How to Specify Custom Printed Wallcoverings: A Designer's Checklist

Seven decisions that turn a mural concept into a specification a contractor can price, a fire officer can approve and an installer can hang.

A printed wallcovering is specified differently from a roll product. There is no stock pattern repeat or fixed roll width to work around, and there's no lot number to match. Instead, the wall itself becomes the canvas, and your specification has to describe the artwork, the material and the wall precisely enough that the printed result is the one you drew. Use this checklist on every project.

1. Fix the design reference

Quote the VÉLLANO design code (for example PALM10044 or NOVAR10040-3 for a colourway) and the collection. If the design is your own or a client's artwork, name the file and its version, and confirm who holds the rights. Ambiguity here is the most common cause of a reprint.

2. Choose the material by the space, not the mood board

The design sets the look. The space decides the substrate. Public corridors, healthcare and anything in a fire-engineering report need a fire-rated base: Fabric Backed FR+ or DuraFlex FR, both classified B-s1,d0 and ASTM Class A. Residential feature walls can use the paper-backed Eco range, and walls wider than about 1.3 m that must be seamless call for the 3.15 m Luxe wide-width non-wovens.

3. Record the wall, not the room

Give width × height for every wall in millimetres, with openings, sockets, ceiling cornices and skirting heights noted. Printed murals are composed to the wall, so a 50 mm error at measurement becomes a crop you did not choose. For anything critical, ask for a site measure before final artwork.

4. Decide the crop and the focal point

Murals are rarely printed at their native proportion. Tell us what must stay in frame (a bird, a horizon line, a logo) and where it should fall in relation to furniture. Our Wall Calculator shows how the artwork maps to your wall and where panel joins land.

5. State colour requirements

If the palette must match a paint or fabric, give Pantone or NCS references and request a printed strike-off on the chosen material. Screens are not colour references, and neither are PDFs.

6. Call out performance and certification

List the classes you need on the drawing: fire class, emissions (GREENGUARD Gold, A+, M1, AgBB), and durability class (ASTM F793 Type II) where relevant. Download the certificates for the tender pack now rather than at submission.

7. Write it as a clause

Finish with a single clause the contractor cannot misread. The Spec Clause tool writes one from your chosen design and material, ready to paste into the finishes schedule.

Then request samples of the design on the specified material, and get them signed off before the order is placed.