My daughter’s history teacher at Our Lady of Fatima School had always dreamed of having a large map of the world that she could use a white board marker on to show her students where historical events happened geographically. We are thrilled that PrintWild was able to make it happen for them in the form of a beautiful, high resolution acrylic print world map!
We conceptualised a three-panel world map for Ms Golding’s classroom measuring 3m x 2m. There are several considerations PrintWild takes into account when preparing and printing an image this large.
Prepping and printing the high resolution acrylic print world map
When printing is big, it is imperative that the text is sharp and the detail is clean. We’ve learnt that the best way to do this is by using an Abobe Illustrator vector art file as there is no pixel degradation during resizing. We printed each of the three panels onto a high quality vinyl substrate using PrintWild’s large format printer.
Mounting the three panels to make a single world map
Once printed, the panels were firmly mounted onto a stable board that would feel sturdy and comfortable to write on with a white board marker.
Because mounting large prints can be fairly difficult, we used our high-pressure laminating roller to adhere the vinyl print to a 6mm stable backing board. If you’ve covered anything in laminating paper, you’ll know how The trickiest part of the job is laminating a clear, double-sided film to the print surface, followed by a 2mm clear plexiglass acrylic panel. The third and final layer is running the print though our laminating roller.
Trimming and mounting the world map to the classroom wall
Once the panels were complete using a rule circular saw, the panels were trimmed so that when they lined up on the wall the kiss fitted one another making the complete map on the wall.
The finished product is around 8kg per panel and had to sit flush against the wall. Here we used a special mounting tape which is a very strong, shear strength that enabled us to position and secure the print correctly. We also used mirror mounts on the corners to add extra strength to the wall mounting.
The finished product now hangs in the history classroom where it fills in the gaps for the inquisitive young minds at Our Lady of Fatima School, allowing the children to see the position and detail of the world they live in.
