I would very much love to either mimic or scan and design a mural based on the Voynich Manuscript.

Voynich Floral Spirals

Taken from Wikipedia:

The Voynich manuscript is a handwritten book thought to have been written in the early^[1] 15th century and comprising about 240 vellum pages,^{[notes 1]} most with illustrations. The author, script, and language remain unknown: for these reasons it has been described as “the world’s most mysterious manuscript”.^[2]

Generally presumed to be some kind of ciphertext, the Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including American and British codebreakers from both World War I and World War II. Yet it has defied all decipherment attempts, becoming a historical cryptology cause célèbre. The mystery surrounding it has excited the popular imagination, making the manuscript a subject of both fanciful theories and novels: numerous possible authors have been suggested for it.

In the end, this manuscript dates to the 1500s. I think the imagery is unique because of its out-of-time creativity and its mystery.

If these images were scanned/redrawn at a larger scale, and printed as a wall mural, the mystery would become larger than life, and become a puzzle to be solved! I can’t think of a better dining room /restaurant topic to discuss than these insane/genius rambings.

Take a look at some of the illustrations:

Voynich_Manuscript Fold Out

Women in Green Bath Incubator?

Voynich Mural Plants and Leaves

See a large collection of Voynich JPGS here.

What would it take turn Voynich images into pleasing murals?

Being that the images are hand drawn on paper dated to the 16th century, we’re not starting out with a lot of detail.  So, the scans and images that are generally available now would likely be the best we’re going to get.  The murals would be best created if the various illustrations were composited together and the ‘text’ removed.  Because the purpose is to create a mysterious dinner topic, and not pure research — some image touch ups, and simplifications could be included.

Depending on the room size, I would guess about 2 hours per linear foot of wall space would be required to design a mural/murals.  Would I do it for a customer? Gladly!!

I came across the work of Barbara Harmon.  She is a mural artist who specializes in drawing animals.  I must say, she has much more skill than I have, or at the very least, MUCH more time!

She created a series of blog posts outlining her work for Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge- the mural that I like is the night time mural.  Very dark in its design, the mural is installed with spotlights on specific elements of the piece- increasing the highlight of target areas – in this case, night animals.  At the link you can see all the details close up.

Night Time Mural of Assabet River Wildlife

Often times you have to work around light, audio, plumbing and security features of a wall when considering a wall mural- but in this case she uses light, and (if you read) sound to augment and bring the mural to life.

Kudos to Barbara.

Looking for inspiration for a project, I came across an interesting mural designed with repeated patterns, torn paper edges and christmas colors.  No, its not Christmas Morning, but I can see the inspiration there!

Given, these murals were installed at a music hall in Brooklyn, and have another theme – which is authoritarian regime, but still – its all how you want to see it, and what you WANT to see opened at Christmas – NOT what you actually get.

Seasonal Wall Graphic

If you want a wall graphic to be installed for just one season, consider printing on regular wall paper and having a wall paper hanger install the mural for you in a short afternoon.  A seasonal, short term wall graphic can act as a focal point for other decorations – depending on the target holiday.

If you’ve ever walked some of the indoor malls in Vegas, especially Cesar’s, you can see well done sky murals- all one color blue  with clouds painted over top.  You can get this same look and feel. (OK ok, maybe I’m dating myself- because I’ve not walked THAT particular mall in over a decade and not sure if its there).

When developing a mural intended for a ceiling, its certainly tempting to grab the freest sky image you can from any of the image sites, or, possibly cheaper, just take a picture yourself.  The problem with this method is the variation of the sky color from east to west, or north to south.

While this may not seem to be a ‘big deal’ it can make your ceiling mural look washed out, and, depending on the lighting, very unnatural.  It is my suggestion to either find the most atonal image possible for a sky, or replace the blue sky component altogether.   Depending on the amount of time you want to spend on it, and the desired clouds, you output/color/whispiness  quality can vary.

Take one from the opulence of Cesar, and start with a fixed blue sky, and go from there.

Newspapers have 1000s of pages to print in every run, so, images are created in the most economical way possible, using the latest techniques available (but generally offset lithography). Images printed this way are comprised of a dots and shapes of varying sizes. With a small magnifier, you can easily see this pattern.

Early 20th Century Newspaper Clipping

Here you can see the dot pattern

There is very little that can be done to clean up this type of print/image for wide format, or mural printing.  For a recent project, I delivered the below.  I changed the color to a crisper, non-sepia tone color, I deleted the background and replaced it with a consistent dot pattern background that mimics the print dot size, and I adjusted dot color in the FULL black areas.  Optionally, I could have hired a portrait artist to paint over the image (I keep a plethora of designers with varied skills close by), but that was not an acceptable reproduction method for the customer.

Clean up the image and standardize the background

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!

A spectacular “cosmic eye” has been photographed in space by a telescope in Chile, showing a distant nebula in which sunlike stars are burning themselves out.

The image of the Helix nebula, which lies 700 light years away in the constellation Aquarius, was captured with the Wide Field Imager instrument at the La Silla Observatory high above the Atacama Desert.

Already amazing in color and already resembling the human eye, when duplicated, it has an incredible resemblance to the human face.

This very high resolution image would be excellent for police stations, or anywhere else where big brother may be watching. Then again, maybe it’s better for a church. This image can be produced at up to 10′ high, by up to 40′ in width.

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? Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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.