See Tomorrow and Prepare for it Today: Akshay Kanakia

04 May 2023: Akshay Kanakia Writes About the Future Opportunities and Preparing to Seize them by Leveraging Technology

Today, the Indian textile printing industry is passing through a stage, which we can describe as a transit phase. This has created confusion among the people in the industry as to “what will be the future and how to survive?”

Remember that during this transit phase, in any field or situation, the effect and result is more or less the same. Some of the smart, alert and foresighted people will benefit and become leaders while the rest will be the followers. This is how I see the situation going forward. I can foresee the coming change in the industry and would like to draw attention to it.

The textile printing industry has begun its journey from available resources for printing technology to begin with hand printing – block printing – stencil printing – roller printing – table screen printing – flat bed screen printing rotary screen printing and currently digital printing.

Printing is a technique (method) and now called technology. As far as technology is concerned, it can be learnt – taught – practiced and expertise gained.

Today, we are in the techno era and we should take the benefit by preparing and upgrading ourselves and our working style. We will have to be prepared for the coming drastic change in any and every way, make the decisions accordingly and take the benefits of the coming boom.

Design processors will be required whose job will be to process raw art work to the printable design file. As in the case of talented creative artists I can say that there was, is, and will be the scarcity of talented, trained creative artists.

Today our industry is facing the severe need of designing artists and design processing teams. We have the best resources of ideas, of raw designs on internet, so the source and references may not be the major issue. But mind well, one can use those ideas as reference and develop the final raw art work from it. So, trained and talented creative artists are and will be the main issue the industry will be facing in coming days, as also the design processors.

I will not say that the digital printing done is not up to the mark or as it should be, but these are some of the facts we should not ignore and should take necessary action in the subject of designing and design processing.

Recently, since the last few months, many of my clients have asked for my suggestion regarding incorporating the digital printing setup. To all of them, I say that digital printing is tomorrow and the future so we can plan for it. But before moving ahead, make sure of the designing team as discussed above. Their reply was, ‘that can be arranged,’ but still I specifically stressed on the point that the designing team will be the issue, so make arrangement for that and then move ahead with any concrete plan.

The reason for me to draw their attention on this issue is that I can foresee this scarcity, as of today, as many of my clients who have already installed the digital printing machine are facing the problem of designing and design processing team.

The solution to this situation is to train the artists and design processors for this technology and make them available for the betterment of the industry. This training will empower the youth for the coming future.

The situation is such that we have the latest printing technology and opportunity at our doorstep and we may miss it for simple avoidable reason which we can and yet not have commenced with the beginning.

As a part of the textile printing industry with the experience of almost 50 plus years in printing, design processing, consulting and training the students for computer-aided design processing, I have witnessed the entire journey of textile printing industry from manual printing to technology driven printing, and therefore wish to offer my service and guidance.

I think and wish at least by this way I can share my experience and knowledge, what industry has taught me during my journey of 50 plus years, with the fresh young friends wishing to join the industry. This will my humble contribution to the textile printing industry by being the bridge between industry and young dynamic friends.

Let us all join hands and be a part of this new emerging opportunity and flourish, not only one’s own self, also the industry and our ‘naya badalta Bharat’ (new, transforming India).

About Akshay Kanakia …..

I started my career in the mid-70s in the family textile printing and processing house. I have practical knowledge and experience in the entire process of fabric from raw to finish, especially in printing and designing. I was the first to introduce the concept of C.A.T.D.P. (Computer Aided Textile Design Processing) in the year 1995 and successfully catered the industry till 2007. After that I have focused my attention in training the students for C.A.T.D.P. and was associated with 6 top Fashion n Textile institutes in Mumbai. I have trained 450 plus students on one-on-one basis and have processed 150,000 designs till date.

Akshay Kanakia (93241 16227), kanakia.akshay@gmail.com