Wide Format Imaging

The recent explosion in interest in digital wall coverings is not catching 4walls or DLM Studio by surprise. Since 1998, they have provided a unique resource for their customers—a turnkey provider of custom digital wallcoverings solutions.

According to Diana Robinson, partner and creative director at 4walls and DLM Studio, this is an exciting time to be a wallcoverings designer. "While I've loved designing all of the recent traditional wallcoverings for Bolta, Genon, Tower, and Essex brands (for Omnova Solutions), design for digital is an entirely different challenge.

Many customers are moving to open floor plans and feature walls, and are willing to take more chances on unusual and creative solutions—big bold graphic designs, layered textures, and re-interpretations of and expansions on classic design elements like damasks, scrolls, and paisleys."

It is not uncommon for designers to love the idea of the freedom that digital printing provides, but be wary of the time commitment and the complexity that some jobs involve. In partnership with it's network of national and regional distributors, 4walls excels at managing this process, and assisting designers in realizing their vision, and have even created an online "mural cropping tool" to make effortless the process of finding the right crops from images or works of art, one that precisely fits the client's location.

Recently 4walls was contacted by Surface Materials to assist in creating custom rainforest-themed murals for the new offices of Green Road Pediatrics Inc. of South Euclid, Ohio (photo featured on page 9). With creative direction from lead designer Celeste McClung of Collins, Gordon, Bostwick Architects, 4walls designers hand-painted an entire rainforest environment, complete with wildlife that would fill the office's waiting room. A transition from rainforest to grasslands was also hand-painted for the office corridors. These paintings, created at a reduced size, were scanned into a computer where they were color corrected and resized to fit the dimensions of each area of the office. After all the measurements were double-checked, production of the vinyl mural panels began. These panels were shipped in installments to the jobsite, and installation began as the last panels were still being produced. In all, 2,200 square feet of mural were printed on 20 ounce Type II vinyl (stipple).