Use wallpaper to make your room look bigger

Much like fashion, interior design trends tend to go in cycles. Many designers are re-discovering the possibilities with wallpaper. It can be used as an accent wall or, as described in this article, use a vertical pattern to help lift and visually make a small room look larger. With the UV Curable printing process on our Arizona 350 GT, not only is the printing process environmentally friendly, but designers also have an opportunity to create and implement a one of a kind custom design.

Wallpaper gives small space character: by Christine Brun

Sometimes a room needs more than just a coat of paint, especially if it is a room that serves a distinct purpose.

It is exactly in smaller spaces such as an entryway or a powder room that we feel most comfortable experimenting with new things. If the result isn't quite what we imagined, it is easier and less expensive to correct.

Other times, however, the emphasis you seek is for an area of greater impact, such as a living-room wall just begging to be treated as a focal point. Maybe you want to do more than just paint it a different color. Fortunately for the wallpaper industry, after what seems like a long drought, many people are turning to wall coverings to achieve that pizzazz.

...The photo shows wallpaper designed by Candice Olsen, host of "Devine Design" on HGTV. The soothing color and subtle vertical-print pattern help "lift" the ceiling height in the room, a good strategy for smaller rooms in general.

Wallpaper is back - and you may not recognize it

We have seen a resurgence in the usage in wallpaper lately. With the ability to print directly from a digital file, interior designers, photographers, or any creative soul can now see their vision realized in a big way. Many designers are using this technique with an accent wall of a custom motif created specifically for that space. Although this article highlights ready to sell wallpaper designed by specific artisans, anyone can achieve a similar look and get it printed for about half the price as a prefabricated product.

Wallpaper is back and design-forward: Distributed by McClatchy Newspapers

Wallpaper was a booming industry for years until the late 1990s, when it fell out of fashion as faux paint finishes came roaring onto the interior-decorating scene. Floral patterns and fruit borders were no longer innovative.

Wallpaper looked tired.

But fear not, people: Wallpaper is back. But it's different -- so different, you might not recognize it. (Full disclosure: My husband is a wallpaper hanger, so some of my evidence is firsthand.)

Accent Design Studio in Fort Worth, Texas, has seen a big increase in the use of wallpaper in its interior designs in the past two years. And it's because the new papers really complement the faux-paint walls. "It may cost 40 percent more to wallpaper a room than paint it, but the impact is worth it," Accent co-owner Cindy Peck says.

Popular TV designer Candice Olson, host of HGTV's "Divine Design," wallpapers an accent wall in many of her designs and is helping to make wallpaper hip again. She started her own line of wallpaper, available through York Wallcoverings, a year and a half ago. Olson's new collection comes out in December.

Consider these emerging trends:

PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGERY

When I saw this wallpaper, it took my breath away. It's absolutely a piece of art. Trove is a wallpaper studio based in New York. It uses photographic imagery to create depth in large-scale prints. This pattern, Indi, inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds," is simply stunning. Roll width is 35.5 inches, $16 per square foot. The image featured is 12 feet high by 6 feet wide.

Trove, under the direction of Jee Levin and Randall Buck, began with images inspired by the 100-year-old flower market in the middle of Manhattan. The studio uses natural elements as the basis of its designs. Serendipitous, too, that the paper itself is eco-friendly and recyclable. Learn more at www.troveline.com.

Advertising in slower economic times

It is seems to be all anyone can talk about now, the economy. Many companies have made hard decisions and sacrifices to tighten their finances. However, tightening the belt on your advertising budget may be the wrong move. Companies that keep their advertising dollars consistent during a slower economy are the ones that come out ahead when the tide turns. Alternatively, in slower economic times consumers tend to stay close to home. That includes where they spend their money. Consumers may be more likely to spend their dollars with a neighboring business to help stimulate their local economy.

What strategies can you utilize to help maximize your advertising dollar? Here are a couple of suggestions:

• Use eye-level graphics in your environment by printing large format photos, backlit signage, or window graphics. Sandwich boards printed direct to a variety of substrates is another great option. Customers are pretty much guaranteed to notice advertising placed at eye-level.
  
  
• Look up. Space above eye-level can be utilized with banners, fabric flags, or wallpaper murals. This type of marketing can reinforce your main marketing imagery and attract a broader audience to your business. The trick with any these options is to create unique graphics to set your marketing message apart from your competition.

Effectively executed, your company can position itself to stand out and become more memorable in a less crowded advertising environment. It is important to keep looking ahead and use this time as a great opportunity to communicate your message. Contact a Mighty Imaging representative to find out how we can help.

Add a little colour to your design

Colour Lovers is a site dedicated to color and its use in design, marketing trends, and art. They have over 160,000 users who post color palettes dissected and extracted from such subjects as crayons, national brand logos, and even fall leaves. They watch market trends of popular color usage in logo, web design, fashion, you name it. They even have a post that shows a side by side comparison of what a color blind person sees next to the original artwork.

Users post patterns and palettes inspired by vintage fabric, masterpieces by famous artists, or just a season of the year. Each provides the RGB number equivalent to be able to easily utilize it yourself. Many of the patterns available for download could be a great start in designing your own personal digital fabric or wallpaper.

