I would love to introduce you to one of our newest designers, and all around wonderful woman, Argentinean artist Mercedes Hernaez! Mercedes is an extremely talented graphic designer who creates beautiful maps for the city of Buenos Aires and also creates beautiful notebooks under her own label, Mono-Blocks. Mercedes is one of the few designers I work with that I have had the pleasure of meeting in person on her recent trip to San Francisco. It was no surprise that she was as lovely as she is talented. I hope you enjoy learning more about a woman we are proud to work with!

*note to Mercedes: por favor, disculpame por esta traduccion no tan buena de tus palabras tan ermosas! :)

LAMA: Where do you live and what is your favorite part about living there?

Mercedes: Buenos Aires which is a super culturally active city. It is a place of curious and restless people. Palermo is where I work. It is an interesting and changing community. Sometimes I love it and other times it makes me suffer. I love Buenos Aires in November because the Jacarandas are in bloom and los tilos in December. I also love the bakeries. I live in a community full of olive trees. Near the city there are tons of olive trees and English houses. Our home is very humble, green, fresh and modern.

LAMA: Tell us about your business and how you got started.

Mercedes: I am a graphic designer with a studio in Old Palermo. It is a small showroom space in the back of a building where I create the maps of Buenos Aires. These are distributed free to several communities in B. A. Currently, we are also working on maps of Palermo and San Telmo. For the past few years, these communities have helped young artists and designers show their projects along side of the larger commercial businesses. This is how I started my work. I had the desire to tell others what happens in our communities and to participate in larger projects. I like to draw and think with a pencil and a piece of paper. Through the years of my life, I have collected a lot of notebooks that I find throughout my travels. One day I discovered a factory of left-over vintage papers. Some of them were so beautiful. With that, (and a love for notebooks), we put together our first collection for Mono-Blocks.

LAMA: Who are some of your favorite artists and designers?

Mercedes: Guillermina and her embroidery groups, Lola Goldstein, Guillermo Ueno, Marina Bandin of Maminas, clothing and textiles from Mina Perhonen (japan), Kiriko Nananan, Keiko Minami, Sejima, Hayao Miyazaki, Wong Kar Wai, Hiroshigue, Francesco Clemente, Calder, the drawings of Edward Gorey, Tibor and Maira Kalman, Argentinean designers like Mariana Cortés of Juana De Arco, and Veronica Longoni of Sopa de Principe.

LAMA: What do you find most inspirational?

Mercedes: Nature, spring, orchards, gardens, books, textiles, Japan, Holland, traveling, artist’s blogs and illustrations from different places (many Argentinean). Currently I am in love with many artists and illustrators from Nordic countries as well as Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Nepal and their textile cultures.

LAMA: Where do you see your work going in the next 5 years?

Mercedes: We have grown a lot and we love where we work. We do everything from here (our studio)… from designing to producing to distributing. We are a very harmonious group. I work with Paula, Manuela and Hansel, and group of art students and photographers that add to the energy, talent, and look of our projects we produce in this studio. I hope to continue on with more of the same.

LAMA: When you’re not hard at work in your studio, how do you spend your free time?

Mercedes: I enjoy embroidering, drawing, reading amongst the plants in my garden, cooking, and making jams and cakes. In the Spring, I enjoy riding my bike around my neighborhood with my children. In the winter, I like spending my time at home.

Thank you so much Mercedes for giving us a little peek into your life as an artist in Argentina! To check out Mercedes beautiful work at the LAMA shop, click here, here and here.

Just released on the LAMA site today is the beautiful work of Buenos Aires based designer Pablo Ferraro. Pablo is the creator and owner of KOM, a fantastic company dedicated to creating environmentally friendly products with local manufacturers. KOM specializes in designing children’s clothing, homeware and accessories and has collaborated in the past with two of our favorite LAMA designers, Irana Douer and Sopa de Principe! It has been a pleasure to work with Pablo on bringing some of his fantastic products to the US for the very first time and we can’t wait to make more of his products available in the upcoming months. Recently I asked Pablo a few questions about his work. Below is what he had to say about his design process, his love of color and his future with KOM. Enjoy!

Designer Pablo Ferraro

LAMA: Can you tell me about your design process? I absolutely love your prints and your color selection! Do you design the patterns yourself?

Pablo: When it comes to the prints and KOMs design process: yes, I design the prints and chose the colours myself. I think that colour selection is probably the one thing I enjoy the most. Of course I love prints, but when I find myself with all the different pantone options, with tiny papercuts from magazines and thinking about how to match and combine colours I have a really great time.

A collection of original prints by Pablo

LAMA: I understand you are very dedicated to creating environmentally friendly products. Can you tell us about this?

Pablo: KOM uses 100% cotton that has not been treated with bleaches or chemicals that negatively effect the environment. All of our prints are done by hand to ensure the quality of our colors and the softness of our fabrics. At KOM, we choose to work with local manufacturers because we believe maintaining a close relationship with the different processes of production guarantees the commitment towards our project.

Fiesta Flags (Pink and Purple)

Fiesta Flags (Green and Blue)

Fiesta Flags at LAMA

LAMA: What are you working on now?

Pablo: Now i am working on my website (which hopefully will be up and running within a month). There you will be able to see some side projects I have with architects and people who work in decoration and home furnishing. The great thing about those projects is that basically you do everything custom made for a specific client and user, which makes it very very special, and you can play around with the colours you choose depending on the room, the piece of furniture, etc.

A peek inside Pablo’s studio

Thanks so much Pablo! We can’t wait to see what you do in the future! To check out Pablo’s products at LAMA, click here and here.