If you liked stickers as a kid, you’re going to love the latest design craze.
Wall decals are opening up new worlds to those who don’t want to commit to a particular wallpaper pattern or invest the time to hang it. Just peel the decals off their adhesive strips, smooth them on the wall and voila! — a new look for the room is born.
The decals use the same principle and consistency as Colorforms toys of the 1950s. They’re reusable stickers you can move from one place to another numerous times.
Retail-display designers Scott Flora and Jerinne Neils of Venice, Calif., developed Blik Surface Graphics (www.whatisblik.com). Painting a fresh set of stencils every time they had to seasonally swap out displays was a messy hassle. Using their architectural backgrounds, they created stickers that could be displayed in businesses and the home.
“It has definitely hit a nerve,” Flora says. “People are using them like their own personal art, arranging them how they want, seeing what they want to see.”
So far, the Blik wall line includes clouds, numbers, paisleys, peace signs, flowers and alphabet letters. But the best-selling decals have depicted geometric shapes such as ellipses, dots and arcs. The company also produces abstract square and circle patterns from the late husband-and-wife design team Charles and Ray Eames.
A Blik decals packet often includes varying sizes of the same design so they can overlap and create customization. Many designs come in different colors that can mix and match. They sell online and in boutiques throughout the United States, London, Paris and Hong Kong.
At first, Flora thought loft residents would be the main market for wall decals. Surely they could fill their soaring walls with the company’s “Invader” design that pays homage to the ’80s arcade game “Space Invaders.”
“People feel absolutely no inhibition with the walls in kids’ rooms,” he says. “They’re completely unafraid to experiment with the decals.”
Nurseries launched the wall-decal career of Allison Krongard a few years ago. The New York woman was working for the Knoll furniture design company when friends with kids repeatedly asked her for help.
Krongard remembers a muralist painting a tree onto a bedroom wall that the child found too scary. The custom work cost more than $1,000. Time for the less-expensive-yet-fashionable removable decal, she says.
“I thought a product like that already existed,” she says. “It seemed like such a necessity. Everything else seemed so difficult, so expensive and could damage the walls.”
She now owns WallCandy Arts (www.wallcandyarts.com), where she produces decals mostly for kids — farm scenes, outer space and rabbits. As children age, Krongard says, the decals can come off and be swapped out for more sophisticated stickers — polka dots or poppies.
Krongard commissioned a Broadway stage artist and a Calvin Klein fashion designer to create decals. She also licensed a few popular designs, such as “Boboo” Cars from the Finnish company Marimekko.
London designer Rachel Kelly has taken the wall decal medium even further by creating “interactive wallpaper” with cotton panels and stickers. People can buy delphinium-printed paper and press butterflies and flowers on top.
Next up: Decals beyond the walls. Flora says people are using them on ceilings and floors. Blik also makes tiny versions of the stickers to add detail to home accessories such as glassware and vases. And Kelly creates stickers to customize her linen tablecloths.
Wall decals 101
1) Plan complex design schemes first. Make a sketch or use masking tape to experiment with design. Choose smooth surfaces.
2) When you’re satisfied with the look, stick decals into place. Rub hand over surface to remove air bubbles.
3) Dirt on walls might prevent them from sticking. Use isopropyl alcohol to clean wall if it’s a problem.
4) Avoid putting decals in rooms with direct sunlight or extreme temperatures.
5) Peel off carefully. If you remove a decal too fast — especially a larger one — it might fold up and stick to itself.
Sources: Blik; WallCandy Arts
Decals for sale online
• Baby Universe, babyuniverse.com, 877-615-2229
• Delia’s, delias.com, 800-335-4269
• Interactive Wallpaper, www.100percentdesign.co.uk (search “Exhibitor List 2004” for Interactive Wallpaper), (011) 44 207 490 3076
• Sparkability, sparkability.com, 800-852-3769
• Target (online only), target.com, 800-591-3869
• Velocity Art and Design, velocityartanddesign.com, 866-781-9494
