A sticky trend

Quirky, life-size stickers are the new thing in wall art.

There’s much at the Play Clan studio in New Delhi’s plush Select City Walk mall to catch the eye — a range of everyday objects given an innovative, quirky touch. But what’s even more distinctive is the kitschy wall art that’s all over the modest store, including the ceiling, the walls and even the plasma TV, slick graffiti of what looks like the head of a man his two dangling legs below, ears on the sides and spiraling antennae on top. “We call it the TV man,” smiles Himanshu Dogra, promoter of Illum Design, an interior design firm which owns Play Clan.

Dogra, interestingly, remembers spray-painting the walls of his room when he was young. Spray-painting walls may be fun, but it can get messy and look untidy if not done properly. Then there’s a problem of seepage, which can run in and damage the art considerably. Which is why life-size stickers is catching up as the newest trend in wall art.

At The Pod, a new luxury hotel in Chennai, for instance, Dogra’s Illum Design has made an impact with these “stickers”. An otherwise boring elevator in the hotel was given a facelift with a sticker covering its entire surface. “The sticker depicts interesting south Indian motifs that have been tweaked to look modern,” says Dogra. Some rooms have “Rajnikant” stickers, a tribute to the actor’s immense following. “The Rajnikant work is a big, life-size sticker that has been transferred on the wall,” explains Dogra.

A lot of Play Clan’s customers, says Dogra, for “sticker wall art” for their bedrooms, inside closets, in kitchens and living rooms, and sometimes even the ceiling. “The stickers can only be transferred on to smooth surfaces, never on walls directly,” warns Dogra.

Plage Design is another company that markets stickers as an interior décor solution. The Swedish company, however, promotes this as a complete do-it-yourself concept helping “a layperson breathe life into a dull wall”, as the spokesperson of Plage India explains. So, from giant poppies in bright red to musical notes to enormous butterflies, Plage Design stickers can be easily pasted directly on the walls.

The stickers are made of vinyl, a material which makes it easier for them to be cleaned with a soft cloth or wet sponge. Plage Design stickers, in fact, undergo a special manufacturing process that even gives them resistance to abrasion.

While the Plage stickers cost upwards of Rs 3,000, Illum Design stickers (which can be also customised) cost around Rs 10,000.