If you’re looking for contemporary wallpapers that don’t have regimented repeat pattern, then check out Tres Tintas, a super cool Barcelona design company.
There is no shortage of wallpaper designs, but finding one that won’t drive you mad after a while is surprisingly difficult. The problem with wallpaper has been that the strict repeat of the pattern can make it monotonous and tiring to look at after a short time – hence you end up thinking you’ll stick with walls painted in plain hues.
However, the fashion for neutral tones is giving way to a desire to inject some colour and pattern back into our lives – and that means many interior designers are urging us to look anew at wallpaper. Manufacturers are offering contemporary or abstract designs that are less rigidly repetitive and that move away from traditional wallpaper themes of flowers or birds.
Tres Tintas Commissions Artists
Some companies, such as Spanish design house Tres Tintas, are taking wallpaper into the must-have zone by bringing in artists and illustrators, to create papers that are truly unique and which have a greater aesthetic depth, so to speak. This means you’ll find more to see in them the more you look at them, much as you do with paintings or sculptures.
Tres Tintas Was Founded By Three Brothers
Tres Tintas has done a lot to raise the profile of wallpaper, which until fairly recently has been considered the stuff of old people’s houses. It was launched in 2004 by three brothers, Jaime, Mitos and Daniel Bernejo, who wanted to revamp wallpaper design for the contemporary market. Their ethos is that we should put wallpaper at the heart of our interiors, because to live with wall-to-wall plain colour is to deprive the senses.
The company brings out new collections on different themes each year and its products are now available in 36 countries. It aims to have an illustrative or artistic quality to the designs, rather than having straight lines of a tightly repeated pattern; characteristic of so many wallpapers.
Great New Children’s Range
Most recently, the company has brought out Once Upon A Time; a children’s collection that gets away from twee images of fairies or Disney characters. It features simple decorative motifs that will encourage children and parents to use their imaginations and tell stories. The range also features fabrics, mural papers and lace curtains for children’s rooms.
Collections
Collections such as Deja-Vu, showcase the talents of five young artists/designers: Enric Jardi, Sophie Leblanc, Izqui, Julieta Alvarez and Marta Hernandez, while Sophie is a modern collection of bold textures and patterns inspired by the home of German aristocrat and traveller Sophie von Furstenberg.
Javier Mariscal Collection
If you like typography, you will love the graphic range of papers, and now fabrics, designed by Javier Mariscal, one of Spain’s most renowned designers. He has taken numbers and letters as his starting point and produced designs that are fun, colourful and bold.
Eco-Credentials
Tres Tintas likes to commission locally, so that design and manufacture is undertaken in Barcelona. The paper the company prints on is environmentally-friendly, having a Finland Clean Woods Certificate, which means that the wood from which the paper is made is grown specifically for that purpose. The company’s painted papers are made using water inks, which allow the paper to be recycled when removed from walls.