About our Design Collections
If you're wondering where the inspiration for our design collections comes from and how we choose their names, here's the story behind each one...
Astroids • BingoStars • Eclipse • FlowerPower • Hollywood StarDots • LifeSavers • LoverLeaf • LozAnges • Mid-Mod Star • PanAmTrays • PolaRise • PsychoFlakes • SpaceCadet • SpiroBurst • SunKissed • TikiMaze • TopperWaves • ZipperDee
Astroids
RETRO STARS IN A COSMIC PATTERN |
Here's a word that sounds very mid-century with its galactic feel. Actually, this little diamond shape is really called an “Astroid” (It's not perfectly the same but it's close enough!).
BingoStars
A REVIVAL DESIGN FROM THE SIXTIES |
We've all seen a version of this design here and there when shopping for mid-century stuff. I just couldn't go without it. The circle reminded me of the old bingo chips that were eventually replaced with ink stampers. The little star in the middle completed the idea for the name. Design-wise, it's the same as "Astroids" but using the outer shapes instead of the center star with a larger pattern.
Eclipse
ALIGNMENT OF THE PLANETS |
Here's a fun story... In building this store, I had to order samples to make sure colors would come out as expected. Instead of ordering a useless and boring multicolor swatches test product, I worked on a design that would include all of the 50 colors palette that I specially created for my products. A good friend looked at it and said out loud “Wow, it looks like a series of stills taken from a moon eclipse, like in the old days”. And that's how this design and it's name were born!
FlowerPower
LATE SIXTIES PEACEFUL REVOLUTION |
Coming back from a Sunday breakfast with friends while travelling, I was waiting in a subway station and was struck by the beautiful mid-century tile flooring. I took a picture, posted it on Instagram and knew that those orange circles would be a great inspiration for a new collection. The next day, I was already creating different patterns from it. Since I always wanted to tackle a flowery design, either with daisies or lilies from the sixties, the circled shapes quickly turned out as a mix of the two. And that's how Flower Power came to life!
Hollywood StarDots
PALM SPRINGS MOVIE COLONY |
A few years ago, I visited a Nespresso shop that was displaying art creations made from different colored coffee capsules depicting famous people and paintings. It was incredibly well done and so unique. That idea has stuck in my head ever since. Later, I was at the Palm Springs Art Museum to see an Andy Warhol exhibit with the famous quartet of Marilyn Monroe images. The combination of these two ideas is the basis for the design of this collection. I wanted something very simple and graphic, in the midcentury modern style, that would celebrate the golden age of the Movie Colony in Palm Springs. This area is located right next door to me and is great to walk around. It took me two years to come up with the final design but the result is stunning. The name came to me very quickly but only once Marilyn was finally finished. It's a combination of two words: the "Stars" of Hollywood and the "Dots" in the design, which is a pun for the midcentury form "Stardust".
LifeSavers
THE GLORIOUS DONUT-SHAPE CANDY |
This design is obviously inspired by the famous donut-shape candy invented more than a century ago. That's why I gave it the name LifeSavers. It had been sitting in my design folder for years. After spending weeks on a design for a new product line, I stumbled on this again. Once I was able to figure out how to fill in the negative space (between the donuts) that gives it its dynamic style, it all came together like magic. The name came after days of thinking about it non-stop. One afternoon at the pool, a donut-shape item grabbed my attention: a life saver! Just like the glorious candy...
LoverLeaf
A CELEBRATION OF LOVE |
A cloverleaf design derived from those funky sixties tiles and wallpapers with psychic neon glow circles in bold colors. Originally named CleverLeaf, an accidental heart shape appeared during the final stage of design. That's what gave it it's full meaning and final name.
LozAnges
LOS ANGELES MEETS LOZENGES |
Remember the chic style of the 1960s Hollywood hotels? Gorgeous lounges, mixed brass and silver chandeliers, low-profile curved sofas, and magnificent fabrics. This is where the inspiration came from for this beautiful mid-century modern pattern of colorful triangles. Los Angeles meets lozenges. I present you the “LozAnges” collection.
