Direct Wall Printing for Emirates NBD’s Museum Interior, on an Installed Panel
Sun Studio printed the country and city names on a decorative map panel for a museum being developed on the ground floor of Emirates NBD’s head office in Dubai. The panel was already fixed to the wall, so we printed the names in place, directly onto it, with our wallPen wall printer.
The panel is a layered map of the Arabian Gulf, with raised, pearl-like spheres standing out from its surface. The names are in Arabic and English, with no vinyl and no stickers.
Project snapshot
- Project
- A museum on the ground floor of Emirates NBD’s head office
- Location
- Dubai
- Museum status
- In development at the time of printing
- Surface
- A layered decorative map panel, already fixed to the wall
- Relief
- Stepped layers, raised islands and protruding pearl-like spheres
- What we printed
- Country and city names, in Arabic and English
- Ink
- Black on the pale areas, white on the teal
- Method
- Printed in place, directly onto the installed panel
- Applied graphics
- None: no vinyl and no stickers
- Machine
- wallPen E2, on floor rails
- Printing service
- Wall printing, on an installed panel
- Year
- 2026
An installed panel with raised layers and pearls
Lettering for a decorative panel is usually printed before the panel goes up, while it is still a flat sheet that fits on a flatbed. This panel was on the wall before the names were added.
Nor is it flat. The sea is built up in stepped layers over a pale base, small islands sit on top, and pearl-like spheres stand out across the water. The names had to go onto that surface: on the pale land, on the island of Bahrain, and once on the teal sea.
Why flatbed printing and vinyl did not suit this job
A flatbed prints what can be laid under its print head. Here that meant taking the panel down, printing it and fixing it back, layers and pearls included, so flatbed printing was impractical for this installation.
Adhesive lettering, the other usual route, was ruled out by the client, who did not want vinyl or stickers in a high-end museum interior. Direct wall printing met both conditions: the printer came to the panel, and the ink went onto the panel’s own surface.
Printing in place on a layered surface
A wall printer is built for surfaces that are never perfectly flat. The wallPen, which our sister company PRO TECHnology distributes in the UAE, stands on the floor, here on rails along the panel, and prints in passes as its head travels. wallPen states that its laser sensors detect irregularities of up to 10 cm in real time while the head adjusts to the surface. On this panel, that sensing helped manage the head’s distance as the surface stepped from layer to layer.
That is compensation within a range, not a licence to print over anything: the names sit in the open areas of the map, none of them on a pearl. Deeper relief, or lettering across raised parts, would need testing on the panel first.
UV colours are transparent, so lettering lighter than its background needs white ink. The labels on the pale areas are black; Manama, Bahrain, on the teal sea, is white.
The finished panel
The panel now names six countries and six cities in Arabic and English, from Dammam and Doha to Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah. The lettering is part of the panel’s surface, with no film edge around a word. The photographs were taken on the day of printing, while the museum was still being developed.
The same direct wall printing suits installed panels, feature walls and museum and exhibition graphics, once the surface has been assessed.
Have an installed panel or museum wall to print?
Send photos of the panel or wall, its size, how far any raised parts stand out, the artwork and where the lettering must sit. We will tell you what can be printed in place before a date is booked.
