As digital print has evolved over the years, few could have predicted what we can now achieve with UV, Resin/Latex and even eco-solvent inks. These technologies have all played their part in expanding what can be done with interior decoration. Attractive, unique designs are much more affordable, customisable and easy to produce than ever, making our homes, offices, hotels and other indoor spaces as distinctive as we are ourselves.
In this article, we are introducing Dimense™ technology, a major innovation in digital printing, especially in the interior décor market, that pairs high-quality colour and visuals with captivating three-dimensional embossing effects.
What is Dimense™ Technology?
Dimense™ is a pioneering technology that delivers texture and depth to wallpaper, interior graphics and many other applications, providing a tactile and engaging finish. It’s a full solution that includes a specialised wide-format roll-to-roll inkjet printer, media, and water-based latex inks that create unique embossed patterns that complement the printed design.
Dimense™ printing technology controls where on the design the embossing takes place. It uses a special transparent structural ink printed alongside standard CMYK inks that act as a barrier to prevent the expansion of a foamable layer in designated areas, more on this later. This technique allows designers to create intricate embossed patterns that complement or contrast with the printed image, creating a wealth of creative possibilities.
This tactile, experiential print is the perfect match for high-end interior décor, such as wallpaper or fine-art prints and is at home anywhere from boutique hotels and restaurants to shops and offices. It can even be used for product packaging, POS and decorations.
Dimense™ Applications
The applications you can produce with Dimense™ technology are vast and span industries, from interior design and architecture to packaging, signage, and display graphics. Imagine wall panels that blend texture and imagery to create an immersive experience, or intricate product packaging that captures attention and invites tactile interaction.- Wallpaper – Add some texture to the tried and tested world of wallpaper, either as one-offs for the home or many identical prints to decorate hotel rooms. Whether it’s a relatively simple pattern or a complex image repeated again and again, Dimense™ wallpaper stands out and becomes a feature everywhere it’s seen.
- Canvases and Artistic Prints – Create impressive high-end art pieces and replicas of artwork, complete with brush stoke effects and grain to make it as realistic as possible. Even subtle details can be replicated to add to the realism.
- Digital Concrete – Take your digital print into the construction industry and create designs, such as company branding, on various structures, including internal and external walls, floors, tiles, and signs.
- Indoor Banners and Signage – Emphasise the most important parts of the signage and show potential customers what you can produce.
- Packaging – Give packaging a high-quality, tactile feel that begs to be picked up, touched and purchased.
- POP Displays – Differentiate POP displays with 3D effects that are engaging, eye-catching and unique.
- Exhibition Stand Decoration – Decorate panels with beautiful backgrounds, corporate branding and messaging for exhibitions and events.
- Roll-up Banners – Dimense™ makes a bold alternative to vinyl roll-up banners with a high-end finish for restaurants, events, fashion shows and more.
- Book Covers and Stationery – Dimense™ printed media can be laminated onto calendar and luxury book covers for short and speciality runs.
Dimense™ opens avenues for artists and designers to express their creativity in new and exciting ways. The ability to sculpt and manipulate the surface texture to match the printed design raises artistic expression to a different level, allowing you to create captivating, multi-sensory art.
How Does Dimense™ Technology Work?
As you can imagine, there’s a fair amount of science that goes into a print technology like Dimense™. In fact, the process of creating a 3D structure like this is unique in digital print.
The specialist Dimense™ media consists of two layers, a non-woven back layer and a patented PVC-free phthalate-free Ecodeco™ top layer. Depending on the temperature this top layer is exposed to in the printer, it foams and expands by between 1 mm and 1.5 mm. The hotter the temperature, the more the foam expands. Varying the temperature results in peaks and troughs in the print.
A special transparent structural ink is applied to areas of the media where the design requires it to stay flat, allowing for the manipulation of the structure and giving you extra control over the thickness of the media.
The structural ink can be printed along with CMYK ink, meaning that full-colour images, shapes and patterns can be incorporated into the design and the 3D effects will complement the results.
Dimense™ Media
Dimense™ media is incredibly versatile and comes in a range of finishes that offer distinct aesthetics, texture, and appeal:
- Matte – A popular, versatile, matte-finish media that’s ideal for reproducing bright colours without losing any vibrancy in the print.
- Pearlescent – A white pearlescent material with a subtle sparkle that adds a touch of sophistication to your prints.
- Gold or Silver – A premium, glossy gold or silver media that contains metallic particles that reflect infrared radiation. While a little more preparation and experience are needed to get the best results, it’s more than worth it.
- Media Plus – A media designed for when the artwork requires an even deeper embossing effect, making it suitable for all kinds of 3D printable décor.
- Chameleon – A special pearlescent effect media with captivating colour-shifting properties, changing hue from green to red depending on the angle it is viewed from.
Each media type uses a PVC-free and plasticisers-free base for traditional hot-embossed wallpaper production called Ecodeco™. It’s an eco-friendly odour and migration-free material that doesn’t contain any chemical liquid components and won’t leech from the media to any contacting surface or surrounding air, making it an environmentally friendly solution.
Conclusion
Today’s demand for innovation and individualism means that interest in engaging interior décor solutions continues to rise, putting technology like Dimense™ at the forefront of an exciting revolution in the industry. But Dimense™ goes beyond interior design and adds a new tactile, textured twist to many digital print applications.
If you’d like any more information on anything you’ve read in this article, our experts would be happy to help.