Australian Bree Banfield shares with us her passion for color surprises in interiors, how color comes intuitively to her and how the light down under changes the color game completely. Listen to our conversation and receive valuable insights to the color selection process for home interiors.

With an extensive career spanning 30 years, Bree Banfield is an Interior Designer renowned for her expertise in trend forecasting and styling. A maestro in color, Bree approaches each project with a commitment to creating aesthetically appealing and emotionally rich spaces. Her projects, marked by surprises in color, pattern play, and innovative use of scale, reflect a passion for gently pushing boundaries and intuitively understanding her clients' brief. Beyond her role as an Interior Designer, she stands as a visionary trend forecaster, shaping the contemporary landscape of Australian interiors with her forward-thinking aesthetic.

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In this episode Melania shares her story about how she went from being too much to finding her own voice, how color became the main driver in her work and how she wants to bridge the gap between the intrinsic variety of Mexican culture and the world of the arts. Learn about how she expresses these elements through her own body and person.

Fashion and Textile Designer with a degree from Centro de Diseño, Cine y Televisión (CDMX) and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp, Belgium).

Born and raised in Mexico City, she works on a diverse range of projects within the creative industries, spanning fashion, arts, design, styling, journalism, and creative direction.

With nearly 10 years of experience, she has developed numerous dynamic design projects aimed at fostering and promoting a stronger fashion identity for Mexican culture from a contemporary and international perspective.

In 2015, Melania launched her design project, CDMX11000, inspired by the surreal architectural language of Mexico City. This project has evolved through social media platforms, using photography to create a visual language where local arts, design, traditions, and culture are seamlessly integrated with fashion. Through the interplay of colors, textures, shapes, and prints, the project highlights specific theories, aesthetics, and concepts.

Her continuous collaboration with other creatives led her to share their stories and projects through DNA Magazine, an innovative fashion media outlet. There, she writes to spotlight emerging talents and guide the next generation of creative professionals.

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Which way better to start the new season than with Brazilian creative Michell Lott. In this episode, Michell shares insights on how he uses color to stay in touch with his emotions to navigate life more easily, how warm colors increase happiness for 2025 and how AI allows him to work quicker yet without taking over his creativity.

Based in São Paulo, the multidisciplinary creator has made a name for himself by envisioning and delivering majestic, immersive, colorful, and playful productions that capture the spirit of the times in striking visuals – whether for campaigns and editorials, installations in collaboration with brands from various sectors, or impactful sponsored content shared on Instagram. A journalist by training, he fell in love with the visual universe while working as a journalist at Casa Vogue. Since pursuing a solo career, he has worked as a set designer, creative director, design curator, multidisciplinary creator, and, for the past four years, as a color consultant and trend researcher in collaboration with Suvinil. His main objective is to make life prettier creating his own reality.

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In this final podcast for 2024, TCA spoke to interior designer Maye Ruiz, the Mexican queen of color about the perfect color combination, listening to the genius loci of a house, breaking color myths, imposter syndrome, and how color is her religion in life.

Maye Ruiz, the creative mind and founder of MAYE, an interior design studio established in 2021, has rapidly established herself as a trailblazer in the design industry. A proud graduate of Universidad de la Salle Bajío in 2008, Maye combines her solid academic foundation with a visionary approach to interior design. In 2023, she was awarded by Architectural Digest and named one of the 100 most influential creatives in Latin America. Her accolade for Best Restaurant Design further solidified her reputation as a visionary in interior design. Her projects have been featured in prestigious design publications, including Dezeen, Architectural Digest (AD), and Elle Decor, highlighting her bold and distinctive approach to color and style. Maye’s work is celebrated for its trend-setting aesthetics and unlimited creativity, continuously shaping the future of the design industry. Beyond these recognitions, Maye has collaborated with renowned creative partners and brands, further elevating her position as a leader in her field.

Her commitment to pushing design boundaries and delivering excellence continues to set her apart as an innovator and influencer in interior design. In addition to leading MAYE, Maye Ruiz has passionately shared her expertise in design through academia. From 2015 to 2022, she taught courses, delivered lectures, and conducted workshops at prestigious Mexican institutions, including the Universidad Iberoamericana, Tecnológico de Monterrey, and Centro de Diseño, Cine y TV. She also collaborated on the diploma program for the Latin American adaptation of content by the renowned U.S. publisher Condé Nast, further enriching the region's design education landscape.

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Fernando Laposse is not only a true inspiration but a great storyteller. His designs are constructed throughout deep levels of culture, challenges, heritage and his great love for his home country Mexico. During our interview we talked about the essential importance of provenance, material, natural pigment and showcasing the story of indigenous communities and their daily struggles through his design work.

Fernando Laposse is a Mexican designer with a degree in product design from Central St. Martins. His practice is material driven and focuses on transforming humble materials into refined design pieces, promoting their regenerative possibilities and tackling environmental issues. For Fernando, the material source and cultural context is of extreme importance. This has led him to forge a long-standing collaboration with Tonahuixtla, a community of Mixtec farmers in the south of Mexico. Rather than working with existing craft, Fernando develops new techniques from scratch which are then taught to members of the community. This in turn creates new sources of employment that revitalise traditional agriculture. Fernando’s projects also strive to communicate the complexity of issues like the loss of biodiversity, erosion, indigenous rights, migration, and the negative impacts of global trade on local agriculture. He does so by documenting the problems and announcing possible resolutions through the transformative power of craft and design. Fernando Laposse focuses on using lesser-known plant fibers like sisal, loofah, totomoxtle, and avocado in his work. He invests time in research to create pieces that not only showcase these materials but also highlight their connection to the culture and history of specific places and their people. Laposse works with indigenous communities in Mexico to help create jobs and bring attention to the challenges they face in today's world. His projects aim to educate and inform, addressing issues such as environmental decline, loss of biodiversity, community breakdown, migration, and the negative effects of global trade on local farming and food traditions. Laposse leads the way in documenting these problems and suggesting solutions through the power of design, showing how design can help make a difference.

