Timorous Beasties

Psychedelic, tripping on acid and beatuiful are the words I would use to describe my favourite interior design company - Timorous Beasties (their website). It is this quirky company founded in the West End of Glasgow in the 1990s that made me interested in researching handpainted wallpaper. Okay, so technically speaking my research project is on hand painted wallpaper and er Timourous Beasties does use machines to create some of their designs but they still use handpainting approaches.


The company was founded by textile design graduate of  Glasgow School of Art Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons. Their designs are unique, one of a kind depicting the truth like insicts with their garish scales and scenes depicting social evolution. Take their reknowned Glasgow Toile for example; at first glance it looks like your average 17th/18th century french toile design but look a little closer and there are tramps, prostitutes admist monstorous towerblocks.

Glasgow Toile

Whilst researching the commpany I cam across a really article interview in the Guardian with McAuley and Simmons in 2007 (read the article here) and McAuley says: "I guess our typical customer would be someone about our age or a little older [both were born in 1967], perhaps imbued with a punk ethos, who now has kids and a little money and wants their home to express something more interesting than Ikea minimalism." This really got some thoughts popping into my head, as I'm very curious about who buys handpainted wallpaper and why? Not going to lie, I know I want my own home to be covered in the stuff, but its not because I'm trying to prove a point about being better then your average B&Q wallpaper, but rather I think its an art form in its own .
Anyhoo its obvious from their turnover that Timorous Beasties is flourishing, and really highlights that there is a huge market out there which I could dip into. In 2000 they turned over around £180,00 and in 2006 they estiamted a turnover of £1.35million, so I can only wonder what their turnover is to date seeming they now don't just have a showroom Glasgow anymore, but also London and not to mention their representatvies all oever the world!

Iguana 

Birds 'n' Bees

Chic Blotch

From my research it seems that most of their wallpaper are painted using a technique called screen printing. I think I'm going to have a bash at screen printing as a personal project as I think it would be a great skill to learn ... so expect a post on the process of screen printing next!