the clock back, I enjoyed every single minute of it.

Yeah, absolutely. If I'm on other podcasts that they'll say, like, what would you change,

what would you do differently? And the answer is typically nothing, because that's how you learn,

that's how you gain that experience. When you start to kind of remove those cogs from the wheel,

you don't have the full operational structure or mind that you would have otherwise.

You don't, and I think one of the biggest gifts that anybody can have is the ability to listen and learn.

Yeah, really, and be collaborative, I think, you know, being naturally collaborative is super,

super important, because it's a young, it works in both directions. 100%. So talking about learning,

tell us specifically, like, how would you describe techs and tell, and also who's it for?

It's for anybody in the printing industry, that's printed textile and interior industry,

that moves across whether it's fashion interiors or decor, even, you know, hard, hard surfaces,

now as well, because it's the same technology mixes and mingles across all of it. And I think

one of the big reasons, one of the big pillars right at the beginning was that it would be open

source, because, you know, I just believe knowledge should be available to anybody wherever they are

and wherever they sit, and it should be freely available. You cannot build an industry unless you

share the deep knowledge within it. And I think coming back to my earlier point, there are so many

incredible voices in our industry that never get to the mic. They never get a moment in the sunshine,

and yet they contribute so much. And I felt that it was super, super important to try and bring

as many of those voices to the table as possible, so that a young student can hop on and listen

to a podcast and or listen, read something that, or it can be, you know, a retailer at the

their end or in the middle, anybody across that supply chain, whether they're looking for,

you know, should we really get into pigment technologies now, or is pigment correct for our

products, or should we be printing reactive, or, you know, how I want to get into wall coverings,

I want to do this at the other, I want to talk about, learn about new materials coming through,

and also share some of those incredible innovators out there who may never get commercial traction,

but it's that incredible siege, you know, one of the guys, most recently that I did a podcast

through, there's a guy called Growing, and he was a central Saint Martin student who has created

ink from fungi and flowers, which has been done before, but it's still not done at scale, obviously,

but he'd gone a step further and he'd added a bio catalyst into the mix of all of that,

so he created an ink that did not last forever, and when I first said that, probably six years ago,

you know, to a very, very large PLC creating digital machines and said to their CEO, you know,

why does ink have to last forever? And then it looks to me like, there's a completely crazy,

and now, completely crazy, because we sell on the premise of durability,

and you cannot continue to do that, obviously there are certain products that need that durability,

but you know, there are lots of other products across the supply chain where we just do,

we should be able to lift the ink off, and then we can recycle all of the components of that

product individually and be truly circular, so yeah, lots, lots of little things like that that

come through that eventually will inspire somebody else to take on that on board, or maybe that

person will get investment, but there are really key moments, really, and they're all equally

important and deserve a voice. You often talk about joining the dots between designers and

printers and brands and technology vendors, like, where do you tend to see the biggest disconnect

between those groups? The biggest disconnect is between design and production, and that comes from,

literally again, Ghostful Circle 2, why I was so lucky to get the training that I did,

because I understood the product journey from conception all the way through to the retail store,

and you know, over the last 30 years, the buyers in many, many, many places do not have the

opportunities to get close to the manufacturers. They buy three-third potty, they don't actually

know how the products is actually constructed made and print is a huge part of that. So, you know,

currently buyers from the huge fashion houses, you know, there are people at H&M,

Intertext, et cetera, who have taken a lot of technology in-house and their staff are much,

much better, much more knowledgeable about what actually goes into that product. But if we're in

unless we make everything within visible and give the transparency and the clarity to all of

those different processes, how on earth do you design, create, or even manufacture, produce

a product that is better than the previous one? A new version of the same thing in many ways,

but a product that becomes circular, where everybody incrementally creates less waste,

and also, you know, ethically as well, it's really important that there's enough profit margin in

all of those products, but everybody along that journey to have food on their tables, regardless

of which continent, things are manufactured in. It's really super important, especially in the fashion

industry. You mentioned that you're kind of, where do you think we are on that journey just now?

