How to make a wallpaper?

#1

Has anyone made a wallpaper design before? Like actual wall paper that would be printed and used to cover a wall or multiple walls. Is it as simple as creating a pattern in Illustrator?

I need to design wallpaper that consists of different sayings and not sure what the best approach would be. I am struggling to find useful resources online as most of them point to digital wall papers for a computer background.

Any help would be appreciated!

#2

Whatever you can build in a design program can be printed in wallcover.

First, define the wallcover.
Is it real “wallpaper” that goes on with paste? (comes in textured vinyl, paper, and various “green” products.) This type of wallcover has seams that are cut so as not to overlap.
or
is it Self Adhesive vinyl (yes you can use car wrap vinyl on walls if the walls are prepped properly.) The caveat with these is the seams have to have a 1/4" to 1/2" overlap so the seams don’t split when the media shrinks over time. You will get a ridge at the overlap.

Then define your panel size and seaming scheme.
Wallcover generally comes 54" wide printable to 52 or 53" and that has to include the overlap bleed and crops at the seams.
So figure your panel width to be max 50". 40-50" is the norm to avoid too much waste.

With your seaming diagram done, NOW start your layout. You want to do everything possible to avoid cutting through text on a seam. Kern to avoid whenever possible. While seaming large letters isn’t an issue, Do NOT do large blocks of text where the seam cuts multiple lines.

Any panel over 12’ high may experience creep. A good installer will do the alignment at eye level but you may get a slight misalignment of elements at the top. The machines are getting really good at not having this happen these days, but it is something to be aware of.

Bleed is generally 2" to 4" all around. Ask your installer what they want. Some want one side or the other cut right to the starting edge, with no bleed. Also ask your installer how much overlap they want on the seams so you can relay that to the printer, if the printer is not the installer.

Do not forget your bleeds.

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#3

Typical scaling is 1:10 if your design won’t fit on an artboard. You can do 1/2 scale, 1/4scale, whatever. Just define it on ordering the prints.

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#4

Thanks PD!

Yeah I am confused about the seams especially since I need the wallpaper to contain text rather than elements. It sounds like I need to get in touch with the printer to see how to best approach this.

From a design perspective, if I design a pattern in a 1000px x 1000px artboard, would it be feasible for a printer to take that file and produce wallpaper? I ask because I am not sure if I will be able to get in contact directly with the printer on this project as I am working through a third party.

I’ve done a lot of large printing design files but never something like a pattern that would need to line up regardless of how big the wall is.

#5

Making a repeating pattern?
Same way you would create a tiled pattern in Illustrator.
px is not a print dimension…:wink:

#6

Okay so 5 inch by 5 inch pattern, would this be something a printer could work with or would I need to do more than just make a pattern for them to print as wallpaper?

I appreciate your responses on this PD!

#7

You pay for desktop time for set up.
Are you printing rolls and rolls of this stuff or is it a one off?
Either way, a printer can work with it. You just have to communicate clearly what you want them to do and get a PDF proof.

#8

Thanks PD!

I am not sure how much printing is needed. I don’t know how many walls or the size of the walls that are to be covered.

I reached out to the third party to let them know it’s best if I communicate with the printer. Hopefully this becomes a reality so they can provide me with some more direction.

#9