Mid-Mod Star
STARRING OUR LOGO STAR |
I had been searching for a few years to launch a self-branded unique collection like most exclusive and luxury brands do. One would immediately think of Louis Vuitton of course with a pattern made of the letters LV. But I did not want to show a name or letters like MCS for Mid-Century Style. I was aiming at something visually distinctive like Burberry and their iconic pattern. With my colorful products, the design had to be very simple and recognizable. It's only when revamping the store's brand with a new logo that this collection was possible. The new shape representing an uppercase M with a star on top was perfect. By twisting it up and down to create a wavy mid-mod pattern, the whole thing became alive. Then when I launched the duffle bags series with the first being the camo style ZipperDee design, I realized this item with its large and multiple panels would be the ideal canvas for a new self-branded collection. And this how Mid-Mod Star was born.
PanAmTrays
FROM AVIATION FOOD TO TV DINNERS |
You might not know this but TV Dinners got their eureka moment thanks to the way the airline industry used to serve food in little containers organized on trays. After designing those cute interlacing squares in the same spirit, I thought it would be sweet to honour the golden age of flying.
PolaRise
RISE OF THE POLAR STAR |
When I was a kid, my grandma always put me in charge of the multiple vintage Christmas decorations. There was this beautiful star on top of the tree, chiseled and sparkling. It was always the very last thing to install, as a special reward. Years later, I'm working on a star-based design rising from the background in 3D, and that's when I realized it reminded me of my childhood's star also called North Star or Polar Star.
PsychoFlakes
HITCHCOCK PRESENTS SNOWFLAKES |
This funky collection honours the singular movie era of Alfred Hitchcock and his unique storytelling and cinematographic style that culminated with Psycho in 1960, mixed with the ubiquitous mid-century snowflake-like star design. The hallucinating color mix of the original collection was inspired by Corn Flakes' marketing mascot "Cornelius" the rooster (Corny), introduced around the same period, in the late 1950s: green, red, orange, yellow. Mix it all together for a flaky-psychedelic design!
SpaceCadet
SPACE: THE MID-CENTURY FRONTIER |
Everyone remembers the fun and futuristic space cartoons of the late mid-century. Up until the 70s, kids of all ages couldn't get enough. Today, the stylish designs of the space age, starting with the launch of Sputnik in 1957, still enjoy a huge popularity. Here's my take on this amazing odyssey.
SpiroBurst
BETWEEN SPIROGRAPH & SUNBURST |
As I was trying for a few days to reinvent the designs you can make with the famous Spirograph, which you can't, I found myself in Sunnylands, taking pictures of agave plants and bingo! The perspectively exploding linear pattern just blew up in my design soul. When I got home, I was surprised by the similarity to the Sunburst pattern, such an essential mid-century style. That's when I started playing around with those shapes together and then this feathered rotating wheel appeared. The name was quite easy to figure out and turns out to be so natural and cool!
SunKissed
CALIFORNIA FRUITY WEDGES |
Fresh fruits are part of the California lifestyle. Bring sunshine into your home with this citrus inspired design called SunKissed. I was inspired after receiving a newsletter from a grocery store with an image of orange-lemon-lime wedges. The name sounds familiar? This is actually the first option an agency proposed for the fruits of the southwest, to later come up with Sunkist, a much better marketing option. The rest is history. That brand rapidly became a household name in the mid-century era. This is what inspired the little curvy wedges that definitely feel like a wavy mid-century modern wallpaper.
TikiMaze
BREEZE BLOCKS WALLS REVISITED |
I just love the “breeze blocks” that made mid-century architecture so recognizable with beautiful see-through walls. You can find that design just about everywhere. So I decided to give it a little spin by detaching the shapes from each other. The end result looked like a labyrinth. Since I love everything "tiki" (like in Tiki Bar of course...), I mixed them up for our favorite name of the bunch.
TopperWaves
SURFING THE CLASSIC PLASTIC |
Well, the sound of this first collection is definitely familiar. You probably remember those colorful plastic containers sold during parties back in the days. Their huge popularity in the 1950's offered women even more independence by allowing them to make an income without sacrificing their role as head of household. They're still around after all these years and I wanted to celebrate them in a fun way.
ZipperDee
SUPER ZIPPING RETRO OVALS |
This design looks like a zipper on purpose. Finding a name, however, wasn't so easy. “Zipper” alone felt simple and obvious. Searching for ideas to tweak it, I came across the 1940's Disney song Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, still well known to this day. “Zip-a” and “Zipper” sounded quite the same and it was a nice twist to honour the mid-century era where their first theme park was built. Why just keep the “Dee” you might ask? A nod to Sandra Dee, the Hollywood icon in the late 50's and 60's.