2nd March 2021
The story begins In November of 2019, when the Brintons team (naive to the following year’s insanity) traveled to New Mexico for a Brintons Design Conference.
After spending the weekend diving headfirst into the local art + maker scene, brushing up on the latest carpet design practices, reconnecting with carpet loving colleagues and celebrating all things Brintons, the team of creatives begins the journey to next groundbreaking design collection.
Following the path carved by our Self-Expression Project, an experiment where carpet designers were given different inspirational catalysts to respond to, the Brintons team looks to open the horizons of creation just a bit more. With Self-Expression’s second chapter, designers are given the space to choose their individual inspiration themselves.
Brintons designers were inspired by the variety of the “Fanta Se” art world has to offer by spending time immersed in Meow Wolf’s glowing alternate universe, dissecting the collection at the Georgia O’Keefe Museum, and learning weaving techniques from the Trujillo family in Chimayo.
Inspired by community, collaboration and the magic of The City Different, our designers created a collection of sixteen fully customizable Axminster carpet patterns, woven with our 80/20 wool-nylon blend, curated with the hospitality market in mind.
View the full Santa Fe collection here or visit our Design Studio Online (DSO) to play with color and flood the patterns into different room scenes.
11th February 2021
Emerge anew with optimistic color, perfectly imperfect details, & wildly expressive motifs.
With a purpose not merely to forecast trends, but to transform and transcend them, Stacy Garcia’s Color Innovation Series brings forward pattern and color stories that offer a fresh perspective.
Part one kicks off with the 'Blazing 20s' and highlights the dynamism, color confidence and modern lens that the Stacy Garcia for Brintons collaboration is known for.
We’ve entered the Blazing 20’s, igniting change and starting a new beginning. Inspired by an era of vast change, this trend focuses on a return to social, artistic and cultural dynamism.
Featuring an optimistic color palette including sunrise hues, this trend symbolizes an energetic movement and the celebration of a new day. With a nod to the whimsical fashion and culture of the 1920’s, this trend highlights a return to Art Deco with a combination of varying lines and curved shapes.
How would you use the Blazing 20s palette?
Curious to see more Stacy Garcia x Brintons collaborations? Check them out here.
3rd February 2021
Partnering with Bells + Whistles, Brintons produced 615 square yards of unique Axminster carpets for Animae San Diego.
Inspired in part by an ancient remote forest on Japan’s Yakushima Island, a bespoke Brinton’s wool carpet stretching the length of the 6000 SF room mimics the sun-kissed forest floor as custom noir terrazzo snakes like a shimmering river alongside it.
Barbara Rourke, Founder and Creative Director of Bells + Whistles, graciously let us in on the brains behind this beauty of an installation.
Working with these mossy greens in was a refreshing bold break in carpet color. Talk to us about the overall design narrative.
It was a new building that opened in September 2019. Sadly, the restaurant closed during the pandemic but is optimistically looking forward to reopening.
We can’t always choose the spaces our clients move into. Rectangles are much easier to design. Animae is a curve inside a curve with very tall ceilings and columns running down the middle. We live for challenges, working out solutions that follow a curving path was difficult at first, but then we saw new opportunities for flow that we hadn’t seen before.
One may easily liken entering the glass door to Animae, just steps from San Diego bay, to stepping through a portal into a dreamy enchanted forest. Nestled into the ground floor of the luxury Pacific Gate Bosa tower, Animae’s design is a sexy Japanese mossy Art Deco mash-up that brilliantly compliments Brian Malarkey's distinctive coal-fired pan-Asian concept.
Lush jade-toned, velvet booths rise from the floor as huge tête-à-tête spheres of cedar trees that segue upward into art-deco architecture, layering the space with a fantastical, theater-like experience.
Lavish green velvet curtains float above a hand painted gilded cave that envelops a coral velvet banquette. Draped fringe-covered columns contribute to the feigned forest whimsy, while golden Fortuny chandeliers hang throughout. The 20-person bar at Animae also provides a feast for the senses. On center stage is a backlit mural of Berlin artists Sauer and Posavec's, Big Chuck, depicting a dystopian mech battle of a future yet to come. Surrounded by scalloped uplighting from which deco wings spread and take flight.
