Innovative Designers Spark Wallpaper Trend

Innovative Designers Spark Wallpaper Trend
It might be less insistent than cicadas, but wallpaper is definitely getting buzz. Especially since May, when a clutch of talented young designers and entrepreneurial types with audacious ideas and catchy company names unveiled their offerings at New York's International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF), the country's premier venue for cutting-edge furnishings.

"There was a real sense of excitement, a younger generation treating it in a completely different way than the staid, conventional patterns we've seen for so long," says Arlene Hirst, a senior editor at Metropolitan Home. "It was witty, and it was fun."

Full of color, offbeat materials and droll, super-scale graphics and design motifs, the new patterns were less about putting something pretty on the wall and more about making a statement.

Goodbye, ditsy daisies. Hello, jumbo punctuation marks, Doppler radar dots and seven-foot forks and spoons.

Some designs recalled op and pop art of the '60s and '70s. Some had the kinetic intensity of Summer of Love acid trips.

Mass marketers were paying attention. Target snapped up paint-by-numbers gerbera daisy wallpaper from 2Jane, an importer of cool British home furnishings ( www.2jane.com ) and featured it on its Red Hot Shop online site.

Technical innovations and the recent spurt of interest have been a shot i