Do you still think it's early on, or are we much further down the line? I think we're at the tipping

point. Yeah, I really do. I think we're going to accelerate into it now. I think, you know,

I've got 20 years ago, isn't it? 25 years ago, the first digital machines. I think a lot of people

thought single pass was the answer. I think a lot of people now think that high industrial machines

running at five, six hundred meters an hour, maybe you have a number of them, but you don't necessarily

need to recreate mass production like single pass does. There are lots of spaces where that's

absolutely 100% relevant, but if you're going to have a huge, great piece that's a single pass,

you've got to feed it. You've got to feed it 100% of the time. So some of the most successful

businesses that we've seen moved through digital have alternate technologies, and they prime

the technologies for exactly the right specification of the products that they're going to produce.

And I think that's super, super important. We're quite lucky, and it's exciting to come into the

industry, and at this point, and obviously digital prints changed everything from minimum order

quantities to how you think about colors and patterns I expect. Like,

what creative opportunities excite you the most when you look at what the technology can do?

There it is. How it's empowered the creative, you know, definitely. I mean, 15, 20 years ago,

you'd have to have a really substantial amount of money to launch your own design collections.

You would, you know, if you just look at rotary, you'd have to print two thousand meters of

every design in each color way, and then you'd have to make sample walks. If you're talking about

interiors, so you would, you're talking about 80,000 pairs just to get a set of sample books and

you still have a solder meter. I mean, that just sounds absolutely insane now with what we're doing.

I mean, you look at the birth, you know, the growth of online, the growth of e-commerce, which is

only going to continue to accelerate, and COVID helped that. That was a plus that came out of COVID,

if there were any. Yeah, super, super important. We now have this, you know, fantastic creative

economy, and it is democratizing print. Anybody can get into it. And that's not just for the creative,

of course, that's like every single printer out there, you know, you can have the most amazing

technology that mimics the best mills in the world in a garage, in a footprint of a garage,

without needing stenters, steamers, or finishing, you know, you have a huge shed a hundred

foot long, you know, that if you look at the footprint of, you know, the factories that we use to

have all of those years, they were the prior to digital, absolutely massive, massive amount of

water, waste, heat, energy, everything. So it's fantastic to be able to just completely rewire that.

Yeah, it really is, which is a nice segue onto what I want to talk about next, because again,

this is a question that comes up time and time and time again, with a lot of the businesses that

I work with, and often as we can do a bit of a deep dive into their business, we uncover lots

of opportunities, lots of money being left on the table. When you look at the different sectors,

like fashion, our home decor, our soft signage, where do you see printers leaving the most money

on the table? On the factory floor, without a question, literally on the factory floor, yeah.

The waste starts, it starts there, doesn't it, really, the fabric will come in and, you know,

we can look at digital cutting, we can look at, you know, avatars and digital twins and all of those

things, we've got lots and lots of fantastic tools now, they can really help us with that design

process to make sure we cook down the waste, and also printing just literally one layer and then

laser cutting, et cetera, et cetera. So you're only printing exactly what you're needing. You're

not printing on cloth that isn't going to be used for a garment. All of those kind of economies

make a huge difference. I mean, they say 50% of everything that's left on the cutting table

is waste, 15% of any job is going to be waste on the cutting table, and that's huge. And that

profit is to the printer, goes back to the printer and the textile manufacturer. That profit,

it doesn't go on to the retailer, but also I think if you're generating too much wasted

product, because you've got too much product, because you're not manufacturing on demand,

equally, that's where the waste is, really, in all directions. Everyone needs to get closer

together and get smarter and talk to each other and end the, send this, say this all the time,

just end the silo, stop being so protective, be much more transparent.

Communication is a solution for all.

For the whole world, absolutely, totally on the same page, yeah.

Yeah, I can't think of anyone better to ask this next question, too. For a traditional textile

or large format printer listening to this episode, what can I one or two practical first steps

that they can take if they want to move further into digital textiles or decal applications?

