Designer Dialogue

By Alex May

Skye ‘blue’ Vermeesch and Kirsten Brown haven’t stopped talking since they started their customised homewares business back in 2002 – and the last words they say to each other at the end of the days implies that those conversations will never end.

“We’ll talk”

Talking at their local playground inspired designer Skye Vermeesch and landscape architect Kirsten Brown to set up their customised interiors and homewares business blueandbrown.

And, to put it politely, this duo just haven’t managed to ever shut up.

When the business was in its infancy, the pair suffered mammoth phone bills as they constantly telephoned each other from their own homes to develop ideas.

“We ended up buying some walkie talkies so we didn’t have to pay such huge bills,” Kirsten says.

And now that the business has grown to include an expanded range of custom products, including canvasses, furniture, personalised stationery and decorative transfers, the pair continue their conversations at their light-filled Surry Hills studio.

“We are always on the phone and when we sign off most days, we say “we’ll talk” because that’s what we do – our conversations never end,” Kirsten says.

The studio is filled with the clean, colourful canvasses that started the blueandbrown business, and most days you find Kirsten rushing around managing things and Skye thoughtfully designing on the computer.

The pair have a calm connection based on friendship, design and dealing with the trials and tribulations of motherhood – both have two small boys and juggle picking up the kids from kindy with designing the next big thing.

“We talk a lot about design and that’s how we started the business,” Kirsten says,

“We were at the park one day chatting and both of us said simultaneously ‘wouldn’t it be great if you could have affordable designs that you could decorate a wall with’ but both of us thought it had to be more interesting than a piece of fabric stretched around a frame.”

Skye came up with a range of handsome, minimal designs that could be customised to colour schemes and the pair went to DesignEx in 2002 to launch the business.

“We just took a punt and started the business. My architectural experience meant I knew that residential and commercial property is just so expensive that there is often very little money left to finish a wall,” Kirsten says. Now that blueandbrown is in its third year of operation, the pair refuse to measure success just in financial terms.

“Yes our business has grown, yes we make a living from it now but the real criteria for success is if people know who we are and react positively,” Skye says. “Recognition means our design ethos has reached them.”

Blueandbrown say they are in the business of creating graphic designs for interior products and intend to grow the company by partnering with other companies and licensing their precise, bold designs.

The business has two arms – a homewares arm that offers personalized and customized designs on stationery, canvas and wall transfers and a commercial design arm that offers customized furniture and canvasses for large fit-outs.

“Because we do talk all the time we get into the same head space - it’s almost telepathic or intuitive because we talk ourselves into it,” Skye says.

“Just last night I was saying to Kirsten: ‘I don’t know if I’m just hungry but I’ve got a really funny gut feeling that something big is about to happen’.”

Kirsten responded by saying she had the same feeling, and the next day blueandbrown had some positive meetings about international expansion of their range.

“That often happens to us, at the end of the day we are on the crest of a wave and something big is going to happen and we can feel it,” Kirsten says.

Blueandbrown employs two staff and countless consultants as they expand, and the duo hope to improve the range and licence their designs to other companies. Both women had been in business on their own before they paired up to create blueandbrown.

“Having a partner makes business so much easier,” Kirsten says. “You have someone to bounce ideas off, someone to talk to, someone to help you make something happen.”

So what do they hope to be creating in 12 months time?

“Lots of money – and cheaper phone bills,” Skye says.