Was it a challenge to design for a building like Animae? Any interesting hurdles?
We can’t always choose the spaces our clients move into. Rectangles are much easier to design. Animae is a curve inside a curve with very tall ceilings and columns running down the middle. We live for challenges, working out solutions that follow a curving path was difficult at first, but then we saw new opportunities for flow that we hadn’t seen before.
One of the most important parts of restaurant design is to create a seamless flow between front and back of house. We push and pull more than what’s wanted to integrate a cohesive design, so the function of the restaurant is supported by the design. We see ourselves as the left hand of the chef, if we do our job correctly, then the design is a natural extension of the food and service.
Last but not least, what was it like working with the Brintons team?
We were extremely impressed by the customer service team we worked with at Brintons for our custom carpet at Animae. The process of designing and fabricating the 100+ foot long custom, curving carpet felt painless. Brinton’s allowed us to focus on the design, while they seamlessly worked through the logistics behind the scenes. We had big dreams for this project, and they made it happen without a hiccup!
12th January 2021
Brintons has partnered with Hospitality Cares in their venture to offer a helping hand to those affected by the COVID crisis.
Founded in 2009 by Michael Schneider, President of Next Events + the late Helen Marcus of Zenith Rugs, Hospitality Cares is a non-profit organization that targets hospitality professionals in need.
Hospitality Cares collects money, product and volunteer time + redistributes to individuals incurring job loss, housing or medical conditions.
There are multiple ways you or your organization can get involved. With returning to the office full-time is still up in the air, there are tons of empty spaces containing tools that are sadly collecting dust. Hospitality Cares took this problem and ran with it – creating a solution for companies (like ours) to donate unused technology to be paired with an industry member in need.
Johnny Massey, VP of Operations for Brintons Americas explains: “We have all been impacted by the pandemic, in our corporate and personal lives, some people more than others. Brintons is devoted to the Hospitality market as it’s been a large part of our business for years. By sending in physical equipment, these individuals will be able to utilize these benefits immediately and start to work toward rebuilding their futures.”
Outside of rallying corporate response, you can also get involved on an individual scale. Our VP of Sales, Cori Walthers recently stepped up to the plate by volunteering her time coordinating fundraisers. Their first being a light-hearted “Pie In The Face Challenge” in hopes to sweep awareness across the industry and cause a few belly laughs along the way.
The challenge kicks off with founder Michael Schneider taking a pie to the face at the hands of his children. Tune in Thursday, January 14th at 4:00 EST on the @hospitalitycares Instagram for a good laugh!
Want to learn more? Here are some helpful links:
5th August 2020
Residing in Mississippi, Lorrie spends her days coordinating fast-paced marine projects while she moonlights as a talented fiber artist. Though she thrives in the organizational part of her job, Lorrie seeks to stretch those creative muscles at the end of each day.
Immersing herself in the world of quilting, Langdon discovered a generous community on Instagram.
She recounts an occasion where she had a scrap of material that she wanted to make a baby quilt from.
In hopes of finding more of the fabric, she tagged the original designer who responded to her claiming to have, “a ton of that.” Langdon remembers how insistent the designer was to not let her pay for anything – nothing, not even shipping!
Throughout the years, Lorrie's dabbled in various artistic outlets such as cross-stitching and quilting however, recently Mrs. Langdon has started ice dyeing custom fabrics in her home studio.
Captivated by the stunning quilts produced by Brooke Biette, Langdon sought to replicate her ice dyeing technique – adding a new dimension to her craft.
The process starts by soaking the fabric in a solution for half an hour then stretching it out with a carefully composed mix of ice cubes and powdered dyes placed on top. Once the ice and dye are arranged, Lorrie waits for 24 hours before rinsing the material.
Stressing that there is a learning curve to overcome in figuring out how much ice and dye are needed, Lorrie explains "the process isn't easy, but I fell in love with how no two pieces are identical and you never get the same results twice."
We use this blog to share information about our work for the benefit of customers. You can use our archive below to browse previous articles.