The language of the job.

Backlit

A fabric made to be lit from behind. The job of the cloth is to diffuse a row of point sources into an even field, which is a different problem from being bright — a face that passes too much light shows the fixtures through it.

Light transmission →

Bleed

Extra printed image beyond the finished size, so a cut that lands slightly off still lands in artwork rather than in white. On a tensioned panel the bleed also has to cover whatever the keder swallows.

Blockout Black back

A construction with an opaque core, usually a black layer, between two printable faces. It stops light dead, which is what lets a double-sided banner carry a different image on each side with no ghosting.

Opacity →

Calender

The heated roller that makes transfer printing work: paper and fabric pass between a hot drum and a belt, under pressure, for a set dwell. Temperature and time together decide whether the dye fully sublimates.

Transfer temperature →

DIN 4102 B1

The German building-materials classification for a flame-retardant material, tested to DIN 4102. B1 is the class most European exhibition halls ask for. Roughly comparable to M1 in France, though the test methods differ and the classes are not interchangeable.

Direct vs transfer

Two ways to sublimate. Direct prints the dye onto the fabric and heats it in one pass. Transfer prints onto paper first, then marries paper to cloth in a calender.

Transfer generally holds finer detail and wastes less fabric on a misprint; direct is faster and skips the paper cost. A fabric is qualified for one, the other, or both.

Ink compatibility →

Dye sublimation Dye-sub

Printing where solid dye turns straight to gas under heat and bonds inside the polyester fibre rather than sitting on it. The colour becomes part of the cloth, so it does not crack, peel or wash off, and the fabric keeps its hand.

It only works on polyester. That is why nearly every display textile is one.

Frontlit

Lit from the front, or not lit at all. Here the fabric's job is the opposite: stop light getting through, so whatever is behind the graphic stays behind it.

Light shading →

Grommet Eyelet

A reinforced eyelet punched through the fabric for a tie or hook. Cheap, fast, and visible — which is the trade against SEG.

GSM Basis weight

Grams per square metre: the fabric's mass, not its thickness and not its strength. A dense thin knit and a lofty thick one can read the same.

Basis weight →

Hot cut vs cold cut

How the fabric is separated. A hot cut melts the polyester as it severs it, sealing the edge so it cannot fray — which is what lets a panel go into a frame with no hem. A cold cut is a clean mechanical cut and needs a sewn or welded finish.

Not every fabric takes a hot cut.

Hot-spotting

What a lightbox does when the fabric cannot diffuse its lamps: bright patches over each LED instead of one even field. Fixed with depth, with more diffusion, or with a face that transmits less — not with a brighter lamp.

ICC profile

A file that tells the RIP how a specific fabric behaves on a specific press with a specific ink, so the colour that comes off the roll matches the colour on the screen. The right profile is the difference between a brand red and an approximately red.

Keder Silicone bead

The silicone bead itself, and by extension the whole edge. Sized in millimetres to match the frame's channel — a bead cut for one extrusion will not seat in another.

Fabric thickness is part of that fit, which is why it is published.

Thickness →

NFPA 701

A US test method, published by the National Fire Protection Association, for how a textile behaves when a flame is applied — it measures flame propagation and afterflame rather than certifying a material outright. Widely referenced by venues and local codes in North America.

Pole pocket

A sewn sleeve along one or more edges that a bar slides through. The oldest finish there is, and still the right one for a hanging banner where the weight does the tensioning.

Roll core

The tube the fabric is wound on, quoted by inside diameter — a 3″ core is the display-textile standard. It decides what fits a press's unwind shaft and how tight the last few metres wind.

Scrim

A reinforcing mesh laminated between layers, usually in PVC banner stock rather than in polyester display cloth. It adds tear resistance and stiffness at the cost of hand and foldability.

SEG Silicone edge graphic

A graphic with a thin silicone bead sewn into its edge, pushed into a groove in an aluminium frame. The bead holds the tension, so the face pulls drum-flat with no visible fixings and comes out in seconds for the next one.

It is the reason finished size matters more than it looks: the panel is cut smaller than the frame on purpose, and the fabric's stretch and shrinkage are what decide by how much.

Shrinkage

How much the fabric loses when heat is applied. The same heat that fixes sublimation dye moves polyester, so a panel cut to size before transfer is a different size after it.

Published warp and weft, because a panel that shrinks evenly can be compensated for and one that does not cannot.

Tension fabric

Any display where the cloth is held taut by the structure rather than hanging loose. Covers SEG frames, backwalls and lightboxes. Stretch and recovery matter here in a way they do not on a banner: a fabric that does not come back flat after it is taken down is a one-use fabric.

Warp and weft

The two directions in a woven cloth. Warp runs the length of the roll, weft across it. They behave differently under tension and under heat, which is why shrinkage and stretch are published as a pair rather than one number.

A knit has wales and courses instead, but the same asymmetry applies.

Nothing matches that.

Flame-standard entries describe what each test measures and who publishes it. They are not a statement about which fabrics hold which certificate — that sits on the product, with the certificate behind it.