Paid in May, Fitted in November: 31 m² of Office Wall Graphics in Canary Wharf
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Microland fitted out a London office on Marsh Wall in Canary Wharf, E14 and needed four walls finished: 31.5 square metres of printed wall graphics plus a company statement in dimensional lettering. We quoted in May and the job was paid straight away. It was fitted in November — six months later, and that is the interesting part.
Written by Maciej Antosz, Production Manager at Silver Image London ·
This is an account of one job, not a turnaround promise. Send us yours and we will come back with a firm figure.
The four walls
The client had designs and measurements ready before the first email, which is rarer than it sounds and is the reason a quote came back the same week. The dimensions below are the ones we priced and printed to.
| Wall | Width × height | Area |
|---|---|---|
| Meeting room | 503 × 240 cm | 12.1 m² |
| Sofa wall, by the entrance | 333 × 249 cm | 8.3 m² |
| Wall by the coat stand | 304 × 240 cm | 7.3 m² |
| Beam in the open-plan area | 162 × 240 cm | 3.9 m² |
| Total | 31.5 m² |
Written up from the email thread. Nobody is named, no figures from the invoice are published, and the client’s floor and unit number are not given — the street and postcode are, because they are the work.
Six months from paid to fitted, and why that is normal
Every other job written up in this section is about speed. This one is the opposite, and it is worth publishing precisely because nobody advertises it.
The enquiry arrived in May: designs done, dimensions done, one question — can you print this and fit it. We quoted within days, offered an installation date about a fortnight out, and the client paid in advance. Then the office fit-out did what office fit-outs do. Furniture, contractors, sign-off, a room that could not be closed for a day. The client wrote at one point that the project was slightly delayed, aware they had already paid. The job simply sat with us: no re-quote, no expiry, no storage charge. It was fitted in November.
The practical point for anyone planning an office move: get the graphics quoted early and fitted late. Pricing is the easy part and locking it in costs nothing. What you cannot compress is the day the walls are actually free, clean and dry, and that day is decided by the trades before you, not by the printer.
Wall graphics are a fitting job that happens to involve printing
The print for 31.5 square metres is a few hours on the roll. The six hours on site is where the job lives: measuring the real wall rather than the drawing, working out where the seams fall so they do not land in the middle of the logo, levelling, and applying without trapping air across a five-metre run.
Two things decide whether a feature wall looks right afterwards. The first is the surface: freshly painted walls need to cure before anything is applied, and textured or dusty surfaces will let go at the corners no matter how good the film is. The second is seam placement, which is a design decision made on site, not in the artwork — a seam through flat colour disappears, a seam through a letter never does. Where a wall gives way to a glazed partition, the same scheme continues in window film, which is measured and fitted the same way.
The lettering on the wall in the photograph is a separate discipline again: each character is mounted individually, so the layout is set out on the wall with a level and a template before anything is fixed. It is the slowest part of the day and the part everybody notices if it is out by two millimetres. Letters like these are cut from acrylic where weight and depth matter, or from foamex where the run is longer and the wall is plasterboard — the choice changes the fixing, not the look.
Fitting in phases, when part of the job is not ready
The lettering was not ready on the day the walls were. The client asked the sensible question — can we do the walls now and the rest once the letters arrive — and that is exactly what happened: printed graphics went up first, the lettering followed the week after.
This is worth knowing because it is often assumed that a fit has to be all-or-nothing. It does not. If a launch or a client visit is driving the date, the visible surfaces can go up first and the details can follow, provided the layout was planned for the finished state from the start.
Working in a Canary Wharf tower
An office fit in Canary Wharf has a rhythm that has nothing to do with print. Building access, goods lifts, a booked loading bay and a security desk that needs the fitter’s name in advance — all of it has to be arranged before anybody touches a wall. Add a floor high in a tower, and materials go up in stages rather than in one trip.
None of this is difficult. It is simply the reason a wall graphics job in a managed building is quoted with a full day in mind, even when the application itself takes six hours.
If you are planning office graphics
- Send dimensions of the wall, not the drawing. This client measured the real walls before the first email, and it is why the quote came back the same week.
- Quote early, fit late. Pricing does not expire the way availability does. Locking the spec in months ahead costs nothing and removes one variable from a fit-out that will have plenty.
- Tell us about the surface. Newly painted walls need curing time; textured or dusty surfaces need a different material or preparation. This is the single most common reason a graphic lifts later.
- Ask for the seam plan. On anything over about two and a half metres wide there will be a join. Where it falls is a decision, and it should be yours as much as ours.
- Sort building access before the date. Lift booking, loading bay and a name at the security desk decide whether a six-hour fit fits inside one visit.
Materials, finishes and coverage are on the wall and floor graphics page; cut vinyl and applied film are covered under vinyl graphics.
Related services
Send us the walls
Measurements and a rough idea of the artwork are enough for a firm price. We survey before fitting, and we tell you honestly if a surface needs preparing first.
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