Passion and creativity.
They often go hand in hand in life and enable us to achieve unbelievable results.
Passion is what drives us to do the things we love most.
And creativity is stimulated by passion, which leads us to turn the ideas that come to our minds into reality.
Stefania has plenty of both.
She uses her passion for interior design to feed her creativity, imagining how to breathe new life into houses, offices and other spaces with the right furnishings and tricks of the trade.
And while she’s obsessing over tables and armchairs, wallpapers and floor tiles, Stefania uses Pixartprinting’s services to help her create furnishings that will change how a room is perceived.
Cushions, posters, stickers and canvases are just some of the custom items that can reinvigorate, lighten and brighten a space.
When we spoke to Stefania, we found somebody creative with very clear ideas on the things she likes to do and how she likes to do them.
And we’re delighted to tell you her story and help her keep doing what she loves.
Happy reading!
Who is Stefania? Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do. Your dreams, aspirations and talents. A short but faithful portrait!
I’m someone very creative and curious with lots of different interests. I’ve worked as a graphic designer for over 20 years, initially in house for a digital printing company, then as a freelance when I became a mum. I’m a huge fan of rock music and interior design, and I love creating objects out of plexiglass, like lampshades, jewellery and display cases for model-making.
I like experimenting with different forms of expression and my dream is to be able to make a living from my creations alone. At some point, I’d like to create my own collection of home fabrics and furnishings. Let’s just say that I’m working on it!
Before telling us about your idea, can you explain to our readers what you produced using our printing technology?
I’ve created various products using various different materials. With Pixartprinting, I’ve printed business cards, postcards, stickers, banners, canvases, Kapatex panels, wall stickers and fabrics. The last two I used to make my most interesting and original products: cushion covers and curtains.
Let’s rewind to the very beginning. Where did the idea for this project come from? Is there a particular story behind it?
Creating printed and customised furnishings, such as canvas prints, cushion covers and decorative panels, is part of my home makeover business, which is called “Reinventare Casa” (www.reinventarecasa.it). For years, I’ve wanted to combine my love of graphic design with another great passion of mine, interior design. So I’ve done some makeover projects in which I’ve made over spaces without changing the furniture and without renovation work. By doing so, I’ve transformed – or “reinvented” as I like to say – homes, offices and shops using paint, special adhesive films, new furnishings. I’ve used adhesive decorations and digital prints to give interiors a new look. The idea of using digital printing for interior decoration came to me because, when working with different printed materials in corporate communication, I started wondering whether they could also be used for other purposes, such as decorating a house to make it more personal and unique.
Once you had found the right idea, you had to set a goal. What did you hope to achieve? What was your objective?
I wanted the rooms I made over to have a new feel, a well-defined style, but to also be highly personalised, with unique furnishings very often specially created by me based on the client’s tastes and personality, or my own if redoing my own home. Also, I like a space to have a recurring decorative element, as well as a particular colour palette.
For example, I love geometric shapes and, in the living room of my new house, I’ve got a rug featuring polygons in various shades of pink and grey, as well as some vases featuring the same shapes and colours. I wanted to put matching cushions on the sofa, but I couldn’t find any, so I made some myself!
Or there was the time when I helped a friend to decorate the living room of his country house: he wanted something with a touch of red here and there, and a modern country style. So with Pixartprinting I printed a canvas print of a poppy field, then I created a pattern with the same flowers and printed it on fabric to create cushion covers to put on the sofa.
How did you turn your project into reality? What were the design phases and how many were there? Tell us about the process that brought your idea to life and made it ready for printing.
First of all, I created a design for a room makeover, choosing a style and a colour palette. I always create a mood board to get an idea of the end result, the “personality” that the room should have. Then, once I’d decided to create custom decorative elements, such as cushion covers, I looked for a vector graphic on a website that I’m subscribed to that provides these kinds of images. I downloaded the image, edited it to my liking, resized the graphic to fit the cushion and then put it into the template that you provided. I follow the same procedure to print other products on other materials, although sometimes I design the artwork from scratch myself.
Because the cushion covers involved fabric that would be sewn and then filled with stuffing, before downloading the template, I had to carefully calculate the volume of stuffing that I needed.
Also, when creating graphics for printing, I check and correct colours using your colour guide, which I bought a while back, to see what the colours will look like compared to the file.
How did you use print on demand to produce your work? Which materials did you choose and why?
For the custom cushions, I chose 195 gsm 100% cotton fabric: I read the descriptions of all the fabrics on Pixartprinting and I followed your recommendations on use. It seemed like a suitable fabric, because it’s strong but soft and the print quality turned out to be outstanding, with colours that were of higher fidelity than expected.
Having worked in digital printing, I’m familiar with lots of materials, especially adhesive PVC, papers and rigid media, but I still find your samples very useful, often looking at them before placing an order so I can pick the most suitable material for what I want to do.
Your printed products have arrived. In your case, charming custom cushion covers. How did you feel when you saw them ready put on armchairs and stools?
I was very happy because they really changed the character of the room and I got the results that I wanted. The cushions for the patio chairs where the hardest because they were made from scratch and the foam rubber stuffing was moulded based on the shape of the seats. But they gave me great satisfaction because they helped turned a little-used, anonymous area into an appealing place for relaxing, as well as somewhere bright and summery that’s pleasant to read, play and eat in.
This is only the start! What other projects do you have planned for the future? Can you share them with us?
I’m not short of ideas and I like experimenting. Soon, I’d like to print a big wall sticker of a tree to put on one of my living room walls, as well as a night scene, because I’ve got a celling light that looks like the moon. Then I want to create a cloth to cover the whole surface of a glass table that is currently used as a work surface and games table. I’d like to use the “Filmoprint” material that you sell as flooring. Finally, I want to try printing some more fabric to create tablecloths and other custom kitchen fabrics.
