Hasta La Ideas

Three Spanish brothers dressing up decor with artist-designed prints

Tres Tintas, a Barcelona-based company, was founded by three brothers, Jaime, Mitos and Daniel Bermejo. In part inspired by their father, Jaime Bermejo Sr. whose company Papeles Pintados Aribau has manufactured beautifully printed papers for the past forty years, with Tres Tintas the three brothers have taken the concept a step further by collaborating with Spanish and Latin-American artists to produce printed fabrics and wallpapers.

The trio makes it a point to collaborate with and encourage new talent. With that in mind, they’ve worked with over two dozen contemporary artists and clothing designers to produce each of the four collections that the brand has put out since 2004. Some of these artists include Ines and Ivan, the designers behind the immensely popular clothing line La Casita de Wendy, Chilean-born artist Judy Kaufmann and, of course, their own father. Each unique design retains a sense of rich texture, whimsy and intricate detail, whether displayed on a wall or printed on bedspreads or couch covers.

And as befits a young, modern company, Tres Tintas also pays due homage to environmentally sustainability. All of their clean-woods-certified papers use water-based inks and recyclable glues.

A roll of Tres Tintas wallpaper retails for around $160. Stateside the paper sells from Kirk Gallery in Austin, TX, Urban Source in Chicago, IL, Walnut Wallpaper in L.A., CA, or Studio Four in NYC.

Jazz up cupcakes with the latest in peel-and-press frosting decor

Give store-bought or homemade cupcakes a DIY makeover with Ticings‘ edible icing appliques, a peel-and-press garnish now featuring holiday-inspired and artist-designed sets for the fall season’s perpetual festivities.

Created by award-winning artist Anne Keenan Higgins, the deluxe Halloween kit includes an adorably spooky set of over 80 appliques. Known for her sophisticated yet cartoon-like stationary, Higgins brings her fun-for-all-ages charm to the world of baked goods with standard size and mini Ticings for bite-sized cupcakes, brownies, macaroons and more. The set also comes with an assortment of all-natural dark and white chocolate sprinkles, vanilla sugar, recipes and instructions for the ultimate decorating experience.

A line of limited edition sets, Ticings’ artist-designed series features creations by London-based graphic designer Björn Altmann (shown below), Flavio Mor of Barcelona and L.A.’s Daniel Lu.

Easy to use, Ticings adhere to any soft frosting for a seamless finish. Completely edible, tasteless, kosher, gluten-free and FDA certified, the kits sell online for $15-60, depending on the size of the set. To save a little dough, pick up the party packs from Haute Look between 3-4 October 2010 for sales on a number of different sets.

Halloween images by Sweettoof Studios Inc. and Anne Keenan Higgins

School’s always in with Artware Editions’ E For Effort Loose Leaf tees, bags and tanks, a playful riff on the inexpensive writing paper from youth.

A collaboration between Brooklyn artists Beka Goedde and Rachel Ostrow, each hand-screen-printed shirt encourages crafty additions to their clean lines.

The Loose Leaf tees and bag are available by emailing the gallery directly. Shirt prices range from $50 to $65 and just $20 for the tote bag.

To support its program giving skateboards to Canadian kids in need, Contributor teamed with Society6 and Club Mumble to curate a second collection of skateboard art.

The first show, “Smile On Your Brother,” featured a talented group of artists—Thomas Campbell, Andy Jenkins, Matt Irving and Parra, to name a few. This year’s show, “One Way or Another,” looks at the skateboard as an object of personal significance.

A group of judges—our friends at Furni Creations, Color Magazine and Bend Press—will pick an international set of 25 artists and collectives to design the boards. They’ll sell through Contributor, and all proceeds will go to providing skateboards to youths in Canada. Instead of buying completed works, supporters will commission artists to customize their boards.

Artists chosen from the open call can design up to ten decks. Along with a stipend of $50 per board, they’ll have four weeks to complete the designs. Selected artwork will go to the “One Way Or Another”; collection on Society6 and will also be available for purchase as prints, t-shirts and laptop and iPhone covers. For each product sold in the collection, artists will receive royalties and Society6 will donate $3 to Contributor for its skateboard program.

Interested artists have the next couple days to sign up for the open call on the Society6 site, with artists selected to participate in the show announced in the next several months.

Bangkok-born artist Korakrit Arunanondchai originally created his wildly-colorful, limited-edition clothing label Kora-Krit as an extension of his digitally-influenced art. Working chiefly with silkscreen printing, Arunanondchai intended for visitors to his gallery shows to wear the pieces for a fully immersive and visually seamless experience.

The RISD grad (now based in Brooklyn, NY) takes up various themes in his work, but considers them all to have a shared feeling. He sees his layered compositions as a fortunate glimpse of a fleeting moment, like “a bunch of kids playing basketball” who appear to fight and dance as they bump into each other on the court. But in Arunanondchai’s amped-up world, the scene plays out at an even faster tempo and is possibly “happening in the sky.”

The current collection borrows strong graphic shapes found in video games, particularly the letters X and O, as well as triangle and square shapes. Printed on neon fabrics, the choice links the apparel back to his black light art installation on the same subject.

The forthcoming project, dubbed “Thrs” for the typical gallery opening night, takes Arunanondchai back to a simple black, white and gray palette for series of intricate prints that explore computer-generated gallery spaces. (Pictured above.)

A fan of Hieronymus Bosch, the phantasmagorical world Arunanondchai creates has something in common with contemporaries like Ryan McGinness, who similarly makes densely-layered imagery that toes the line between organization and chaos. On the fashion side, the artist’s futuristic prints connect him to those seen in the most recent collections by Proenza Schouler and the late Alexander McQueen (also a fellow Bosch admirer). His passion for creating an unabbreviated universe has led to multi-media installations that transcend physical boundaries, as well as projects as tangible as a laptop for Dell.

Kora-Krit sells online or from La Forêt in Tokyo with prices starting at $29.