Floral wallpaper prints fresh from the market

As the indulgence of maximalist interiors expands in popularity, designers are opening up books of bolder, more expressive patterns. Along with this hunger for colour and striking feature walls, and even entire feature rooms, contemporary materials and printing techniques are making it easier to apply wallpapers and coverings in a wider variety of locales. At the same time, biophilic decors continue to invite the outdoor environment inside to share our interior spaces. Here is a curated selection of the wide variety of floral wallpaper patterns to be found growing in the Architonic product catalogue.

Floral wallpapers like Ornament from wall covering manufacturer Feathr make it easy for designers to keep spaces like bedrooms and hallways light and breezy by combining the imagery of an autumn tree losing its leaves in the wind, and a flight of birds spreading out to the sky. Ornament’s light, restrained colours also help to inspire a more calming atmosphere. Meanwhile, darker prints like LONDONART’s Romantic Story – featuring large enigmatic flower arrangements in compatible shades before a black background – can be used instead to make smaller spaces even cosier by bringing the walls in.

Another way of directing the spatial experience of a room is by playing with the weight of a pattern, as well as the shade. Sparse patterns, like in the Pollen wallpaper range from Ambientha, are able to surround the entirety of a space in artistic surfaces, in this case, highlighting the beauty and importance of flowers and pollen in the maintenance of biodiversity. Alternatively, when combining a wallpapered surface with another material such as tiling or panelling, a heavier pattern filled with overcrowded blooms such as the Royal Flower Wallpaper range from e-Delux works well with a contrastingly flat yet complementary colour alongside.

By keeping surfaces plain, light and simple, designers can create an art gallery effect whereby they have the creative freedom of a wide-ranging palette of bright colours and bold patterns to apply to an interior’s furniture and decor. Alternatively, however, bright and bold floral wallpapers allow them to flip the contrast around, partnering busier backdrops with simpler foregrounds.

Manufacturer Architects Paper’s AP Contract collection is a range of custom-made prints that utilise the three-dimensional palettes of florals to complement an interior’s tone-on-tone fabric arrangements. Meanwhile, mono-tone prints like Affreschi & Affreschi’s Toile de Jouy 45 Giri collection instead create simpler yet engaging scenery, allowing other pieces to take the stage in front. And Reef, by Wallpepper, is an example of a print that uses a selective colour technique to enhance one element of the design and pick out a single colour accent to highlight elsewhere.

There are more ways, meanwhile, to add depth to flat surfaces using just the wallpaper print alone. Inkiostro Bianco’s Golden Vibes print, for example, infuses floral patterns with metallic foil, bringing walls to life with iridescent reflections enhanced by the brilliance of the metallic effect. And even while only slightly embossed, relief wallpaper such as the Tropical Leaf and Kelmscott ranges from relief wall covering specialist Lincrusta, uses the slight shadow effect created by a few mm, to optically extend surface depth.

The majority of floral wallpaper patterns are repetitive like the Wild Roses range from Architects Paper. Repetitive patterns simplify the art of pattern matching and allow the covering to be applied around corners, edges and three-dimensional forms such as window cavities, shelves and niches – without stopping the overall flow of the design. By selecting the single narrative of a mural wallpaper design, however, walls can tell a more engaging story and bring an entire room to life. Affreschi & Affreschi’s Venus collection, for example, completes a biophilic design strategy in spaces that open up to the outside.

While the majority of floral prints are based on artistic impressions with varying degrees of realism, by shifting the style in either one direction or another, designers can dramatically alter the atmosphere of a space.

The Biophilic Futures collection of wallpaper prints by Yo2, for example, depicts a stylised illustrated version of a futuristic forest. The simple graphical style instantly adds humour and playfulness to a space, perfect for a child’s bedroom or even to contrast against the seriousness of a more formal space such as a dining room. Opting for a wallpaper print with photo-real imagery, however, like the African Queen III collection from Rasch Contract, allows the wall to take on the realistic dimensions of the expansive plains of the Savannah.

© Architonic

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