Digitally Printed Interior Decor: The Rise of Wallpapers and Wall Coverings

Digitally printed interior decor is becoming increasingly popular, with wallpapers and wall coverings being a major part of this trend. This can include everything from company logos and marketing messages to graphics for public spaces such as hospital waiting rooms or decoration for a child's bedroom. There is some flexibility in how we define a wall covering, meaning there is plenty of room for most large format service providers to offer something in this area.

This could include pictures printed on textile or canvas, combined with a frame or some form of mounting, which most wide format printers should be able to produce. Dye sublimation should produce the best results for textiles, particularly for home decor use, as these prints will have a pleasant feel and no odours. Better still, these prints can be treated for flame retardance and will also be washable, which are useful factors for home use.

In terms of wallpapers, HP's Latex printers have proven to be quite popular amongst wallpaper suppliers, where they are mainly used to satisfy custom wallpaper demands. The water-based inks are seen as environmentally-friendly and lack the odour associated with UV-curable prints. It's also easier to wipe latex prints clean rather than fabric.

In recent years, a number of other suppliers have also started offering latex printers. It's worth noting that the inks do not actually contain latex and are a form of resin ink, with some vendors choosing to brand their offerings as resin rather than latex though there's little practical difference between these. Thus Epson, Roland, Ricoh and Brother all offer either latex or resin printers and are also targeting the wallpaper market.

Fujifilm has just introduced an alternative to latex/resin inks, which it calls AquaFuze. This is a hybrid ink that combines water with UV-curable latex elements. The basis behind the AquaFuze ink is the emulsion dispersion technology that Fujifilm originally developed for the photo industry and which ensures that all the different elements remain in suspension relative to each other. The accompanying 1.6m wide rollfed printer, which has been developed by Mutoh, is fitted with both a UV LED array and a heater with an air knife to direct the heat. This heat causes the latex to melt, which forms a membrane and holds the pigment to the substrate while the LED lamp then reacts with the UV elements, causing that membrane to solidify and bond with the substrate. There's no need for any primer or optimiser and the inks will work with most common wide format materials.