are wall decals getting too clever?
We’ve been seeing a lot of obscenely cute wall decals lately. First we noticed a bunch over at urbanoutfitters.com, then Holly at Decor8 did this lovely round up. But something about this trend is sticking in our throats a bit. Our first reaction is to laugh and say we love it! But we love it for someone else’s walls, not our own. One of Angela M’s colleagues purchased this coat hanger decal and raves about it. A coat tree is one thing, but do you really want to add an overflowing trash can to your decor? We’re always fighting with the clutter that seems too gather constantly in our pads and don’t need these things to add the illusion of more. What about you? Would you put these in your home?
Shown here: Marmarco’s cute dog and, um, not so cute garbage bin. Guitou The Cat will climb your walls, but will he sit on the newspaper while you try to read it? At greenergrassdesign.com, $80. Yneko’s decals will help your guests know where you cutlery is, but is that really a big problem?
If design is all about empowerment, then bravo for the decals, however many are produced and sold. At least you can just peel them off when you get tired of them. I think all the roundup decals are graphically beautiful; whether I would use them is another question entirely. Though I do like the cutlery one; it’s cute.
Ugh, agreed on the garbage can! My first thought was, “My kitchen looks like that enough of the time on its own. I don’t need help, thank you!”
i think i’d use the cutlery decals to add some interest to my plain white kitchen cabinets.
oh, and i love the hopscotch floor decals! i’m considering it for a hallway in my house.
For people who don’t know where your stuff is, the kitchen decals are great. Much better than the tape labels my boyfriend’s kitchen used to have. I believe there was a “PENS” drawer that was vandalized, and one cupboard entirely devoted to “SPAM.” The only downside is that it can get pretty confusing if you move things.
If you really want to go that route for cabinets, you can get vinyl letters from places like Wallwords.com or – what is it, wonderfulgraffiti.com? (I feel bad not knowing; it’s a local company.) You can get vinyl letters at almost any art or craft store, if you don’t care much about fonts and if you think you can line them up well. If lining the letters up is a problem, you can have vinyl-letter decals made at Kinko’s or at certain mall kiosks (the kind where the letters are applied to a foreground that you peel away after the letters are applied).
I do like the cabinet decals shown here, though. A lot more than many other decals I’ve seen. The dog is adorable, and I agree that the garbage can is maybe not so cute.
Urban Outfitters was recently selling one decal that I really, really liked, which looked like a fancy bedframe drawn onto the wall. I don’t know if they still have it. Most other decals I’ve seen have left me cold; most of the original run of them, a few years ago, seemed like a purely technical way around stenciling for people who either didn’t feel comfortable painting or weren’t allowed to paint due to lease terms. The Blik Space Invaders, for example, are amusing at first, but really easy to stencil if you’re so inclined. (Dots, squares, etc are even easier.)
I think these type of things are a fantastic idea, just wish i hsd thought of it, perhaps i will have to add this to my already growing collection of decals that i produce
[...] me (and, I believe, Angela, too) it’s wall decals — I’m seeing them too many places, and they strike me as a [...]