Both the Satin Paper and Canvas options are printed using fine art - archival inks and are designed to last for many decades.
Satin Paper Pros:
This material is a high-quality, heavy weight paper that is designed for displaying rich color depth along with a smooth satin surface. The satin surface helps in reducing fingerprints and provides more brilliant colors. This media is particular good for displaying the complex features and fine details in the ocean bathymetry ( ocean floor depths and plate tectonics). The result is a beautiful modern surface that is sleek and smooth.
The satin paper is less expensive than the canvas. The satin paper is faster to produce, frame and ship out to our customers.
Satin Paper Cons:
When compared to the canvas, the satin paper has a very smooth surface, rather than the texture of canvas.
Canvas Pros:
The texture and feel of the canvas is attractive and offers a regal or more historical appearance. We use a premium canvas that has a fine-art giclee satin gloss so the canvas can be touched and resists fingerprints. After testing many types of canvas samples, we found the USA made canvas that is perfect for our maps. We use archival HP inks to preserve the details for years to come.
Canvas Cons:
The texture of the canvas does compete with the labeling in some of the complex areas of the map. For the most part, all of the labels can be read. If one is concerned about crisp letters and distinct readability, the smooth surface of the Photo Satin Paper would be the preferred choice.
Pin Board Construction:
The Framed Satin Paper Maps, Framed Canvas Maps, and Canvas Wraps are mounted on a pin board and constructed as a push pin map. We use a special lamination technique that applies a two-sided laminate on the board and the map. It is run through heavy rolling equipment twice - once to laminate the pin board and a second time to embed the map into the board. This is something that we do which would be hard to do without the special equipment and lamination materials.