Textiles, decal, whether it's hard surfaces or wall coverings, find the tribe actually get

closer to that consumer and really understand that market, really understand that marketplace,

find it where they live, wherever they are in social media, wherever they are, and find...

You know what you've just done up at the house in, no?

No, no, no, no. Tell me everything, yeah, with the microphone, tell me everything you know,

no, that way I go down well. Just do your research, really. And again, leave no stone unturned,

but also have a passion for it. Don't just look at the pound notes because the profit doesn't

always follow the business model, does it? Really? No. So just do your research, 100%. Yeah.

And look, and look for a niche. Don't go into a marketplace that's already saturated and stay,

you know, get yourself knee deep and race to the bottom. What's the point of that? Do some

thing innovative and exciting? You and I are so in tune with each other. I love it.

You've kind of touched on the sustainability thing, and I guess as a whole, there's a whole

whole section here, we could, we could cover it as well. You have any focal about sustainability,

and you need to move away from waste folk in a stock-led models. In your view,

what does a genuinely responsible digital textile supply chain look like?

It's as efficient as it possibly can be with the customer base that it has right now,

and the technology that we have right now. And again, there should be collaborative,

and there should be knowledge, should be flowing in both directions. And I think if everybody that's

around the table is doing the best that they can do with the technology that they have,

depending on their demographic, then that's the best case scenario, because from that,

the true innovation will be applied, and the industry will get sweeter and cleaner and smarter,

really. I think it's also really important for people to stay curious, and I think

that they've had this conversation with lots of different people. It's such a huge problem,

whether you're curious about technology or curious about marketing, you know, if you're not

in a continual learning state right now, you're going backwards, not forwards.

Sometimes it's really hard to absorb all of that, and it takes the evenings and the weekends

for those that are driven to do that, but that's what it takes. That's what it takes to drive

this marketplace forward, and to stay ahead of your competition, you have the need,

and the anyway you do that is be by naturally curious, regardless, really, super important.

This is obviously an area of the industry that I'm not as familiar with, certainly as yourself,

anyway, but I would imagine the regulations and compliance might be quite challenging as well,

can you tell us about that? They are. Very, very challenging for everybody. The digital

product passport that's coming through is super, super important, and every printer needs to

specify data to all of their customers. That's large or small in order to do that, and you know,

for the print industry that's a huge gift, it's a huge ask, because they say 90% of the print

industry employs less than 10 people, so to in order to prepare this data, you don't want to be

onboarding new salaries and new people, especially at the moment where the textile industry is in

flux, you know, everybody's suffering the same issues with geopolitics, cost living crisis,

rising consumables, and we're entering a wave of that, like right now, that we just do not know how

high all of that goes, you know, everything that's going on with real regard to people talking about

oil, they need to turn the conversation to polyester, which comes from oil. All of those things,

the knockoff and on effects, affects absolutely every single person, and that's really, really hard

for many, many businesses who are trying to get to Friday, they're not making huge, huge profits,

they're literally growing their business, their business model suddenly has to shift in the,

literally two, three weeks ago, and that's happening all of the time, so businesses have to

remain in order to be sustainable, they also have to be incredibly agile and curious, and constantly

innovative, and if I suppose the lesson from all of that is looking back at COVID and look at

the businesses that were very successful and they were already digital, they were agile and they

were lean. Job titles, in small businesses, do they exist? Can they exist? Is it, oh no, we

like everybody, you know, oh my goodness, all hands on decks, down to the shop floor, and we've

got a huge order coming out, he's working the weekend, you know, it's kind of a lot of that in the

print industry, for the majority of the print industry, but that's the passion and drive that

makes people stay into, in this industry and love it so much, really. Yeah, we're not, we're not

struggling of it. We love it, we'll have to be a passion for it. We're crazy, yeah. Tell me,

do you think the on-demand, can the manufacturer and like that, that's obviously going to play

its part in helping with the sustainability aspect as well, yeah? That's huge, yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, use it on-demand, no waste, really, definitely, but also on-demand, there's

a facet to that that people don't often think about really, and the on-demand is not about putting

all the responsibility on the manufacturer to jump through hoops because somebody has shouted,

oh, I need another 3,000 of those next week. Yeah. That is not great business, and that causes chaos

in any manufacturing plant and always leads to lost profit, always, every single time.

