All is not as it seems. That graffiti on the exposed brick of the reception waiting room is not really graffiti. That painting of the overflowing foliage of a forest on the meeting room wall - it's not a painting. And that apparently marker-pen-scrawled cartoon character on your friend's lounge room wall was not done by his own fair hand. Not that you should feel foolish for being taken in, however, for wall stickers are a lot better than they used to be.

This increase in quality is one of the reasons those operating in this sector have given for the sudden rise in people using wall graphics – a demand upturn demonstrated by the fact that printers are increasingly gravitating towards this sector, with 29.1% of respondents to PrintWeek’s recent Wide-format Survey operating in the wall graphics arena, an increase of 5% on the year previous.

Those printers argue that the technology has opened up a market that is here for the long term. Others disagree. They claim that the rise is more down to cost – paint and wallpaper are by comparison relatively expensive – and that the increase is just a fad and so running to buy the latest roll-to-roll wide-format press is not a clever bit of capitalising on a growing sector, but a fool’s errand into a temporary boom.

Of course, wall graphics are not new. Companies have been cutting vinyl to fill wall space for many years – things are just a bit more advanced than in the early days. Consumer wall graphics retailer Supernice has been operating for eight years in the US and five years in the UK, and Louise Sandor, director at Supernice, the European distributor of Blik wall graphics, says the technology change from when they first started out has been massive.

"At the beginning we just had cut vinyl, but now we have printed vinyl so we have a much faster production process and much more flexibility," she explains. "It also means you have a lot more detail so the designs can be more intricate."

Longer lasting

On the quality side of things, no one questions the advances that have been achieved. The new machines on the market are not just more complex in the work they are able to do, in terms of colour and design, but they are also able to create something much more long-lasting. John Sulzmann, managing director at wide-format printer Artworks Solutions, says that this has created a much better product.

"The new presses are much more stable, you don’t have to worry about cartridges and heads dropping out; the colour consistency is much better as a result too," he reveals. "Also, the inks we use now are a lot more durable. The solvent and pigment inks previously used were not scratch- or fade-resistant, for example, but UV inks don’t have that problem. Further treatments including liquid lamination also improve scratch resistance."

It’s not just quality where improvements have been made – the flexibility of the substrates that can be used has also increased and has played a big part in the sector’s growth. Sulzmann reveals that he can now print on anything from MDF to acoustic ceiling tiles to glass, so customers have a lot more choice. Andy Voss, managing director at Lintec Graphic Films, which supplies window graphics materials, agrees, explaining that, in the past year or so, the company has been able to really develop the products it offers.

"Our range has really evolved in the past 12-18 months," says Voss. "With the substrates now the look is better with superior see-through vision, and then we went further and introduced a hard covering for the product. The latter is crucial for the commercial market as it means that, when cleaners clean the glass, they don’t damage the graphic; before when a cleaner scrubbed it or if you had a downlighter on it for example, the graphic would be damaged and you would get a haze."

Roughed up

As well as the substrates being more robust and more options being available, the applications of these substrates have also expanded. Where once you needed the smoothest of walls with the right type of finish in order for a wall graphic to have any chance of staying put and looking half- decent, the substrates that have become available recently have expanded the places you can use the products. Kevin Wallace, managing director at consumables and substrates supplier All Print Supplies, explains that surfaces such as open brick work, unpainted plaster, rough surfaces or walls with unusual coatings can all now have something stuck onto them.

Wallace adds, though, that price is as much of a factor in the increased demand for wall graphics as the technology improvements giving improved flexibility and choice of substrate – although much of these cost improvements are also down to technological advances.

"A few years back, the costs would get very high and so the logistics of doing wall graphics cost-effectively were not there. Very few people could have afforded to buy the products," he explains. "Recently, though, the costs have reduced. The media has come down in cost, as have the inks, and then you have the fact that lamination is no longer necessary. That office that would have perhaps cost ￡1,500 to kit out a few years back will now only cost you less than half of that as a result."

From a customer perspective, whether business or consumer, the lower prices make wall graphics a viable alternative to wallpaper and paint for arguably the first time. And the reductions have come at the same time as the price of paint and wallpaper is going up thanks to the high prices of raw materials, making the wall graphics market even more enticing. Additionally, the lower hassle and cost of application – with wallpaper and paint, the wall preparation and application can be laborious and expensive – makes, in some people’s view, wall graphics cheaper than its rival furnishing options.

Ronald Gomes of commercial interior design agency 7Gods certainly believes the rise of wall graphics on the business side of the market is primarily down to cost.

"One of our clients wanted to create a feature wall, and so we came up with a design but we found that the cost of getting wallpaper printed was too high – if you want something unique, the costs can be extortionate," he explains. "We decided to switch to a printed graphic instead as it was more affordable and the quality is now at the point where it is more than a match for wallpaper."