It is a wealth of information and inspiration for any designer. Likewise, people in the marketing and advertising industry can learn what colors have been successful for other big name companies when developing their campaign or brand. A great site, worth spending some time exploring.

Custom wall coverings make a big impact

Savvy designers are discovering the potential in custom wall coverings. Not only for corporate users, but also for home decor. The versatility of the product combined with the designer's vision make the possibilities endless.

This wall covering was designed by LA Digital Graphics for a Paul Mitchell salon studio in San Francisco. They used a self adhesive vinyl product for this installation.

Digital wallpaper also offers the same freedom for customization. Designers are able to work directly with their client to create a one of a kind setting that is unique to their taste.


Excerpt from the November issue of Digital Graphics magazine article by Sharla Sikes

Why Not Wallpaper?

Digitally printed wall coverings offer a lot of advantages over traditional wallpaper, which helps to drive their growing popularity.

"You can offer short-run customization without the huge expense of setup. Machine printing is extremely expensive in that world, and they have to do larger runs. It's more cost effective to do it digitally. With new technology we now have permanent inks and eco-friendly products - that's a big thing now," says Kirsh...[Aaron Kirsch of Aztek Wallcoverings Inc. uses a UV curable printer similar to ours at Mighty Imaging.]

Traditional wallpaper is more limited in terms of design. With digitally produced murals or wall coverings, the customer and designer can work together to create not just a design but an environment that reflects the look and feel the customer wants.

42 foot HDR image from a 8 megapixel camera

This is a tale of Pete Carr and his quest to create a 42 foot HDR panoramic image for his client off of his 8 mp camera. Here, we are frequently the bearer of bad news, when we have to educate people on the limitations of their file size. You can learn a lot from Pete's process and what it took to get this file to image at full size. Since Pete was also trying to pull of that HDR look, he had to take triple the shots to overlap them. A total of 33 shots were combined to create the final image. Luckily he was able to use Photoshop CS3's panoramic seaming tool. He then used Genuine Fractals to beef up the resolution. It probably also helped that his client used wallpaper application (which has a lower DPI threshold).

Pete is right, "never say never", he was able to create a beautiful image that sets the perfect ambiance for his client's dining room. Found [Via]

The 42 foot wide Liverpool skyline HDR

You always see people discussing megapixels on forums and what you can print to. People saying they have a 8mp camera and it does A3 nicely. Which is fine for family portraits and things but when a client asks you to produce something 13 meters, 42 feet wide from an 8mp camera you of course say yes. I’ve printed to 1 meter before now without issue. The prints look great. So 13m? Easy. Ok so maybe not easy. You read articles about 50mp Hassleblads with sensors the size of TV’s that people use for advertising, for billboards. You never in your right mind think that you can use a simple mid-range DSLR with only 8mp to produce something 42 feet long and 9 feet high. Never say never though.

Creating custom repeating patterns

PS Hero is a site dedicated to Photoshop tutorials. In this tutorial they give a simple step by step on how to create your own custom repeating pattern by using the Custom Shape Tool. If you would like more choices than what is standard in Photoshop, they even have links posted for free custom shapes available for download.

Although the tutorial was not written with this in mind, we thought another great use of this technique would be to create your own wallpaper design for your home, office, or studio. The possibilities are endless, and what a great way to add a subtle touch and personalize your space.

Creating Custom Patterns

In this Photoshop tutorial we will explore the wonderful world of repeating patterns while creating one from scratch using a Photoshop Custom Shape.

Liven up your walls

We are very excited about the new services we can now offer with our U/V curable roll to roll / rigid hybrid printer. One of them being wallpaper. It is a perfect marriage of cutting edge technology and design. Imagine creating your own wallpaper design for your home. Or take an image of your favorite locale and turn a wall of your home in to a tropical paradise. The possibilities are endless. USA Today's Weekend magazine agrees.

3 great ways to liven up your walls: by Megan Kaplan

Check out these solutions to take "wallpaper" to a whole new level.

Until recently, wallpaper was a bit of a wallflower in the world of interiors. Paint -- available in an array of colors and decorative finishes -- had all but pushed it aside. "We were wallpaper-starved," says Thom Filicia, New York City designer and host of "Dress My Nest." "And now we're a little obsessed. The idea of bringing interest back to our walls is undergoing a real renaissance." The upshot: wall coverings that are more sophisticated, less difficult to work with and cheaper than ever. So long, fusty cabbage roses!

"Wallpaper has finally caught up with people toady who want to express their creativity without destroying their walls," says Sharon Hanby-Robie, the spokeswoman for the Wallpaper Council and author of "Decorating Without Fear." Decals, digital photo murals and 3-D applications are the trends leading the way....

--LARGER-THAN-LIFE MURALS

Innovations in digital technology and printing have taken the mural to new heights -- literally. "We are not restrained by that 27 1/2-inch roll size anymore," Hanby-Robie says. "You can have an image blown up 19 feet high to cover an entire wall." Even better, the oversize options are virtually endless.