The Lumityping process, created by the Lumi design team, is a revolutionary photographic print process for textiles and natural materials. The process involves using Inkodye, a water-based dye that develops and fixes its colour permanently with exposure to sunlight. Users can also use the Lumityper app, a simple utility that helps you create negatives from your smartphone pictures.
Designed for colouring and printing natural materials, Inkodye can bind to any vegetal or animal fibre such as cotton, linen, silk, suede and wood. Once fixed, the colour becomes permanent and can go through repeated machine washes without fading.
The Lumityping process
Once you’ve turned your image into a negative and printed it onto a transparent film, you can then apply it to the fabric (for example, cotton) you want to transfer the image onto. First you coat the fabric with a thin, even coat of Inkodye. You then place your negative (printed side facing upwards if it’s an inkjet print) on top of the coated fabric. You then place a piece of glass on top of the fabric and expose the project to direct sunlight for 10-12 minutes to start the Inkodye’s colour development. The end result is a coloured photograph printed on fabric.
