Can a Printed Wall Feel as Quiet as a Hand-Raked One?
Angela Simeone · Last updated: 13 October 2026
In short: Quiet is a quality of the wall, not of how it was made. Maya Romanoff's Joyce Romanoff says the house's new Ananda collection is about designing spaces that foster calm and connection, and it holds a hand-raked wallcovering and a machine-made one to the same standard. A printed pattern can be just as restful when it is drawn from an original painting, described honestly, and chosen for the room it will quiet.
What is Maya Romanoff's Ananda collection saying?
That calm is now a design brief. In its Fall 2026 launch release, dated 24 August, the Chicago wallcovering house introduces Ananda, named for a Sanskrit word for deep inner joy and contentment. CEO Joyce Romanoff says, "Ananda is about designing spaces that foster calm and connection," and adds, "In today's world, creating interiors that feel restorative has never been more meaningful."
The collection has two parts, and the release describes them without blurring. Zen Kanso is made in the company's Chicago studio: glass beads sealed in a resilient compound and hand-raked across a durable non-woven ground. Tenona II is a machine-produced Type II vinyl, inspired by Japanese paper weaving and grasscloth, in 12 colorways. Romanoff says of the first, "Zen Kanso is about finding beauty in restraint," and "Some of the most powerful design moments are the quietest ones." The company's founder, Maya, adds that "There is a soulfulness that comes from using our own hands to coax out the beauty of the material."
Does a machine-made wall have to feel less calm?
The release says no, and says why: every product, handmade or machine-made, is put through "Maya Romanoff's rigorous standard for quality, beauty, and innovation." The calm, in other words, is held to a standard of the result, not of the process.
That matches what a person feels in a room. Selected Wallpapers, a wallpaper specialist writing in a Dezeen partnership piece in September (read it as a brand's own view), says, "There is a moment, walking into a well-considered room, when you sense it before you can explain it." The sense of quiet arrives before the explanation, and the explanation is rarely "someone's hand made this." It is scale, contrast, rhythm and texture.
The Tao Te Ching makes the point about emptiness: "Clay is fashioned into vessels; but it is on their empty hollowness that their use depends." (James Legge's translation.) A restful wall leaves room in the same way, with pattern that gives the eye somewhere to rest.
How does a pattern drawn from a painting stay quiet?
By starting from a painter's decisions about space. Each of my wallpapers begins as an original painting: the pattern is drawn from a mark, a passage or a snapshot of the canvas, so the wall reads as singular rather than generic. The painting is made by hand. The wallcovering is printed by a manufacturer, onto 20 oz Type II commercial-grade vinyl with an embossed face and a slight strié-shimmer over a laminated fabric backing. I say so plainly, because a hand-painted original becoming a printed pattern is the honest and the interesting story.
Quiet comes from choices a painter makes anyway: how much of the canvas is left to breathe, how close the tones sit to each other, how large the gesture is. A large-scale, low-contrast passage in a soft palette reads as restful on a wall for the same reason it does on a canvas.
How do you choose a restful pattern for a room?
Begin with the room's job. A bedroom or powder room that is meant to slow a person down asks for low contrast and generous space between marks; a hallway can carry more movement. Look at the pattern in the light the room has, and order a sample before you commit. The vinyl is 24" wide, pre-trimmed and unpasted, with a 52" width for commercial projects, and designers get 20% off through the trade program.
Joyce Romanoff's point is worth keeping: some of the most powerful design moments are the quietest ones. A wall that asks little of the eye and gives it somewhere to rest is doing quiet work.
→ Explore the collection: Artist-designed luxury wallpaper · For designers: Trade Program · Meet the painter: Angela Simeone
Frequently asked questions
Can a printed wallpaper feel as calm as a handmade one?
Yes. Calm comes from scale, contrast, rhythm and texture, and Maya Romanoff's Ananda collection holds its hand-raked and machine-made wallcoverings to one quality standard.
What makes wallpaper feel restful?
Low contrast between marks, generous space around them, a soft palette and a texture that moves light gently. A large-scale pattern with room to breathe usually reads as quieter than a dense small one.
Is your wallpaper hand-painted?
No. Each pattern is drawn from an original hand-painted work, and the wallcovering itself is printed by a manufacturer onto 20 oz Type II commercial-grade vinyl.
How do you choose a calming pattern for a bedroom or powder room?
Start with how you want the room to feel, look at the pattern in the room's own light, and order a sample before committing to yardage.