Tres Tintas Barcelona – designer wallpapers

The story of Tres Tintas Barcelona begins with the three Bermejo brothers and their father – founder of traditional company Papeles Pintados Aribau. While at dinner with their family, their father proposed they set up a new venture – to collaborate with designers to offer clients attractive, fresh, original wallpaper designs. Tres Tintas Barcelona came to be founded a year later – in 2005.

This company has succeeded in transforming traditional wallpaper into designer wallpaper. It has collaborated with over 25 designers working in different disciplines.

Its first collection Revival was inspired by Spain’s first pop wallpaper, which had in fact been designed by the Bermejo brothers’ father in the 70s. For its second collection, the company enlisted the talents of young designers who had hitherto had no experience in designing wallpapers, namelyl Enric Jardí, Sophie Leblanc, Izqui, Julieta Hernández and Marta Álvarez.

There followed later a very imaginative collection created by Javier Mariscal: its motifs included faces, chairs, letters and Californian palm trees, all bearing the unmistakeable stamp of this designer’s multifaceted work. In 2009, in collaboration with designers La Casita de Wendy and Txell Miras, Tres Tintas Barcelona launched Wall-à-porter, a collection evoking the world of women’s fashion. And in 2011, the company’s main project was its children’s collection, Tres Tintas Kids.

Interiors from Spain interviewed this enterprising family, whose company is a byword for good design and great customer service.

Interiors From Spain: To sustain a family business while constantly reinventing it is every entrepreneur’s dream. How have you pulled this off? Which existing aspects of the company have you retained and which have you changed? Do each of you three brothers have a clear role?

TRES TINTAS: It’s a major challenge to give continuity to a family business and propose a new project both on a personal and professional level. The initial idea was to give the family business, which the family has always made a living from but which its third generation hasn’t directly taken part in, continuity. We adhere to the following principle: to launch a new project in the world of wallpapers, which the family business has specialised in in the past 50 years.

Our business plan has certainly aimed to reinvent both our product range and the wallpaper industry’s business model by taking advantage of the knowledge and experience we’ve garnered over the years, while making a fresh start by building a new Spanish brand and company dedicated to creating good design and to becoming internationally known.

Our intention was to apply all the things we already knew and which we thought worked well for us, while taking a new path of creative thinking in all areas of the business which would lead us to the point we’re at today – ¬with Tres Tintas Barcelona. As we understand it – and we’d like to think is the case – we’ve given a product which has a long history in the decorative arts a new twist when it comes to selling it. Our take on design and new technologies – which we’ve used in other areas of the business – have contributed to a new understanding of wallpaper which makes our brand different to all other existing brands both in Spain and internationally.

IFS: Your commitment to good design and creativity is a key factor behind the company’s success. How do you contact the designers you work with and choose which to collaborate with? How do you work with them?

TRES TINTASWe produce a collection a year, and the company’s philosophy is to deveiop a brand closely identified with creative activity rather than a specific design aesthetic. For us, from the point of view of the art direction managed by Albert, in order to develop a new product and collection every year which generates a fresh creative venture and decorative project, it’s essential for us to focus on the management of design. Selecting and briefing our designers who think can communicate our brand ethos and create the type of designs we want is key.

We believe that working with designers results in us getting good feedback about our brand and products. These collaborative collections result in a fresh approach to the use of wallpaper in interior design projects. Once they’ve been selected, the designers develop our products which are conceptually closest to our brief. The next stage is the management of use of colour and production, which the designers themselves are also involved with, including standing by the printing machines to inspect the designs as they are being created.

The designers are also present later at the launches of collections and are involved in marketing them and as well as in communicating the values their work bring to the brand Tres Tintas Barcelona.

IFS: In the six years since it was founded, Tres Tintas has had a presence in 40 countries. What is your strategy for international expansion? Are you looking to explore new markets and commercial avenues?

TRES TINTAS: Tres Tintas Barcelona was founded with a clear desire to expand internationally and the work we’ve done in presenting new collections to foreign markets has been fun and satisfying. We’ve enjoyed introducing our products to other cultures and markets, and ways of understanding interior design and this whole experience has given us the possibility of growing and broadening the brand’s commercial prospects. A desire for global expansion is in the DNA of the brand’s ethos, and this has manifestad itself in the actions of the team, who have travelled, presented products and made contact with distributors all round the world.

We’ve recently started expanding in Asia and the Far East: in China, Hong Kong and Austrialia, and we aim to expand in a big way in North America in the next two years. Basically, we’d like to focus our efforts on exporting and on becoming a global brand.

IFS: Wallpaper is undoubtedly very fashionable now. Have you thought of how you might evolve as a company if the trend peters out? What are your views about concerns for the environment which are increasingly affecting consumer habits?

TRES TINTAS: Our brand is concerned with caring for the environment and we’ve already taken measures to be eco. Our first three collections are certified and are made using sustainable Finnish paper from managed forests and our last four collections were made using a material which is not made of paper but of recyclable textile fibres. All our collections conform to a European certification for manufacture of wallpaper. They also carry a certification proving they’re flame-proof for use in sustainable public projects, such as hotels.

IFS: Practically every year, you initiate a new project, be it Revival, Déjà Vu, Wall-à-Porter, Tres Tintas Kids... Where do you get your energy from? What other surprises or new projects do you have in store for us?

TRES TINTAS: After six years in business, Tres Tintas Barcelona’s strategy is to continue evolving both in terms of its brand and products. On the one hand, its objective is to consolidate the brand in the international wallpaper and textiles market in the medium term and to create a brand that’s recognisable to clients and consumers. On the other, we’ve stopped being a small business; we’re now a small big business which develops its activity in the wallpaper market.

Without a doubt, the management of the team, its organisation and the investment it makes in human talent so that the brand can grow are all of vital importance to us. In this sense, we propose creating a second phase in our development, which consolidates the business and is capable of developing the brand in the interior design market both for interior design professionals and end consumers. Our investment of financial resources is clearly orientated towards a project which revitalises the brand with new decorative projects and products which are not only intimately linked to the world of wallpapers but to the interior design industry as a whole.

Tres Tintas making-off video:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=2067780131472&oid=41461695133&comments.

Report on Spanish trend wall-coverings.