FliePaper From Don Flood

Graphic and sophisticated, each FliePaper design is a textural symphony of color and design with an emphasis on scale. Designs range from immense florals and bold textures to quirky, unexpected found objects. Don’s bold and novel use of photographic motifs will make for an exciting and inspired accent or feature to any space.

Celebrity Photographer & FliePaper creator Don Flood

FliePaper’s ultra-high resolution images have been shaking up the world of wallcovering since its conception in 2014, and can be seen in both residential and commercial spaces.  Flood has released a number of collections in addition to his main line such as Palm Springs, hedges, and BIGS. Flood released “BIGS” in Spring of 2016, taking inspiration from single-image wallcoverings from the 1960’s and 1970’s.

“When single image installations were in vogue some decades ago, the subject matter was usually a sunset or treescape, and the resolution was incredibly low,” notes Flood. “Inspired by an interiors shot I came across from the late ‘60’s, I began to experiment with various images at extremely high resolution. Given the printing technology and materials available to us today, BIGS became a reality very quickly.”

Installation image of Tea Rose, courtesy of FliePaper.com

We recently had the opportunity to get to know the man behind the camera.

Please check out our  interview with Don Flood below:

Urban Source: Why wallpaper? What prompted the line?

Don Flood: About 10 years ago, my daughter Ella (now in her 3rd year at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago studying painting) wanted wallpaper for her bedroom in our LA home. We searched for a design she liked, but came up empty. I am a photographer by profession, so I did a still life of a rose, tweaked it to the color she wanted, and printed it on my Eason printer on wallpaper stock I found on the internet. FliePaper was born.

Urban Source: What is your design process?

Don Flood: All designs are based on ultra-high resolution photographs that I take. Once I have photos that I am happy with, I design the panel, figure out the horizontal and vertical repeat and set up the file so both scale and color can be customized..

Urban Source: You seem to find inspiration from nature/the outdoors, what else inspires you? Do you find inspiration on your runs? 

Don Flood: I’m always seeing things in nature that inspire a design. Sometimes I’ll have a particular project in mind, and other times an insect, flower or leaf will grab my attention and inspire a design. I’ve even used garage sale items to develop a paper, which is what happened with Wheel.

Wheel

Urban Source: You’ve done so much in regard to photography. Any stand out moments?

Don Flood: I’ve had a long career in photography which actually started with Marshall Fields in Chicago. It’s allowed me to travel the world and meet incredible, creative people. Highlight shoots would include photographing Chris Farley, Pedro Almodovar, Beyoncé and Janet Jackson, but my favorite shoot of all time was with the dancer Sergei Polunin….it was insane how much control he has over his body. As far as FliePaper is concerned, having my Beetle paper taken into the permanent collection of the Cooper Hewitt/Smithsonian Design Museum and featured in their show ‘Saturated’ was an incredible honor.

Beetle

Urban Source: What would you like your clients to know about your brand?

Don Flood: Everything about FliePaper is customizable. Color and scale should be exactly what the client is looking for. And if we don’t offer something you have in mind, run it by us and maybe we can create it. The one thing we can’t do is create paper using a cute photo of your cat that you took on your iPhone. 😉

Urban Source: What’s next? Anything new we can look forward to?

Don Flood: I’m working on a black line that should release in the next month or two. And we just released a small line of birch trays that feature some of our most popular motifs and are manufactured in Sweden. And, we’re also getting ready to test some FliePaper fabric!

Don’t miss the opportunity to see his collection in our West Town showroom! We carry a large assortment of FliePaper patterns and will be showcasing his wallcoverings throughout the month!

Installation image of Fern wallcovering, courtesy of Fliepaper.com