Adding finishing touches ~ here Bottega (Restaurant) at the top end of Bourke Street, Melbourne has added window grilles as a design feature that is also functional and versatile.  The aluminium grille provides good contrast against the deep grey of the building, being movable it changes the look of the building depending on whether it is open or closed, night or day and also the mood, as the images below reflect.  The subtle addition of reflective silver vinyl on the screens creates signage for the building.  The grille screens the street view, creates a panoramic view of what is a wonderful streetscape when open, is aesthetically appealing from the inside out or outside in, in the evening or during the day.  When the sun is in glaring view it can chop it up, screen it, or allow it to contribute to the aesthetic.   Again it can be adapted for the home for a different aesthetic, to screen neighbours, sunlight or an ugly view.  It can be opened up to reveal a specific landscape view that is framed.  You could get really creative and add reflective vinyl in a design of your choice, a street number or the name of your house.  Finishing touches that make your space unique …

This image courtesy of Bottega’s website

Decently Exposed & taylormadesigns were commissioned to design & create the interior fitout as well as the external signage and window grilles.  Bottega is at 74 Bourke Street Melbourne.

PrintAsArt is not so much of a client driven site with projects and postings like our other sites (see buttons above), it actually draws from the work we do on other sites and attempts to showcase the crossover in applications to give you ideas to personalise your own space, whether it be your home or office. Ideas often begin as a commercial application and are then adapted for personal use. Think wall decal applications now being used for interiors. This is an artistic interpretation of vinyl graphics which began as a logo treatment for vehicles, offices and all sorts of signage applications. But they’ve been given a new life, and adapted into a more fluid aesthetic design for the home ~ florals, shapes, lines, dots, animals, patterns, children’s vector art etc.

Let’s however start with a printed image on clear film, then applied to glass to create an aesthetic for National Sound & Film Archive …

This job came to taylormadesigns via Signaway Signs (Sydney). We printed the graphic onto clear film and sent it to Signaway Signs for their client National Film & Sound Archive. Here at the National Sound & Film Archive, the printed film has been applied by Signaway Signs to an inserted glass wall.

It is suggestive of an office space, or a library with books all in a row, or as the name suggests an archive. It is a visual walkway, both aesthetic, friendly and colourful, leading and enticing you to the entrance door.

We print a lot on clear film and have made a business out it with Wall Scrawl - printing layers on all sorts of film but more often than not, clear and semi clear film and then inserting the printed layer between two layers of perspex to serve as a funky memoboard. Printing on clear or semi clear film offers transparency; a screen but not a blockout, an artistic interpretation, an aesthetic addition (environmental graphics).

Have been playing around with a collection of artwork created by the prodigies at home, when you think about it, children’s artwork is art in its purest sense, without forethought, no mind games or tricks on what one should put to the canvas, just whatever arrives, however primitive and simple, often alive and colourful and engaging. We have put a lot of our kids artwork up on the walls in our hallway, not paying it too much respect as the blue tac lets loose and corners droop but guests and friends and family often stop to look and comment and enjoy. Like old people whose wisdom we seldom seek, are the children whose artwork we hide in drawers, not all is good, but sometimes their sense of colour and its many combinations and space and wild imagination create something special - worth a second look anyhow.

The idea behind PrintAsArt is to create something a bit more personal, homegrown; a bit of a shift away from generic and mass produced and soulless really. It seems to me that we are all looking for this in lots of ways ~ a more comfortable home with cherished items surrounding us, farmer’s markets, fresh produce, home grown vegetables, dinner parties with close friends, being more attentive to what we buy, best to buy for keeps than cheap and disposable and meaningless. Art has to mean something to you and PrintAsArt enables you to express your art in a number of ways ~ on canvas, perspex, film, fabric, window blinds, awnings. Your art can be anything, a piece of fabric with a beautiful pattern which can be scanned and reproduced just for you, a favourite photo, a collection of photos, a texture, your children’s artwork or poem or story, a family tree or as I have chosen here, graffiti. I took a picture of this graffiti which appears on our signwall - it means nothing to you but I like it. I like the colours; Ethan (our son) has written his name in bubble writing in bottom left hand corner and even though the text doesn’t make sense I kinda like that too. Don’t be afraid to express yourself with whatever resonates with you … With digital cameras today you can capture art everywhere, it takes nothing for us to scan a hi res image and print on a medium that appeals to you.

Can’t help but notice that wall decals are becoming very popular for interior decoration. We’ve been doing them for years as a signage treatment but they look so much nicer in a residential environment, basically a creative application of standard computer cut vinyl or as we call it SAV (self adhesive vinyl) but known in interior circles as wall decals ….

Personally, I would love to have a wall devoted to beautiful and inspirational quotes. Our house is in serious need of a renovation so I took to my white wardrobe doors with a ruby red crayon and wrote my favourite quote on it …. think the wall decals might be the trick when we finally get round to a serious renovation.

The images here are from a trade fair installation we did for Carina Sherlock Homewares.
We can forme cut and prepare your decals for installation if you have some (vector based) design files….

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