Visibility of care labelling code symbols

Abstract

Cutting edge technologies and various materials efficiently lead to the changes in our everyday habits. One of the important roles is also played by visual information about textile care. The latter presenting the guideline in our research, we wanted to ascertain what factors need to be taken into consideration for the recommendations on ensuring the visibility of symbols and typographic elements on textile care labels. From being sewn-in, these are nowadays more frequently printed directly on the final product. For the research purpose, the prints were made directly and indirectly (with a transfer foil ) onto a natural material - cotton, with three different non-impact printing technology printers from various producers, their cartridges and two corresponding transfer materials. Three different typefaces (one sans-serif, one transitional and one modem) were tested in four sizes (6, 8, 10 and 12 pt), complemented by 16 different textile care symbols in 11 different sizes, and by 100 % and 30 % intensity fields of black colour. The prints were exposed to a different number of wash and tumble drying cycles (1-5). The colorimetric differences were measured spectrophotometrically, whereas the differences in typographic tonal density were measured by means of image analysis. Moreover, a visual evaluation of the visibility of textile care symbols was conducted. The fastness of directly made prints was not very good, as the highest fastness was measured on indirect prints made with electrophotography. The biggest difference in the fastness of printed text was measured at smaller type sizes (6 and 8 pt). The smallest acceptable size of simple textile care symbols is 3.25 x 3.25 mm, while more complex symbols have to be larger in size.