Photowall Wall Art & Canvas : Review

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When the lovely guys at Photowall got in touch with me asking whether I’d like to review one of their custom prints, I was pretty excited. Some of you may know I’ve already got a large skull canvas in my room which I adore, and I loved the idea of another canvas for the opposite wall. It has been a pleasure to test the service out and share my review here. Spoiler alert – the canvas is absolutely incredible! Scroll down for a limited time 25% off code too.

★

What Is Photowall?

Photowall is a worldwide service that produces beautiful wall art, with prints either from the website’s catalogue or custom made using your own image. When accessing the Photowall website you’ll be able to choose your country of resident, allowing you to browse the products with the currency and delivery information relevant for your country.

Photowall was borne from humble beginnings when two brothers, Charlie & Niklas Johansson, had the idea of printing wallpaper designs digitally. They had no printing experience, but in 2006 they bought their first printing press and got to work! This innovative company prides itself on quality custom-made products made with passion. Their offices and their own factory where the magic happens are based in Stockholm, Sweden. 

Art can express your style and reflect who you are, and customised prints can make your living space uniquely yours. Wallpaper or canvases can can inspire you or make your room feel more comfortable. It can uplift you, energise you or soothe you. It can do whatever you want or need it to do. With an endless array of designs, the potential is limitless. 

Our homes are our sanctuaries. Many of us spend a lot of time at home, so making that house a home we’re proud of and that we love is a worthwhile investment. Such custom art can also be a fantastic idea for businesses or offices, to brighten the space and cultivate a warmer atmosphere. 

Product Range

From Photowall : “Photowall makes top-quality wall décor that gives rooms a brand new look and feel. All of our motifs are handpicked and printed to order. Choose from thousands of motifs from our entire range or create and order wallpaper and prints with your own designs.”

Wallpaper

Printed to your exact required dimensions to ensure a good fit to your wall, with wallpaper paste included. Wallpaper is available as a standard print or quality print, both of which are environmentally friendly, durable, wipable, PVC-free, fire rated, won’t fade in sunlight, and are made of nonwoven material.

Canvas Prints

Quality canvas art in various sizes, up to a giant 59” height and width. They’re easy to assemble with a wooden (ash) frame and everything you need for mounting on the wall included. Stretched canvas print only is also available without the frame. 100% cotton, UV-resistant print and a 1 1/4” frame thickness. 

Framed Prints

Premium quality prints that are framed and ready to be hung on your wall. Prints are available in white, black or natural wood frames.  The glass is acrylic so as to reduce reflections, be more durable and provide greater UV protection. The back is sealed to prevent dirt or dust affecting the print, and all boards are FSC certified and fade-resistant. 

Posters

Prints range from 30cm to a large 150cm in width, made from uncoated premium paper that has a matte finish. It’s smooth and age resistant but not reflective, made with ‘Museum-level quality’ print technology. These can come with poster hangers, with two moldings to suspend the poster, a waxed cotton hanging string and a brass nail to go on the wall.

Environmental Assurance

Photowall go to great lengths to ensure their products and services are environmentally friendly.

Firstly, Photowall make photos on demand, so each product is only made when the order comes in and this means there’s no storage in a warehouse with stock that may need to be thrown out. All printing ink is biodegradable and free from hazardous chemicals. Even the wallpaper glue is biodegradable and made from natural raw materials, while the wrapping of products for shipping contains fully or partially recycled materials, transported on full trailers to reduce unnecessary transportation. 

Furthermore, each purchase from Photowall will support their work in collaboration with Vi Agroforestry. Every year they plant 5000 trees around Lake Victoria in East Africa thanks to consumer purchases.

Peace Of Mind Promise

It’s unlikely to be needed but for reassurance you have 30 days in which you can return your order for a refund if you’re not satisfied. If your product, such as a framed print, arrives damaged, it can be exchanged free of charge. 

Customer Service

You can contact customer services via the website if you have any problems or queries regarding your product. This is particularly vital when uploading your own image because you need a graphic with suitable dimensions and quality. I found myself emailing a few times with different images, changing the size and DPI and asking whether the image would work or look blurred. The responses were quick, so I’d say you’d most likely get a response within 24 hours. They’re also very helpful, checking your image out for you to see whether it would work and if not, why not. You can feel supported each step of the way, and that’s really important when you’re spending money on something you want to love or gift to someone else. 

Checkout

The checkout is nice and straightforward, reminding you of what you’re ordering and the cost before you pay to double check that you’re happy with everything. 

There are a few payment methods accepted, including Visa, Mastercard, Klarna and Paypal.

