Wide Format Imaging

Recent showcase home, retail design, and on-site branding projects reveal the almost limitless possibilities of wide-format digital inkjet printing for transforming environments quickly and economically.

Designers delving into digital are leading a new wave of professionals who see the possibilities of inkjet printing for custom interiors of all shapes, sizes, colors, and patterns. Over the past few years, wide-format digital printing has progressed to the point that it provides a durable, economical, and eye-catching way to customize interiors.

Recent interior design projects printed with the new Legend 72HUV hybrid (roll-to-roll and flatbed) UV-curable printer on inkjet-printable wallpaper and privacy window film illustrate the vast potential for inkjet printing in the interior design world.

The Legend is part of the new wave of wide-format inkjet printing as it can print directly to rigid materials up to an inch thick, like foam boards and even tabletops, as well as flexible materials, such as wallpaper and custom décor and privacy window films.

Décor Market

Museums have long recognized the value of custom digital printing as their particular needs demanded the ability to build and print custom displays for their audiences. Now, interior designers, architects, and others specifying interior decor and environmental graphics are coming around to see the huge benefits of cost-effectively printing custom images for a variety of surface treatments.

"Having access to wide-format digital printing cuts down on the hunting and searching you have to do to get something just right. You can take a piece or a pattern from any material, digitize it, and turn it into wallpaper, as we did with our designer showcase room," explains Lance Licciardi, Licciardi Design, Sarasota, FL. "As a designer, I think more about how to take a specific pattern and turn it into wallpaper or some other room treatment. And, having the ability to turn a picture or a digital file into wallpaper or a wall mural opens up totally new and different opportunities for designers."

Licciardi recently designed a room for the Symphony Designer Showcase House in the Lakewood Ranch area of Sarasota benefiting the Florida West Coast Symphony Youth Orchestra Program. Licciardi has been designing a room for the Symphony Designer Showcase for the past ten years.

Each year the designers are given a loose theme from which they derive their concept. This year, Licciardi and the other room designers were given an around-the-world theme.

Located next door to Licciardi's studio is Art To Walk On, where Licciardi found the perfect centerpiece for the room, an Ushak carpet woven in Turkey in early the 1900s. Licciardi had found his around-the-world connection, but wanted to replicate the pattern and color found in the carpet on the walls of the entry alcove.