Unlikely places for murals to show up.

Now I don’t look over the pond very often, but when I do, it’s usually for good reason. TEO JASMIN , a Paris interior design company, has set themselves apart from their regular competition with a unique twist on digital printing.

The interior design firms that I often work with go through the effort of matching this wall surface treatment, with that floor surface treatment, to that fabric, etc… but TEO JASMIN has made the effort to create their own surface treatment by usiing imagery USUALLY suited for wall murals as the surfaces of not simply wall art, but fabrics and furniture.

I do believe that their use of digital printing makes the objects that are found in a room, whether it be a chair, a pillow, or a throw, as something to be stared at.

Can’t you see having your next party and having your throw pillows be the topic of discussion? Ha!

Measuring in the Round

The occasional wallcovering job will bring you face to face with a measurement nightmare.

• What if you have to provide a mural that runs around all four sides of a room, and has to match up perfectly from starting edge to final edge?
• What if you have to provide 4 sides of an interior wall and have the beginning and end of the mural match up?

This isn’t your momma’s dainty flower design that you can hack together in the corner above the door.  You have to be dead on to please the customer.

What do you do?

Wallcovering Mural Shrinkage

Because of the materials involved and the printing process, occasional problems arise in digital prints that are due to material shrinkage.

How does this happen? – Wallcoverings are fabric backed, but can still stretch under normal conditions (a very small amount).  When heated, as when under an ink jet printer, and pulled taught between rollers, some stretching occurs.  This minimal amount is usually only 0.25% or less.   When cooled, the wallcovering material is usually not pulled taught (as on the take-off of the ink jet printer) and returns to its actual size. –This means that the printed design is now 0.25% smaller than it was intended to be.

0.25% shrinkage, big deal, right?  I’ve had customers deal with high height projects (40′ heights in a casino) that had shrinkage of nearly 1.5″.  This is a BIG deal for if you are matching other architectural components.

Robert Barker’s ‘Panorama’ : A Room with a View

In 1787, the painter Robert Barker opened an exhibition in Edinburgh which was to have a major impact on the nineteenth- and twentieth-century entertainment industries. It featured a panoramic view of the city of Edinburgh painted around the inner wall of a rotunda which, viewed from the center of the room, gave the spectator the illusion of reality.

During the nineteenth century, panoramas and related forms of visual illusionism–dioramas, moving panoramas, peep-shows–became an early form of mass entertainment in European and American cities.

Cross section of Robert Barker’s Panorama, Leicester Square, London, 1789

The panoramic view itself was far from new. Panoramas are at least as old as the Bayeux Tapestry, and artists had been painting bird’s-eye views of cities long before the invention of manned flight made them a reality. What was new was the idea of putting the painting into a circular room and attempting to deceive the eye into believing that it was looking not at a painting, but reality itself. The history of panoramas is closely interwoven with that of photography throughout the nineteenth century, each playing an important part in the other’s development.

Adding Depth to a mural

I’ve worked on art projects in the past that have included digitally printed prints cut from and laid over another substrate or hidden image. Those were cool, but I must say, the concept outlined over at LimitedHype.com from burojet.com is really something.

They’ve used digitally printed murals of unique furniture, but have not been scared to cut them to pieces, and overlay them onto moveable doors.

Obviously these are tailored for those with small living spaces, but the concept in relation to division and revelation of new layers is exciting.

At Lateral Art, we’ve had the opportunity to work with custom cutting houses that cut Aluminum Letters, Sintra, and of course digitally printed items out for us.

What about two layers of murals, one cut to pieces with an intricate pattern, revealing the other behind, but 6 to 12 inches away. As the visitor walks from one viewpoint to the next, the back/revealed image keeps changing. Kind of like a massive lenticular.

We’re up to that challenge, we only need that target wall. Do you have a good application?