Delivery

Photowall ships worldwide. Delivery information will vary depending on your country, but you can find all of the details on the website.

There were two delivery types for the UK & US. The first is DHL standard for delivery in 5-7 business days, and the second is DHL Express, for 1-2 business days. What I love here is that standard delivery is free! Express comes at a very reasonable fee of $7/£7 if you want your order more urgently. 

Your order can be shipped to your home address, but you could alternatively choose a service point or other address if that’s more convenient, such as your work address or to send it directly to the recipient if you’re purchasing an item as a gift.

I received a speedy confirmation email after placing the order, and then an email to let me know once the canvas had been printed and shipped. I then had a text from DHL to confirm the date of delivery. I followed the link in the text to update my delivery instructions to request that they leave the item in the front porch for contactless delivery as the household is shielding during the coronavirus pandemic. Simples!

★ ★ ★

The Designs On Offer

Photowall have a gigantic array of diverse designs. Most images are available across the different formats, ie. the same design could be used as a poster, framed print, wallpaper or canvas. You can browse these easily, scrolling down and letting the designs inspire you. To give you an example, there are 20,680 designs to choose from at the time of writing, or you can upload your own.

There are a few options for filtering, or you can search by keyword. There aren’t as many modern licensed designs, such as for TV and movies, but there are some. What’s very impressive is the sheer amount of designs on offer, with something for everyone. 

The only downside I’ve found with the Photowall website is the consequence of so many designs. The filtering options aren’t quite numerous enough or accurate enough in my opinion; they’re reasonable, but I’ve found that I needed to just browse endlessly to really take in all the different designs. I’d prefer greater accuracy and relevancy of searches, and greater filtering criteria. That said, if you’ve got plenty of time on your hands then just browsing through the beautiful catalogue of designs is a great way to spend the afternoon.

Once you’ve found a design you love for the product type you want, you can select the size and it’ll calculate the price.

Uploading Your Own Custom Design

While Photowall offers a treasure trove of designs in their catalogue, what sets these guys apart from the crowd is the ability to upload your own custom design, image or photo. This could be a copyright-free image online, your own design you’ve made or a photo you’ve taken. This can then be used for any of the formats, like wallpaper or a canvas.

I used this method when picking my product for this gifted review, going to the page to upload my own image for a canvas. There’s guidance on the website for how to upload your design and the criteria the image needs to meet. I knew pretty quickly what image I wanted, one of rainbow roses. Unfortunately all I could find was a lower quality copyright-free version. I adjusted the size and DPI to fit with the criteria and uploaded it on the website; it was then accepted but I dropped customer services a message to ask what they thought of the image as I was concerned the quality would make it blurry. They confirmed it might be a bit blurry so I went away and was able to get a free trial on a website that offers the original copyright-free image. I was then able to get the 300dpi original and checked back with customer services, who said this should work well. Hurrah! 

Uploading the image was a breeze. I selected the size of the canvas I wanted and this automatically calculates the quoted cost. It then gives you some options for the canvas style. Firstly, you can get the ‘frame’, which basically means you’re getting the box canvas which you pop straight on the wall. Alternatively you can save money and just get the stretched canvas, but you’d then need to build/buy a frame. 

For the frame, you can choose whether you have the image stretched around so you can see it on the sides, top and bottom. Or you could make the sides of the canvas white or black, keeping the design just on the front. I went for the latter, keeping the dimensions of the image as I wanted them so I didn’t lose any of the roses to the sides. The sides of the frame I chose as white as I wanted to open up the room a little. 

You then get confirmation of what you’ve chosen so you can check you’re happy with the size and frame colour options. You’ll see the total price and be able to enter you details, such as name, email address and delivery address. There’s a box here on the checkout for any discount code, such as the one for 25% off provided in this post. 

You’ll be asked to enter your payment details and there are a few payment methods offered, which is good to see. It’s a secure checkout so you can rest assured your details are safe, and you’ll find the padlock in the web address bar to confirm this. Once you’ve ordered, you’ll get an email confirmation.

Instructions & Further Information

The website is very thorough in giving us all of the information we need on each product type so that we can make an informed decision. There’s ample detail when it comes to the materials used and the service itself, including delivery information and payment methods. There are also downloadable instruction guides and videos for each type of product, such as for putting together your canvas or hanging your poster.

I personally think this is fantastic because you can never have too much information at hand when you’re looking to buy something for the home, and you’ll feel supported each step of the way. Of course if you do have any queries, you can also contact customer services directly. 