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In this very open and frank conversation, Christophe speaks about how color influences their projects, what are crucial elements for the success of their work and the difficulties they came across on their design journey and the challenge to innovate and pick projects that reflect their values. Connection, Rebellion, Artisan and Sensory, that is what Masquespacio is all about.

Christophe Penasse was born the 4th of March 1983 in a small city next to the capital of Belgium, Brussels. Since a very young age his mother taught him to be a saver. Something that motivates him to sell his old games on trail markets and to his friends. When he was 15 years old while he studied Commerce in his country, during holidays and his free time he started to work for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in Brussels. Being music his passion, at the same time he started to buy and sell records online. After finishing his college studies he went to study marketing in Mechelen, next to Antwerp, while he continued to work during his free time at Sony giving a helping hand to the commercial and marketing department, without losing his passion for music. After schooling in marketing he worked a short time for the American Enterprise Federal Express before accomplishing his dream to go live in Spain, a country that he felt in love with because of its culture and way of living. In Spain the first 5 months he only dedicated to study Spanish and its culture, to later on being contracted as a customer manager for the German cash & carry Makro. After two years of work at the customers’ department he decided to start up design studio Masquespacio with his partner Ana Milena Hernández Palacios. At Masquespacio he is in charge of the marketing and commercial department, as well as being involved in the strategic part of the creative consultancy’s projects.

Masquespacio is an award winning creative consultancy created in 2010 by Ana Milena Hernández Palacios and Christophe Penasse. Combining the 2 disciplines of their founders, interior design and marketing, the Spanish design agency creates custom-made branding and interior projects through a unique approach that results in fresh and innovative concepts. In 2020 they won the EDIDA 2020 ‘Young Talent Award’ by the international network of Elle Decoration Magazine and in 2019 they have been awarded ‘Interior Designers of The Year’ by the Spanish edition of The New York Times’ T Magazine. Previously they also have been awarded with the ‘Massimo Dutti New Values’ award by Architectural Digest Spain and the ‘Wave of the Future’ award by Hospitality Design USA, next to a continued international recognition by media specialized in design, fashion and lifestyle trends. They have worked on projects in several countries like Norway, USA, France, Portugal, Germany, USA and Spain.

Actually they are working on several hotel and restaurant projects in Spain, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Germany, Qatar, Singapore and Cambodia amongst others.

In 2019 they also created Mas Creations a new lifestyle brand that shows their most personal vision through a universe of textures, materials and colors represented in new furniture collections as well as interiors.

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There is a reason why I picked this title and you hear that when you listen to the conversation. Stefan is a true trend hunter who never stops searching for the new as his curiosity brings him to over 30 fairs a year. In this interview we talk about what is trending right now, what is coming and we wonder about what the future may bring when it comes to color and its application.

Stefan ”Trendstefan” Nilsson is one of Sweden’s and Scandinavia’s most influential trend experts. Constantly on foot, he visits fairs and world cities to scout the latest in design, lifestyle, sustainability, retail and hospitality. These insights are shared in various magazines and at seminars. Trendstefan also runs the design arena Designgalleriet, and is most visible on social media under @trendstefan. Swedish magazine Rum have listed Trendstefan as one of the most influential people in architecture and design in Sweden.

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Anna Starmer talked to TCA about her vision on the future of color being more value-based where homogenous colors have no place and we select colors that fit our values, that are beautiful and endure the test of time.

Anna Starmer has been guiding brand colour direction for over 25 years. Her colour library, client palettes and Luminary colour publications reveal the future thinking that will shape the future of colour and materials. She is a board member of the British Textile Colour Group, Intercolor and Interfilliere Salon de la Lingerie Paris. And sits on the colour futures panel for Dulux Paints.

Beyond her books, Anna works directly with brands and retailers, manufacturers, organisations and universities. She understands the technical language of colour, from materials for Dualit or Volvo, to colours for Triumph Lingerie to Ikea. Communicating and visualising colour for brands and manufacturers, Anna has developed colour libraries for clients, from Manolo Blahnik to Marks and Spencer.

Luminary Colour is the bi-annual publication and colour library, founded and created by Anna Starmer. The books and colour swatches are hand made in the UK to an exacting technical standard. Luminary has evolved organically from a future colour forecasting service with a 2-3 year ahead season, into a non-seasonal platform of inspiration and innovation; today we collaborate with botanical dyers, wild dye plant foragers, waste food pigments, waste material specialists and bio-colour innovators – featuring emerging colour swatches in every book.

Colour and material futures sit at the heart of our creative practice, yet beauty is so much deeper than surface level. Our stories have deep rooted connections to the origin of colour and long-term future intentions, way beyond a single season. Our work visualises a regenerative future, exploring a wiser, more intuitive ways of making and creating.

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