While walking the show floor at Heimtextil international trade fair for home and contact fabric, Annemijn Filius was inspired by all the gorgeous patterns on display. To her dismay, many of the designers presenting work at the show were thrown for a loop when she inquired about reproducing them on textiles. This left her with the desire to find a way for beautiful designs to be made available to consumers on demand and on a variety of substrates. She wondered: How can designers make their work accessible to the average consumer? Knowing the ever-growing trend in customization and personalized products, Filius decided there had to be a way to bridge the gap between designers and customers. The solution? Motiflow.
For Motiflow, Filius’ print-on-demand company out of the Netherlands, the possibilities are truly endless. Motiflow brings together designers, wide-format printing, and end users in a seamless process allowing for customization, community, and creativity. The concept is simple: Designers make an account and upload their work; customers place orders by picking their favorite patterns and choosing what substrate to print on; and sister company Probo outputs the order using their HP Latex 570 and Durst Alpha Series printers. Designers retain the copyright to their patterns, and end users receive personalized wallcoverings, gift wrap, and fabric without leaving the comfort of their homes.
Since its launch in September 2016, Motiflow’s community has grown to include 300 public designers and thousands of patterns, ranging from dancing lobsters to ice cream, floral prints, and coffeepots. Consumers can choose to print onto fabric (cotton basic, cotton satin, poly outdoor, or jersey), wallpaper, or gift wrap. From there, customers ranging from DIYers to designers to wholesale companies let their creativity flow freely. “The most common applications for customers, if you look at fabric, are clothing and interior décor,” explains Filius. “But nothing’s the same; it’s a wide variation of products. And that’s where our customers’ creativity shows. One customer even made herself a wedding dress from our printed fabric.”
At Motiflow, sustainability and printing on-demand go hand in hand. Fabric is sourced from European companies with proven environmental credentials, while wallpaper and gift-wrap media are FSC-certified. Probo prints all orders with GOTS-certified, nontoxic inks. “Being eco-friendly is important for us, but also for the customers we sell to,” says Filius in a release. “They demand high quality output with a strong environmental pedigree.”
What’s next? Partnering with brands that can offer even more products to end users: Think curtains, cushions, and clothing. As Filius puts it: “How would the world look if you could print any pattern, on-demand, on any product? It’s a whole new world full of endless possibilities, which we are going to discover.”
Read more from Big Picture's November/December 2017 issue featuring the first-ever Interior Décor & Textiles :