So I think going back to your point again, collaboration is key and I think partnership is

fundamental to good business moving forward for on-demand manufacturing. Stay close in both

directions and be honourable, really, as well. Are you able to share an example of our projects

kind of that really shows how digital print and having better processes can reduce waste

while still delivered in top-class products as well? I'd like to give you two answers very

late to this one. One is we have to go back to the creative economy, online sales, look at how

wall coverings are manufactured on-demand now at any scale and look at how many creatives and

small businesses that are empowered, and look at how many smart hub manufacturing units that

is empowering as well, where the printer is generating volume from a whole host of designers

through the innovation of the APIs, et cetera, et cetera, all of that. That's collectively,

I think that's absolutely huge, huge. And then to talk about kind of creativity in the

signage space as well, which is equally important. One of the standout couples that for me

is the team over at Graphic, we're rewilding, who use print in a very creative arty way.

They have done lots of installations like in London, I cannot remember which district it was.

They did a collaboration with the local council and they wrapped all of the skips.

So all of the ugly skips that were everywhere suddenly turned into these most amazing gardens,

beautiful gardens, and also parks and things like that. Small video, like you'll see sometimes,

you know, especially you'll see a park on a corner in Whipness, so you have a lot of green in it,

you know, using fantastic vinyls and things and flooring to add walkways that were again,

or florals and graphics and just wrapping things that were already there to create these kind of

pop-up schemes. They've done castles and it just does some so many incredible spaces. The

what is it? The Westfield Centre down in London, they did a fantastic, lots of interactive art

there. So they did some huge walls and you could put your phone up that and you'd see a B and

your phone would pick up the B and then the B would move along the wall and it could, you know,

take you to a product or it could give you more information. All of that interactivity in print

is super important and you, you know, you're seeing that within the signage space, but you're also

seeing it in the main textile space as well with smart technologies and wearable textiles that

keep you hot or cold or tell you to run faster or slower or, you know, all health benefits and

all of those things kind of interact with your watch. I think that gets a bit too much really,

but, you know, for lots of medical things, there's, it's all technology that then spreads across

for different specifications really. It's all cross-pollulating, isn't it? Cross-pollinating,

cross-pollinating, no pun intended there, talking to bees and stuff. Another thing that I want to

get a touch on and again, something that we, in fact, it's a nice, it's a nicely done from our

last podcast episode with Simon Wheeler actually as well at Styloh, but you spend a lot of time,

kind of, with the next generation, the future of the industry as well. What tends to surprise them

the most when you see the full capability of what digital textile printing can do?

It's what surprises me about what they do with it, which is wonderful, absolutely wonderful.

It's a bit of a luxury, though, because, you know, for these, when you think about how much

investment they make, which is a tragedy again with student debt, et cetera, but which,

which university they go to. And again, it comes down to the curiosity of the academic staff

within those organizations as well. So it's not a level playing field for technology or

innovative adoption either, not everybody can get to the same technology. I mean, there's a great

example out in Philadelphia with Surface Imaging, I think it's called. I was over there a couple of

years ago and they were letting the students print onto concrete blocks and really play with the

machinery. And when you let creatives at the machinery, the boundaries, they just blow the boundaries,

they blow the boundaries completely and they create the most wonderful things. And I think that

when, when in both directions, empowers the technology within the print industry because it

generates new specifications, new adoptions that then generate new markets and all of that super,

super, super important. Yeah. And it's very different to when we come into the industry now. Can I,

do you think the next gen, do you think they need to have a different type of skill set as

are any new things that you feel that they would be in a form? I don't think, yeah, I don't think

it's just the next gen. I think every single person's like, anyway, I need a different skill set.

