Every colour, its own roller
Norrviva is printed by surface printing, what Swedes call limtryck: each colour is a water-based paint, thick as distemper, carried onto the paper by its own engraved roller. The press holds a roller for every colour at once, arranged around a central drum, so a six-colour pattern is laid down in a single pass. The method is about two hundred years old; the machine that does it has been running since the 1970s, blue and loud.
From drawing to wall
From a drawing to a finished roll, it goes like this.
Engraving
Each colour in a design is engraved onto its own metal roller.
Mixing
The colours are mixed fresh, by hand, for every run.
Printing
The paper is given its background colour, then the pattern is surface-printed on top, every colour at once.
Off the press
Length by length the pattern appears, then it is cut, checked, wrapped, and sent to your wall.
A depth you can feel
Surface printing lays the colour on top of the paper, thick, the way paint sits on a wall. It catches the light and holds a depth a flat digital print never has. Look closely and the colour stands very slightly raised, with a hair of movement from one length to the next. It looks almost hand-painted, which, in a way, it is.
At the press, Ulricehamns Tapetfabrik
A young factory, an old craft
The workshop is Ulricehamns Tapetfabrik, in southern Sweden. When the previous owner closed the line, the people who ran the machines bought it and kept printing, which makes it one of the country's newest wallpaper factories and the keeper of one of its oldest methods. It is also where Svenskt Tenn prints its Josef Frank wallpapers, which is good company to keep.
Krokus Green, on the wall
Where it all comes from
We try to use the materials with the least impact we can find. The non-woven paper is FSC-certified, made in Germany; the water-based paint comes from the Netherlands; everything is printed and packed in Sweden, down to the paperboard it ships in. The finished paper is certified OEKO-TEX Standard 100, tested for harmful substances.
The whole thing, in motion
A snapshot of the whole process: Krokus from first drawing to the press in Ulricehamn, and a test length up on the wall.
