Full square goes quirky with Décortex

Print Solutions

Leicester based Full Square printed and installed quirky designs by Newenglish Design on Papergraphics’ Décortex 1.1 roller blinds for Nottingham City Council's new Strelley Road library.

The team at Full Square worked in collaboration with local design team, Newenglish Design, who offered Nottingham City Council an exciting and engaging way to lift its Strelley Road library interior, recently opened in December 2018. Part of a new development, the council wanted to create a ‘modern adaptable facility’ and was over the moon with the finished results.

Having introduced Full Square to the concept of wallcoverings (and the Digimura range) several years previously, Papergraphics presented its new Décortex range of window blind material as a harmonious concept to complement the existing interiors offering. The Décortex printable roller blind fabric range, offers designers and creatives new possibilities to expand beyond wall décor; create exciting and interesting graphic designs for interiors utilising window spaces too.

Agreeing she could see this as a potential new market, Full Square owner Claire McFadden seized the bull by the horns and began promoting the concept to several designers and specifiers in the local area. Newenglish Design took up the idea and implemented some clever photographic designs to complement the colourful way finder signage and contemporary look and feel they wanted to create for the new library in Nottingham.

‘My design thinking was to turn the idea of a library as a rather uninspiring space on its head. I wanted to make the library a true community hub that is vibrant interesting and a place for everyone to enjoy and would want to spend time in,’ explained creative director Carl Bebbington of Newenglish Design. ‘In the first week of opening the queues of people wanting to join the library stretched from front to back. The public response to the new library has been incredible, they love it as do the staff who work there.’

‘The fire rating for this material, as well as the superior layflat quality and the natural textile appearance of the blind material sets Décortex apart from anything else that we have come across for interior window decoration,’ said Claire at Full Square. ‘The help and support given by Papergraphics has also made this a really straightforward but exciting addition to our product and service offering.’

While Décortex is a wipeable product, the project manager for Nottingham City Council was all too conscious of the potential for marks and scuffs to appear on the product with this being installed in a public space.

Full Square highlighted what it saw as positive ‘green’ credentials of this solution. ‘We explained that due to the quality of the components, it means that if the blind material did become damaged beyond day to day cleaning, (or even if they wanted to change the graphics in the future), we could simply print fresh material and replace it, still reusing all of the other components. Nottingham City Council really liked this, and now have a sleek, engaging set of blinds to complement its new library interior, which also happened to be great quality and functional. A win all round.’

Full Square has also implemented the new window blind concept in the prestigious new head office of a luxury car club as well; using large scale classic car images to create a high end look. While its focus is on the business to business car market, Full Square has also received interest in the blinds for domestic use, which it has offered with a colour matching service, as well as customisable design options through a purpose built web page.