In Focus Vol. 3 No. 2

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• Custom Scenery on Window Shades with Water-Resistant Satin Cloth and 3P Fabric
• Panache and Profit with Canvas Wraps

Custom Scenery on Window Shades with Water-Resistant Satin Cloth and 3P Fabric

Stuck with a crummy view of a parking lot, an alley, or a brick wall from your window or burdened by intense sun and want more than just an average shade? Change your point of view with custom-printed window shades that can turn the mundane into any scene imaginable.

And, as photographers and fine-art reproducers, you have the ability to offer this change of scenery as a profitable add-on to your product line. Customers are always looking for something unique, and wide-format digital printing has provided the means by which décor can be cost-effectively custom.

That’s what Tim and Lorrisa Dussault, owners of The Color I in Anacortes, Wash., found when one of their clients asked for a printed, rollable screen for their business. During the development of this new product they realized the potential of custom-printed window shades for homes and businesses.

“Our client needed something rollable and easy to travel with, and they wanted a scroll-type look. We decided to use LexJet Water-Resistant Satin Cloth with bamboo rods top and bottom to make them look oriental. They’re basically a solid print, seamed and sewn to create a loop or pocket to feed the dowels through,” explains Tim Dussault. “We love the Water-Resistant Satin Cloth because it really glows when the sun is behind it; it makes the images look unbelievable.”

Those first printed screens were designed to be rolled up and transported to various venues, much like a banner stand. For window shades, Dussault would need to find the components necessary to build a more standard shade system with a ballast and cords to pull the shades up and down.

“No one wanted to sell me just the components; they wanted to sell them with the fabric. I didn’t need the fabric; I can print my own, so I had to go direct to the manufacturer overseas. Now I have a whole storeroom of the components,” says Dussault.

Dussault uses either Water-Resistant Satin Cloth or 3P Universal Heavy FR for window shades, depending on the type of effect and lighting the customer desires.

“For the person who wants less light in the room, but still wants a dramatic image impact that shows off the photo really well, that’s when I use Water-Resistant Satin Cloth. It doesn’t allow as much light through it, but it makes the images glow like stained glass. With the 3P material it allows light to pass through easier. It doesn’t glow like Water-Resistant Satin Cloth, but it creates a light and bright effect when it’s backlit. It’s softer, and works best with warmer colors, and in a place where you want an image over a window that’s more subtle,” says Dussault.

Dussault does not use a protective spray or clear coat on the images because the coated fabric tends to stick to itself when it’s rolled up.

Though he doesn’t have the long-term lightfast results of this application, he expects it will hold up fine over time given that he’s printing with an archival printing process on weatherable materials.

“When you’re talking six to ten years down the road, you won’t pick up on the differences due to any image degradation. I compare it to the typical fabric you use with shades. If you take a blue shade in whatever fabric it is, and put a swatch in a drawer and compare it to the one hanging up ten years later, it’s not going to be the same color; there will be some fading, so you’re dealing with the same issues. You have the same longevity with color as you do when you choose a colored shade for your house. Plus, you don’t notice a little bit of fading over a period of time because you look at it every day,” says Dussault.

Dussault offers everything needed to print custom window shades, including some fine art and photography for the images, the printed fabric, and the window blind components.

If you print the shade yourself, Dussault is willing to assist you by cutting the blind components to the sizes you need at $14.50 per linear foot, and will ship it with an assembly guide. So, if the window’s 36 in. wide, the cost for the blind less shipping will be $43.50. That would include everything necessary except the printed fabric to assemble the blind.

For more information about purchasing and assembling the window shade components, e-mail tim@thecolori.com. Tim also has an Art Shade Assembly how-to video at The Color I website (click on the link to view it).

Panache and Profit with Canvas Wraps

At Clark and Rachel Marten’s studio in Montana, the average senior portrait package has jumped from about $2,200 to $2,700. Clark and Rachel attribute much of this added income to their incorporation of canvas wraps printed on LexJet Instant Dry Satin Canvas into the sales process.

“In order to sell it, you have to show it and you have to ask,” says Rachel. “When I’m working on an order, I’ll take the client into the gallery, show them the canvas wraps and talk about them. We don’t sell paper; we sell emotion. If you can create the emotion so they fall in love with it you’ll make the sale.”

It helps that both Rachel and Clark are big believers in the canvas wrap as a stunning and unique showcase print for their clients. “I love the wrap, so it’s easy to sell. I prefer canvas when it’s presented as a wrap, because, to me, that’s what makes canvas look like canvas. People like the wraps because it’s unique, and they want something different than what their neighbor has,” says Rachel.

Rachel typically sells the portraits in series of three canvas wraps. Clark shoots three similar images, but with slight variations, such as a shot looking down on the subject. Each print in the three-print series is typically printed at 20 in. x 30 in., and spaced about an inch apart.

If a client wants their wall portrait printed on canvas, stretched, and wrapped it’s $250 in addition to the base fee charged for a wall portrait. Rachel says she initially priced the canvas wrap option at $150, but that price point “didn’t faze anyone.”

“I follow the advice of my mentor, Bill Sorenson, who says that you price what the market can bear, rather than basing it on material costs and other factors,” Rachel adds. “Once you’ve sold them on the image, and reinforced that you know they want it, the price doesn’t matter. And when they see how it would look on their wall they want it.”

For the production process, Clark creates templates that add a few extra inches around the image for extra bleed area on the sides of the wrap. He adds very light tick marks to use as a guide when he lays the canvas out on the stretcher bars. “The tick marks allow me to find the spot easily, but they blend into the picture well enough that the client won’t see them.”

Clark says he’s still learning how to make the wraps look as professional and seamless as possible, particularly on the corners. Clark stretches the canvas on a soft surface and switched to pliers with rubber tips, which he says seem to hold the canvas more securely than traditional stretcher pliers. After the canvas has been stretched and mounted, Clark sprays over the canvas with a lacquer.