★ ★ ★

My Colourful Canvas 

My Photowall canvas was promptly delivered in a matter of days after placing the order, and it arrived well packaged so nothing was damaged. It came a long rectangular cardboard box, with the canvas rolled and protected by paper, and the wooden slats inside, plus an order confirmation sheet and a page with some instructions. In addition were the bits and bobs needed for construction, so the screws and brackets for the back of the canvas, and the rawlplug, metal bracket and screw for mounting to the wall. 

I took the print out and laid it face down on the dining table, then put the slats of wood across the ends to hold it down overnight so as to flatten any curling at the outside edges. 

The ash wood is robust and the canvas itself is fairly thick, smooth and excellent quality. The print is vibrant, clearly showing the depth and detail in my image. The colours really pop, too. I was warned the roses would be a little darker than the luminous image I sent, but it’s only marginally darker and the design hasn’t lost its luminosity and beauty. The custom canvas print looks absolutely fantastic, copying the image I submitted brilliantly. 

Putting The Canvas Together

Photowall have a YouTube channel with different instructional videos, one of which is for putting the canvas together. In the package you also get a single sheet with very basic instructions. I didn’t find the sheet to give enough direction, so I looked at the video. Unfortunately this is only visual, so it’s not hugely accessible and I personally would have preferred verbal instructions alongside this to make it clearer and to give me more confidence in what I was doing.

Having measured out where the wood needed to go, 3 of the 4 slats seemed to fit fairly well. The last one, however, seemed a little off by a few millimetres either side. I’m not sure how that happened but it did make putting the brackets on a bit trickier. 

It took probably half an hour to get this together with the help of my papa to hold the wood firmly down in place at times. It’s something you could do on your own, but the bigger the canvas the more tricky I imagine it will be. Despite some frustration trying to get the wood lined up, it’s actually fairly straightforward to do.

Essentially you need to put the four pieces of wood around the outside, then attach the brackets in the corners to keep the wood together. There’s a sticky edge on each piece of wood that sticks to the canvas itself, then you fold the edges of the canvas in. The canvas adhered to most of the sticky on the wood, but there were a few areas that kept peeling back off, so make sure you go around and press down all the way along each edge to ensure full adhesion.

Then it’s a case of lining up where you want your canvas to go on the wall. This is harder on your own with a bigger canvas because you need to make sure it’s central and level, so another eye to check this is helpful. The bigger the canvas the heavier it is to hold it up as well, so keep that in mind. I managed to mark up on the wall where I wanted it pretty easily by standing on my bed and having my mum make approving or disapproving sounds when I moved it in different directions. I grabbed the cordless drill and drilled the hole, making sure it was just short of 2 inches below where I wanted to the canvas to hang because you need to account for the width of the wood.

I encountered a challenge here called brick: it’s a 1930s home with real walls, so my handheld drill wasn’t cutting it and I had to bring out the electric bad boy to get through the brick as you need to drill probably over two inches or so in to encompass the length of the rawlplug. Then just insert the rawlplug, place the metal bracket on and fix in the screw. 

Once the small metal bracket it on the wall, you can hang the canvas on it. Now, I must admit I was a little sceptical of the hanging metal because it’s so small for such a large canvas. I’d probably prefer two of these. The canvas just drops onto the hook, which is fine, but make sure it’s somewhere it’s not going to get knocked because you don’t want it coming off. It feels pretty sturdy to me and manages to keep the canvas straight despite its small size. 

★ ★ ★

Try Photowall For Yourself With 25% Off

Fancy getting yourself a canvas, wallpaper, poster or framed print? Maybe you want to brighten up your own home or give a piece of art as a gift to make a friend or loved one smile. Take a browse at the gorgeous designs on offer or customise your print by uploading an image of your choice to make your art unique and meaningful. 

You can get 25% off with this exclusive discount code for a limited time only. 

Just use this link to browse the Photowall website & enter the code invisiblyme25 at the checkout! The discount is valid on any product on the website and expires on 23rd January 2021.

Photowall : Wonderful Wall Art For Any Space

With a wonderful array of designs and the ability to upload your own image, Photowall is a very versatile service for different types of wall art. I love the quality, the eco-friendly aspects and the responsive customer service. Best of all, the end product is incredible. An excellent addition to any home or office, or a thoughtful gift for a loved one. Very pleased!

Take a look :

Photowall Worldwide Website || Photowall Facebook || Photowall Insta

Caz  ♥

Do you enjoy art in your home? Have you ever considered a custom print for a canvas, wallpaper or framed print?

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[ This product was gifted in return for an honest review, which I have provided here ]