Digital Wallpaper (Adobe PDF, 149K)

Imaging That Jumps off the Walls

When news hit that a Hilton Garden Inn was slated to open in Missoula, Montana, one large-format printing business saw an opportunity to expand the presence of digital wallpaper as part of the overall interior design for the Montana-themed hotel. The printing business presented the hotel’s interior designer with plans that included his concept of printing vintage maps of Montana’s larger cities at the turn of the century. The printing company produced the sample print on substrate and laminate material provided by an SGIA member.

Hilton Garden Inn’s interior designer was so impressed with the concept of digital wallpaper that the team incorporated the idea into the final designs for the 146-room hotel, which touts its architecture and lodge motif design as “capturing the culture, life and lifestyle of Montana.”

The project started with finding the right images for the hotel’s Silver Creek Casino and private dining room. The selection and design process took the most effort and time. The printing company worked closely with the designer and contractors to make sure the selected images created a well-designed mural that would be compelling without overwhelming patrons.

For the casino area, the group settled on several historic photos from the Montana Historical Society and University of Nevada-Las Vegas that showed people gambling in different settings.

The selected images were printed in a sepia color tone, to add to the historic aspect of the pictures, on an ENCAD NovaJet 850 wide-format inkjet printer using Graphic Outdoor PLUS (GO+) inks.

The printer decided to print with banner paper, produced by the SGIA-member manufacturer, that was best suited for indoor wall-covering applications and short-term, indoor promotional banners. The material was further protected with the same manufacturer’s laminate on a SEAL Image 62 Plus laminator.

After the wall coverings were printed and laminated, three of the panel designs were installed as a traditional wallpaper application in the casino area. Four panels of slot machine images were created on the same banner paper and wrapped around a frame to add dimension and depth to the photos.

The printing company also designed a digitally imaged mural for the back wall of the hotel’s buffalo-themed private dining room, using the same materials. The company says the substrate was best able to show off crisp images, and applied easily onto the walls.

While the Hilton Garden Inn project represents more of a niche market for the printing company, there has been more interest in digitally imaged walls and murals for commercial interests such as retail stores, restaurants and movie theaters.

The Magic DMiBOP indoor/outdoor inkjet banner paper used for the digital wallpaper is produced by SGIA member (and SGIA ’07 Gold Sponsor) InteliCoat Technologies. Find out more about the company at its Web site at www.magicinkjet.com., or its Virtual Trade Show booth at SGIA.org, Keyword: VTS. Large-format printing company Big Prints Plus, based in Missoula, Montana, produced the Hilton murals.