Signwrite Studios Ltd

Revolutionising Surfaces With Architectural Film

04-10-2023

What if you could completely transform a space – windows, walls, countertops, even furniture – without limits? And more importantly, without having to spend a fortune doing it? Or without wasting a lot of otherwise fine materials simply because they’re a bit worn out? Sounds good, right? Well, there’s a new product on the block, and it’s about to revolutionise the way we think about refreshing and rebranding surfaces. It’s called Architectural film.

What Is Architectural Film?

Architectural films are a type of self-adhesive resurfacing film, and they are helping businesses and organisations revolutionise their spaces. They can be applied to almost any surface and come in a wide variety of styles and finishes to suit any taste. Block colours, fabric and leather effects, marble, metal, stone and wood effect – even glitter!

Architectural films can be applied to flat and curved surfaces, using heat and specialist applicators to ensure a smooth and even finish. It’s an incredibly quick and cost-effective solution that helps you to create unique interior spaces thanks to its eco-friendly, highly durable and diverse range of patterns.

A New Approach To Sustainability

If you’re a business that prides itself on being environmentally friendly or sustainable, then architectural film will become one of your favourite products. One of the biggest benefits to architectural film is the significant environmental impact using it can have. By choosing to refresh a surface rather than rip it out and replace it, you are reducing the number of raw materials and the energy that goes into processing them into new products, as well as not contributing to the growing land-fill problem. Because there are such a wide range of finishes, colours and textures available, you’ll always be able to find the perfect match for your space.

Protecting High-Traffic areas

If you look around within your building now, you will be able to easily identify which surfaces see the highest traffic. Whether that’s the walls by the front door that sees dozens of people coming and going every day, light switches, factory workbenches, store room doors, and even that spot in the kitchen next to the kettle. Architectural film is designed to be incredibly durable even at the budget end of the spectrum, with the manufacturers offering long material warranties depending on the installer you use. For example, because we are a certified 3M installer, we can offer a material warranty on all 3M DINOC architectural films of up to 10 years* (*subject to the surface it’s being applied to). Architectural film is also made from certified fire-proof materials that pass rigorous abrasion tests, making them the perfect partner for high-traffic and high-touch point areas.

How Can You Use Architectural Film In Your Business

Of course, the beauty of architectural film is that it can be applied to pretty much any surface, so there’s not really a limit to who can use them, or how! But we are seeing some trends emerging in how architectural films are being used – in particular we are currently seeing a lot of:

Desk wraps in offices and school settings

Door wraps in both commercial, healthcare and retail settings

Kitchen cabinet and worktop wraps

Lift interior refinishing

Let’s break those down a little bit and look at why they would be beneficial to each business/person.

Desk Wraps: We’re seeing these a lot in office and school settings – where people are sitting at their desks day in, day out, and the damage adds up quickly. Look down at your desk now, and we’ll bet you can see a few scuff marks, dents and general wear and tear. School desks often get the worse end of the deal here, with graffiti and vandalism being big, reoccurring problems. But continually buying new desks is both expensive and wasteful, since the old ones often end up being dumped rather than reused. By recovering them in architectural film you can bring new life to even the oldest and most heavily abused desks, and you can refinish them every year without blowing your whole budget in one go.

Door Wraps: Doors often take the most punishment in any building, especially if it’s open to the public. Whether that’s the door to ‘in the back’ in a retail space, the meeting room doors in an office or doctors’ office doors in a hospital – these doors are opened and closed, touched and banged hundreds of times a day. If they are starting to look a bit worn, or you just want to give them a makeover to match some new décor, architectural films are a great option.

Kitchen Worktops & Cabinets: We all know that kitchens are incredibly expensive to replace. And sometimes you might want to refresh or update the look of your kitchen without pulling the whole thing out and starting again – leaving you with a big bill and a set of perfectly functional workshops and cupboards to dispose of. Architectural films apply on top of the existing finish, completely transforming the look of your kitchen cabinets, worktops, and even flooring, without having to change anything structural at all. They are much quicker to apply (so you won’t be without a kitchen for weeks), and means you can enjoy a revitalised kitchen for a fraction of the price.

Lifts: Let’s be honest, the inside of lifts can start looking shabby very quickly. But they are often left to deteriorate because refinishing them means putting the lift out of commission for a long time, and essentially ripping out the internal panelling to install new ones. This is inconvenient for the business and incredibly wasteful, with most of those materials being non-recyclable. Architectural films not only allow you to refresh the look of confined high-traffic spaces like lifts, but they offer a higher level of protection for the surface, so it will stay looking good for longer.

At Signwrite Studios we are passionate about helping businesses and organisations make the most of their space in a variety of creative yet sustainable ways. We are proud to be partnering with Architextural to add architectural wrapping to our portfolio of services. This little step gives us so many more options in our design work, including using architectural film and vinyl graphics and wraps to create visually striking commercial spaces. If you would like to know more about this new product, just get in touch with the team today..