Imagine strolling into your local wallpaper store and—instead of steeling yourself to spend hours looking through wallpaper swatch books until you (hopefully) find the pattern you want—walking up to the counter and handing them your favorite vacation snapshot, the one of your kids waving to the camera in front of Old Faithful. You tell them you want it digitally printed as wallpaper, and provide the dimensions of your daughter's bedroom walls. They give you the date when the finished rolls will arrive at the store, numbered so you can put them up in the right order, to reproduce the picture in her room. While this is still a custom, one-off printing business for wide-format digital printers, many more digital converters are part of the photographic wallpaper trend—one that is finally fueling some growth for this long-sleepy home design market segment.

Market-research firm The Freedonia Group (Cleveland) sees wallpaper finally posting positive gains after years of decline brought about by competition from paints and coatings. Wallpaper consumption will benefit from changing consumer trends, improved marketing, and ongoing development of a wide range of new wallpaper products, such as wallpaper that is easier to apply and remove, mold-resistant types, and "large-scale mural and couture papers."

Designers who follow trends in home decor say that after a decade or more of painted faux finishes being the height of fashion, homeowners are rediscovering wallpaper. New designs, rich textures and colors not found in the paint pallet offer greater choices for consumers to express their personal style. Even traditional florals, stripes and country toiles have been updated with "this year's colors" such as brick red, olive green and soft neutrals.

Also, the busy floral patterns, dated country images from the 1980s or fussy Victorian prints today's consumers saw in their grandmother's house growing up—all have been transformed. Today's wallpaper designs feature new textures, natural colors and subtle designs. In short, wallpaper is storming back into interior decorating

One of the more interesting applications is digital printing of wallpaper, according to I.T. Strategies (Hanover, MA). They estimate that in 2002, digital printing of wallpaper was valued at about $90 million in the US. This represents about 3 percent of the total US wallcoverings market for that year (which also includes products such as ceramic tile and paneling).

Graham & Brown, a UK-based wallcovering and home-decor company (www.grahambrown.com), has been "pushing the visual edge of walls," as they put it, with digitally printed wallpaper featuring photographic images. Several strips of these wallcoverings form murals of giant pink roses, blue water drops, etc.

"Today's consumer is educated, savvy and sophisticated," says David Klaus, marketing manager for Graham & Brown. "They work long hours, have little time to shop and want their homes to be a haven, as well as a reflection of their personal style." Graham & Brown papers are featured at home-decor retailers such as The Great Indoors, Lowes, Menards, and Sherwin Williams.

Graham & Brown purchases its digitally printed wallpaper from Canadian printer Excell Decor (Mississauga, Ontario, Canada). An 8-year veteran of the digital-printing business, Excell managers first used digital printing on wallpaper borders.

Sister company Excellpak is the world's largest independent die-cutter and packager of wallpaper borders, operating from two full-service locations in Mississauga and Blackburn, England. The company serves wallpaper manufacturers and converters in over 15 countries.

Another sister company, Excelltek, is both the industry pioneer and leader in digitally printed wallpaper borders.

"We saw the general decline in the wallpaper market, and thought that wallpaper borders, particularly with die-cut decorative edges, would be a way to introduce digital printing to wallpaper retailers," says executive vp Wayne Stacey. The company's fleet of digital presses includes two Xeikon (www.xeikon.com) 325s and two 50Ds.

Excell's 18.5-inch Xeikon 50D system has been used for mural printing for the last two years.

"We start with artwork or photography," says Stacey. "It is sized and scanned into individual panels for printing. Then the Xeikon system RIPs the images as it would any other print job."

The image panels are printed and numbered, so that when the consumer works with them, they are able to put them up in order to obtain the finished photographic image.

"The panels are pre-pasted like standard wallpaper, and they go up just like standard wallpaper," says Stacey.

Under the Xeikon brand, Punch Graphix develops, manufactures and distributes high-end digital colour printing systems using dry toner, as well as related prepress and operating software, and of course consumables. The fact that the electrophotographic process requires no solvents has become a selling point as worldwide environmental concerns grow.

Xeikon, whose flagship digital printer is now the Xeikon 5000, introduced at Drupa 2004, thus provides integrated solutions for commercial printing, document printing, and the industrial market, which includes packaging, label and specialty applications.

Editor's note: contact information for all converters and suppliers in this article can be found at www.convertingmagazine.com