I think we do. And you know, yeah, I do, I do feel for people with, you know, that

employees and all of that legacy job descriptions staff because everything crosses over so much,

doesn't it? No. That you do have to keep saying it, remain curious, remain innovative, be a

fantastic self learner, definitely. And if you're just to take, if you go back to the designer,

really, a designer would use to just create the actual printer pattern and then hand off it off

when somewhere else. But now, you know, look at the designer brands, they need to understand, you know,

color, texture, everything about it, they need to file formats where it's going, you know,

get close to the printer, make sure that you're specifying all of the right information to make

sure that when that design that you've created, it's printed, you're not the person responsible

for creating waste. All of those things super, super important. And then even if you do all of that

as a creative brand, when do you have time for doing sales or marketing and all of the other

things, everybody's becoming very self-learned about all of that. And with the technology that's

available, why not? Because you're also then a, it's kind of empowers the creative commercially,

doesn't it? Because it's not costing a fortune, you know, it can be $10, $20, $30 subscriptions

for these things online. You know, I mean, you told, you sent me to Loveable a few weeks ago.

And I, you know, actually ended up late on some, well, I wasn't quite late on my projects,

but I did lose four days, creating a, a new CRM system for the, for the business, which as a

textile designer, how would have I ever known how to do that? And there it was, but this whole new

system. And I've now, I've had a complete conversation, I've had to do about this.

Is it? I have a complete addict. Yeah. And you put it in, if you're curious, you, it's like,

oh, because off the shelf doesn't work so often, does it really in our industry? And for the

print community, specifically, you know, where you've got businesses doing a significant turnover

with four or five staff, being able to onboard or offload admin responsibly is super, super,

super important. And you, you just grow your business. Everybody in the business is happy.

You got more transparency and your customers are happier because they've got clarity and

customer service is great. So it's just a win-win. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you enjoying it. I did

warn you it would become addictive. Yeah. I spent a fortune, I haven't actually, but I did

have to stop it up three times. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, listen, I'm on, I think I'm on, two and a half

thousand pounds a month. We would have spent 30 or 40,000 pounds building a CRN system 15 years

ago for our previous business. No, it's for our previous business because you just could not get

something that was right for you. And again, that's why it's so important to understand everything

about what you're doing because only then can you plot your own workflow. There are no gaps

of knowledge in there, really. And I hope Texantel helps with that with some people. I think I

need to get a lovable sponsor in this podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned obviously

the gap there between the creatives and production. How would you like to see that evolve over the

next five years? More knowledge sharing everywhere. More knowledge sharing. Definitely, definitely,

definitely, definitely. That has to come in all directions. It has to come down from the print

industry and down through from the software as well. You know, savvy printers need to share more

knowledge on their websites about what technologies they're using, not necessarily whose technology

they're using, but are we using Dyser reactive, whatever we're doing? And sharing, you know,

ICC profiles in color metrics and gamets and all of those things, spectral data, all of that stuff,

which, you know, don't expect designers to onboard all of that, but the software that they're

using should onboard all of that. So you should be able to download a card in simple terms, a card

from the printer, which has the specifications for their plant for that particular process,

that card aligns with your software that you're using, whether you're creating a t-shirt or

tote bag, a wallpaper or a dress. It shouldn't matter. It should then be designed and created

within the gamet of the machinery and then when it either prints or whether it's sold online

and it reaches its final destination, everybody's expectation is met. And then there's no waste.

