Considerations when choosing printed blinds

Advances in printing mean that almost anything can be printed on – including blinds. Printed blinds are an excellent way to promote corporate messages for businesses and create inspiring environments in education and healthcare environments. This blog outlines some of the considerations to think about when incorporating printed blinds into your room design.

What type of blinds are most suited to printing?
Roller blinds and panel blinds are the blinds that best lend themselves to printing. When in use they present a flat, vertical fabric – quite literally a blank canvas ideal for printing.

What are the best fabrics to use for printed blinds?
PVC coated polyester screen fabrics work really well with print. Bear in mind that the more open the weave, the lighter the image will appear when sunlight shines through it. Screen fabrics such as Betascreen 20, Betascreen 70 & Betascreen 90 are ideally suited to printing – the textured surface gives any print ‘depth’ and backlit by the natural daylight at the window can create stunning results.

If budget is an issue then consider polyester privacy fabrics such as SigmaTex 30.

Does the colour of the base fabric matter?
A white or light coloured fabric is most often used as a blank canvas and the entire fabric is printed on. Sometimes a dark fabric can be used and a light colour is printed over it – i.e white text onto a black background.

Who supplies artwork?
Generally, this is the responsibility of the client – whether it is a company logo or an image purchased from an online image gallery. The main criteria is to provide the image in as high resolution as possible. The printer will make the final tweaks and ensure the print is sized correctly to match the size of the blind.

View a recent case study where printed blinds were installed.