Surface Print Company

On Monday I arranged to visit the wallpaper manufactoring company Surface Print, who offer a range of techniques and surfaces to wallpaper companies such as Designers Guild, Manuel Canovas and Graham and Brown. I met with the owner of the company Abigail Watson who has contact with all these companies.

Surface Print print wallpapers for these companies after meeting with them and the designers to discuss which printing methods would suit each design best and make suggestions to them about which would be most appropriate. They can print wallpapers with a maximum of 12 colours in the traditional print methods such as screen printing and roller printing. However with digital printing they can use an unlimited amount of colours but the minimum order for the traditional methods is 150 rolls because of the use of the machines, whereas the minimum order for digital print is only 24 rolls, but each roll is at £36 each, which justifies why digital wallpapers usually sell at £100+. 

The sampling areas is done by machine and screen print to send small samples of how the wallpaper would look before sending large rolls and quantities. The flocking and beading machines work 24 hours a day because they take longer and can only do a length of wallpaper at a time. 

There are only 4 wallpaper manufactures left in Britain, with Surface Print leading by printing for most of the top wallpaper brands. Surface Print exhibit at Heimtex to claim new, European customers. There high quality paper is sourced from Europe and the colours for traditional print is hand mixed by professional colour mixers.

I had an interesting an insightful day that has inspired me to get in touch with Graham & Brown as Abigail informed me they not only produce a lot of their own wallpapers but have their own inhouse design team and are always keen to look for graduate designers.