Digital printing technology has come a long way since 10 years ago. As anyone involved in digital printing knows, a print is only as good as the file it came from. And getting good file from an original piece of art can be challenging despite of the advent of state- of- the art technology. However, several artists including painters and fashion designer have recently succeed in applying digital printing technology into unique areas

On the Fashion Show



Designers are people with a desire to create. They combine practical knowledge with artistic ability to turn abstract ideas into formal designs for the merchandise we buy, the clothes we wear. As digital printing technology has, in these days, been developed, digital printing solution has been fascinating to high-fashion designers. It makes them achieve various paintings and photo images on textiles, which, we think, are impossible to produce. Boko Choi, a fashion designer, has devoted a considerable amount of time to developing new Buddhist art on textiles. He has used Gwil monk's paintings and a Bongjeong temple as his design idea for the fashion show. Interested in the development of traditional identity and its aesthetic value in Korean fashion design, Choi, boko was in the charge of the fashion show. And Bitsalmooni Inc., which has developed voluminous art items and cultural products by digital textile printing solution, took exclusive responsibility for producing Buddhist-oriented design concept and a variety of textiles for the fashion show. It took almost two months to complete the fashion show. The project required a bunch of brainstormings and meetings. The big challenge is applying a variety of experimental textiles to establish new fashion trend. As a matter of fact, color inconsistence sometimes occurred depending on the usage of different textiles. So the challenge is producing the right colors on textiles which designer desired. Junsik Jung, president of Bitsalmooni Inc., explained that when it comes to digital textile printing, the most important thing would be not production technology but the development of various designs, merchandising and marketing. Bitsalmooni Inc., used its TX20100 printer to produce Korean traditional images on textiles.



Kim Jumsun's Art Gallery



People appreciate artworks in an art gallery or museum. However they don't care how artworks are produced. Traditional tools to produce a piece of artwork include canvas, brushes and oil colors, but now artists for fine art printing use only monitor and mouse. Artists are eager to explore the importance of digital technology, using a variety of softwares, which is corresponding to traditional methods such canvas, brushes, pens and oil colors. Digital printing technology makes all it possible to produce a fine art. Jumsun Kim, an artist of Western painting, stopped painting because she felt an ache on a shoulder a year ago. Since then, she has started to paint her artworks using digital means and has experienced modern art world. Eventually she adopted digital printing technology. Recently Museum of Star Tower held a hundred of her artworks featuring digital printing that depicted several animals. Kim Jumsun said "I think digital fine art would be absorbing since the digital technology was, I expected, easier to operate and print. And it took only a few minutes to complete a piece of artwork." and " the most difficult thing was color- matching. Occassionally, digital printing looks totally different from original colors." added Jumsun. All artworks for her art gallery were printed by inkjet digital printer.



Sound-Drawing Exhibition



Yeo Gesuk, a musician, who is dwelling in Hamburg, Germany, held unique exhibition entitled "Sound-Drawing". The exhibition showed a wide range of sound world using digital printing technology. Yeo Gesunk created her own sound world on inkjet papers. The pictures she produced seemingly look just like common drawing. But they definitely are music paper for playing. She has eventually made her music world visible by the help of digital printing technology. Yeo Gesunk stopped by a digital printing service shop to figure out the possibility of digital printing application to her drawings. The shop scanned her drawings and printed the graphics on papers or fabrics using Roland FJ-52 printer. With Digital printing technology, Yeo Gesunk has achieved distinctive artworks: Sound seen by eyes, and Movement seen by ears.



Computer Art Gallery

Chang Hyomin, prof., of Chongju National College of Science & Technology, has held four times exhibitions so far. All the times he has held the exhibition, he has completed his art works, using large format digital printer. The 4th solo exhibition is based on ideas of "Poem & Typography and Image of Sotdae". Despite of the computer software, artists including painter and designers lay more emphasis on creativeness than technical issues like color matching. So the majority of artists are unfamiliar with digital printing technology. Even if they create a great work, some artists who are unfamiliar with digital printing technology experience a more difficult time hitting correct colors so that the colors displayed on the monitor can not represent colors that the output device can actually reproduce. At first, like many technologies adopted by artists, digital printing has been widely accepted. Even though acceptance of technology sometimes has been difficult, art and technology have never really been strangers. Pro., Jang Hyomin reproduced all pieces of works on inkjet papers using HP DesignJet 2000CP for the exhibition.