How to Keep a Gaming Poster Looking New: Fading, Curling and Humidity
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A printed poster has three enemies, and only one of them is time: light, moisture and the way it is mounted. Get those right and a matte art print stays saturated and flat for years. Get them wrong and it yellows, ripples or curls within a single season — regardless of what you paid for it.
1. Light is what actually fades a print
Fading is a photochemical reaction driven mostly by ultraviolet light. Two prints of the same file, same paper, same ink will age completely differently depending on where they hang. The variable that matters is not how old the poster is — it is how many hours of direct sun it has taken.
- Never hang directly opposite a south-facing window (north-facing in the southern hemisphere). That wall gets the most hours of direct sun in a day.
- Indirect daylight is fine. A room can be bright without the print ever being in a sunbeam. Watch where the light actually lands at 2 pm, not how bright the room feels.
- Pigment-based archival inks resist fading substantially better than dye inks, which is why we print with them. It is a meaningful difference, not a marketing line — but it slows fading, it does not stop it.
- If the wall is unavoidable, frame with UV-filtering glazing. UV-filtering acrylic is the single most effective intervention available to a normal person, and it is lighter and safer than glass.
A practical test: if you can feel warmth on the wall with your hand at midday, that wall will fade anything you hang on it.
2. Moisture makes paper ripple, and it is reversible less often than people think
Paper is hygroscopic — it absorbs and releases water from the air, and it expands and contracts as it does. When a sheet is fixed at some points and free at others, that movement shows up as waves. This is the most common complaint about wall art and it has almost nothing to do with print quality.
| Condition | What happens | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Bathroom or kitchen wall | Repeated swelling cycles, permanent rippling | Don't. Or frame sealed behind glazing. |
| Exterior wall in a cold climate | Condensation behind the paper, spotting | Interior walls only; leave an air gap |
| Above a radiator | Dries and curls the lower edge | Move it 40 cm to either side |
| Stable, 40–60% humidity | Nothing. This is the target. | — |
3. Mounting: four points, never two
The single most common mistake with an unframed print is hanging it from two points at the top. Paper is heavy enough to sag under its own weight, and within a few weeks the bottom edge curls forward. It looks like a defect and it is a physics problem.
- Use removable mounting strips at all four corners, and a fifth in the middle of the bottom edge for anything 50×70 cm or larger.
- Press from the centre outward, not corner to corner, so you do not trap a bubble.
- Avoid drawing pins through the print if you ever intend to frame it later — the holes are permanent and they tear as the paper moves.
- Do not use permanent spray adhesive. It yellows, and it makes the print unsalvageable.
4. Flattening a print that arrived rolled
Prints ship rolled in a tube because that is the only way to move large paper without creasing it. A roll relaxes on its own, but you can help it:
- Unroll it and lay it face down on a clean, flat surface.
- Roll it gently backwards — against the curl — for a few seconds. Do not crease it.
- Lay it flat under a weight spread across the whole sheet (a large book with a sheet of clean paper between), not a single point.
- Leave it 24–48 hours. Do not use heat, and do not iron it.
Smaller sizes ship flat-packed and skip this entirely.
5. Cleaning, and why matte changes the rules
A matte surface diffuses light instead of reflecting it, which is why it reads well under desk lighting and why it does not show fingerprints the way a glossy print does. The trade-off is that matte paper is more absorbent: anything wet leaves a mark that will not come out.
- Dust only, with a dry microfibre cloth or a soft brush, top to bottom.
- Never use water, glass cleaner or a damp cloth on an unframed matte print.
- Handle by the edges, ideally with clean dry hands — skin oils are the one contaminant matte paper genuinely holds on to.
Framed behind glazing, none of this applies: clean the glass, never the print, and spray the cloth rather than the frame.
6. Storing one you are not hanging
Flat and dark beats rolled and bright. Interleave prints with acid-free tissue or plain paper, keep them out of an attic or a garage where temperature swings, and store them horizontally. A print stored well is indistinguishable from new after years; a print stored in a hot loft is not.
The short version
Out of direct sun, on an interior wall, four mounting points, dry cloth only. That is 90% of it. The remaining 10% is UV-filtering glazing, and it only matters if the wall you want is the wall the sun hits.
Our prints are made to order on premium matte art paper with archival pigment inks, and ship unframed so you choose the frame — or none. If you are still picking a size, our desk setup sizing guide covers what fits above a monitor, and matte versus glossy explains the finish itself. Browse the gaming poster collection to start.