I Love the bird cages

In the mural business, we often check out what other people are doing.  I found this great bird cage mural in a restaurant.  The simple lines add uniformity and really fill the wide open space, and they also do well to the open rafters/faux rafters up above.

One thing to note – the decorator for this project was thinking ahead in his or her combination of the mural with the well matched chosen lighting.  It’s not a trivial task to line up mural positions with other wall objects.  One has to pay particular attention to HOW the installer deals with the bleed of the mural.

If 6″ of bleed was provided here in the install, but the installer just lined the left hand edge of the mural with the left hand edge of the bleed, the entire mural could be off by 6″ away from any electrical junction boxes.  A critical error.  It’s very important to clarify to an installer HOW to deal with provided bleed, and HOW to deal with other objects.

Using Color Themes for Designs

I’ve recently come across a fun new tool from the design professionals at Adobe. It’s Kuler.

Kuler is an online respository of color themes that are sorted and voted on – a little Web 2.0 community for color enthusiasts. We’ve utilizied this tool when creating new murals, and are happy to use it again based on client request.

This tool is excellent for pulling up new ideas for mural use, as well as other A&D and printing projects, however one has to be cautioned that the colors here are not necessarily printable. Some colors are outside of the printing capability of many wide format printers. Color problems often occur with very light colors, very dark colors, greens, oranges, and flourescents/neons.

Wall Finish Requirements for Wall Murals

You will impress your client if you can speak their language – speak about expectations for the target wall before the mural is installed.  To speak intelligently about this concept, refer to the guidelines that I have referenced below.

The below list is a creation from several associations, including: the Association of Wall and Ceiling Industries International (AWCI), the Ceilings and Interior Systems Construction Association (CISCA), the Gypsum Association (GA), and the Painting and Decorating Contractors of America (PDCA).

(Levels 1-2 omitted due to irrelevance in this discussion)

Collage murals Guidelines

When you follow these three basic rules to collage design, you will provide your clients with decent looking images.

Consistency

Resolution Consistency

A collage can look extremely inconsistent if you utilize source images with varying resolutions.  Mismatched cropping techniques can yield a similar unfortunate effect.  It’s best to match resolution whenever possible.  If this cannot be done, consider the unthinkable and downgrade your highest resolution image to the lower common resolution, and then enlarge (interpolate) all of the images up to the desired resolution together.  I use Genuine Fractals for my interpolation needs – expect a  review of that product within this blog within the next few months.

The Double Cut Seam

Wallcovering installations are created with a 1″ overlap between 54″ ( or less) wallcovering panels.  A double cut (through both panel edges) is applied with a simple knife cut through the verical lenght of the matched panels.

This double cut method provides a seam with no overlaps – crucial with thick materials.

Because this is how installers always install wallcovering, make sure your printing/panelization software is set to include a 1″ overlap between panels.

One more comment -With any seam, it is possible that the raw vinyl color (white) will show through.   A wise wallcovering installer will carry with him touchup markers for cleaning up any ‘bad’ seams.

A good set of wallcovering mural installations can be found here, at the OMNOVA website.

Substrate options for printing wall murals

In today’s greening world, you have options on what substrates you target for your wallcovering applications.

Vinyl Wallcovering, types I and II

I’ve had the privilege to visit two of the largest vinyl wallcovering manufacturing sites in North America in Columbus, MS and Marietta, OH.  These being home to OMNOVA Solutions, and RJF International, respectively.  Manufacturing is a difficult process, and getting it right is an artform.

Expectations of Interior Decorators

Color, Color, Color

As mentioned in previous posts, Interior Designers have a specific level of expectations when it comes to color matching as compared to the print professional.  Color match is usually done with a Pantone book, a hard match, fabric samples, tile samples, etc…. Custom mixed spot colors for everything.  As you and I know, this is NOT the case for the digital printer utilizing a  4, 6, 8, or even 10 color printing system.

Unfortunately, as a print professional, it is required that you help your client understand why certain colors can be matched, and why, certain colors, cannot.