The English company is certainly going to try The phrase ?paint store? is not known to conjure much in the way of excitement (hopeful anticipation, maybe). But with a new Los Angeles showroom, Farrow & Ball hopes to change that, one totem at a time.
Yes, totem: 10 of them, in fact, made of modular, stackable art objects that show off (and whose forms were inspired by) each of the company?s colors, from subtle ?Borrowed Light? to vivid ?Babouche? in Full Gloss?and everything in between.
The new 2,600-square-foot showroom?and its totems?are the work of Sandy Yum and Isaac Resnikoff of LA studio Project Room, who took on the task of designing the 88-year-old paint and wallpaper company?s new outpost on La Cienega Boulevard, in an area of the city dotted with other design shops. Farrow & Ball gave Project Room carte blanche to ?rethink what a paint store could be,? says Yum. And so the totems were born of the group?s desire to step away from the paper-swatch paint store paradigm. (?Sandy?s original word for them was ?shish kebab?,? Resnikoff says, laughing.) How can a paint and wallcoverings brand better showcase the depth of a color or the luminosity of a finish" Working in three dimensions seemed like a step in the right direction.
?We knew we [would] bring the colors off the squares and into 3D space,? says Resnikoff. ?Because of screens,? he adds, when asked about the omnipresent influence of Instagram and other social media platforms in consumers? design...