That's that would be a real sweet spot. I think we're on our way there, to be honest. Yeah, I think

you're as well. Definitely. I think we're all out, but you guys are obviously driving that so

so hats off to you. Okay, we've come to the quick fire round section. Okay. Are you ready for

this? Are you sitting down? Okay, first thing that comes to mind, so question one, what was your

first job that's not on your LinkedIn profile? I was a junior in a hairdressing shop and if I hadn't

gotten into art college, that's probably what I would have done. Yeah, creative again. I'm not

sure what the answer is to this next one. I think I might know what it is, but let's see, where do you

feel most at home? Design studio, faculty floor or trade show? Actually, Flora, I miss it all the

time. I just love them. I love, I'm never happy. That comes from my parents, though. That becomes

because my dad was a printer, so he used to spend my summer holidays, sat on the end of his

machine. He wasn't textiles. He was packaging, but that's where I used to play, not literally play,

but you know, kid of the 70s, late 70s, you could do that. You couldn't do it now. My mum was a

seamstress, so we used it, all the kids used to play in the canteen during the holidays. There's no

childcare, so yeah, faculty all the way. Excellent. You're making up for it with trade shows now,

we seem to keep bumping into each other at these trade shows, these days. Yeah, that's true.

Okay, one word to describe the current state of digital textile printing.

Only one word. I'll give you two. It's just exciting and accelerating. It's just

incredible, definitely. Okay, that's the three words. Sorry, we'll let you do one.

What's the favourite project you've worked on where digital print did something

that would have been impossible with traditional methods?

Would have been completely impossible. The gosh, there's so many aren't there. So, so, so many.

I just think it's on demand. We're able to print a meter of anything that you want to.

I mean, I did before we closed the business in 2018, a current member actually, it's behind me,

I won silver in the festival awards for a collection that I did from old vintage documents,

and then I adapted it and put lots of textures and run it through it. So, eventually,

it looks like denim, and it really did look like denim, and it was a whole beautiful floral collection.

But, you know, I could do that in, I did that in a weekend, and that's, you know, 10 years ago.

That's that kind of creativity is super, super important to our industry. Yeah, it just empowers

everybody. Love it. Most overused buzzwords you hear around sustainability. Sustainability.

Yeah, I can just use one word. I'm sustainable. And yeah, that's definitely the word.

Fear. Okay, this might be, I might know that the one to this as well. Now, we should go to

tool habit or ritual when you need to get into your creative flow. This is a weird one. I tied

in my desk. Yeah, well, I'm with you. That's spent the weekend doing that just so I could

kind of get ready for coming back. What did I say? Tidy desk, tidy mind. Absolutely. I cannot be

creative in clutter. I can't do it. Yeah. It just feels chaotic. I can't do it. Not on

with you on that one. Yeah. Right. Last, last one. Takes in tell in a single phrase or tagline.

Innovations and insights that shape the future of print. Really? Beautiful.

Now, we have a closing tradition on this podcast. Oh, dear. And this is a point where I ask you

to share something personal about yourself that no one else in the industry is likely to know.

I absolutely know. I did. I'm not right. Anything down for this question.

Hmm. What would I say to that one? I could share my favourite slogan that I live by.

Okay. Was that okay? So I always say to myself, the best way to predict your future is to create it.

And that comes from, so it's not for me. That's over on Lincoln.

But that's my screensaver on my phone. So people who know me know that about me,

but if you don't know me, you'd never know. Would you? So it still doesn't see your question,

I suppose. The industry knows no.

Well, I said, what's the best way if anyone wants to reach out, get in touch with you?

How best do you go about doing that? LinkedIn or textintel.com always happy to talk to anybody

wherever they are at whatever level really. I think, as we've said, you know, we all have to

collaborate. We have to get outside and we have to share knowledge. And yeah, that doesn't come

with, you know, with how much you earn every year. And you can afford subscriptions. That comes

because you have a right to knowledge if you're in this industry. So hopefully textintel provides

that. Good. Excellent. Listen, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time today.

I think the next time we see each other, we'll probably be out at Festband Barcelona, yeah?

Yeah. Yeah, we're the new textile sections. That's going to be low to fun.

We're looking forward to it. But listen for now. Thank you for your time. Enjoy the rest of your

week and we'll catch up with you very soon. You're welcome. Thanks for everybody for tuning in and

listening. Thanks, Debbie. Take care for now. You too. Bye-bye.