It’s time to get “rough” with your graphics.
Posted by Rick Sader on September 2, 2009 at 5:28 pmThat’s right, you heard me… yeah, you. It’s time to get rough with your graphics. Large-format graphics applied to rough surfaces, that is.
Some new materials from 3M allow digitally-printed graphics to be applied to cinder block walls, concrete walls, stone work, even brick walls; places ordinary adhesive-backed vinyl would no doubt fail. 3M has developed their rough surface wall wrap materials that are “sticky” enough to adhere to these irregular surfaces and “soft” enough so that when applied, they conform to all the little nooks & crannies. The end result is that the graphics look like they were painted onto these surfaces. The trick is in the installation process. A heat gun and a soft, heat-resistant roller are used to “push” the graphics into the surface features. These materials are being used now in sports stadiums, schools, public buildings, fountains, monuments, restaurants….. anyplace where a rough, hum-drum surface needs some sprucing up.
I recently installed a 6′ x 5′ school mascot logo in the gym of The Toppenish High School, a beautiful new high school in WA state. The vector graphics were printed on 3M’s 8524 media and then laminated with 8624 clear, glossy laminate. These were then contour cut around the perimeter of the logo to give the look we wanted. The following photos show the finished graphic installed on a painted cement wall and the happy school administrators.
Wall murals for the 21st century.
Posted by Rick Sader on March 25, 2009 at 7:32 am
Murals have been painted on walls for centuries. Various artists have used their various styles and considerable talents to paint wall murals ranging from realistic, to fantasy, to Tromp L’Oeil (fool the eye), to abstract. They can produce fabulous results for your home or office or other place of business. Me? I couldn’t paint my way out of a wet paper bag. I can’t even draw a tic-tac-toe grid straight. But as a highly-caffeinated, 
former HP engineer who now owns a digital print shop, I know how to produce great-looking wall murals pretty quickly, with a wide variety of styles, and on a huge range of really cool media using large-format digital printing.
It all starts in the design phase. What look do you want for your Italian restaurant, or hair design salon, or wine bar, or corporate office, or home? A huge range of ready-to-go stock photography exists or a digital photographer can be commissioned to get exactly the image you need. Or the graphics you want can be designed digitally. Some of the most talented 
artists around now work digitally, producing all of the styles mentioned above using not paint & brushes but Photoshop & Illustrator. Their brush is a mouse and their paints are pixels. The artwork you want can be created, customized, and modified quickly to get exactly what you want.
A huge range of media exists for producing the mural with large-format digital printing. Vinyl media embossed with various textures are available that look like canvas, leather, suede, a rough plaster finish, smooth,
sandblasted, paper maché, …you name it. These over-lapping prints are then installed like ordinary wallpaper with ordinary wallpaper adhesive to produce any size mural you’d like. Other interesting media include fabrics with a low-tack adhesive on the back. This allows the graphics to be easily repositioned, removed, and re-used without leaving adhesive residue on the walls.
In mid March ’09, I had a successful collaboration with a traditional wall mural painter to produce an 8’x25’ wall mural for a new restaurant in Woodinville, WA. How? Ann Fiser painted a beautiful, colorful, & fun mural at ½-scale (still pretty big) and then had it professionally 
photographed by Alex Rubin. The (very large) digital file was then transmitted to me for scaling up and large-format digital printing onto a matte-finish media specifically made for wall murals. The seven, large, over-lapping strips were then hung with typical wallpaper paste by Steve Orban, a professional wallpaper hanger. The owners at Teddy’s Bigger Burgers in Woodinville, WA love the end result. For more info, see the lead article in this month’s Lexjet’s “Expand” newsletter (volume 4, number 4). Lexjet is a supplier of large-format equipment, media, ink, & other supplies.