Troubled by dull, blank surfaces? Blah! Don’t be ordinary, be revolutionary. Grab that sad looking desk, table, cabinet (or our favorite the ever plain bookcase) and spruce it up with a new Surface Skin.

 
SURFACE SKINS FAQ:
1. What are these Surface Skins you speak of?
Surface Skins is a brand new line of super durable, self-adhesive art that allows you to personalize just about any large surface in your home or office quickly and easily. Use them to cover desks, tables, cabinets, bookshelves or whatever. Surface Skins were developed to bring some graphic goodness to boring furnishings everywhere.

Surface Skins were developed with a new film that allows the design to be “floated” over the selected surface during installation. The skin’s lamination provides a durable, protection to surfaces and makes them easy to apply and remove. Similar to the concept of personalizing your cellphone or laptop, Surface Skins let you to bring art off the walls and onto other objects in your home.

 
2. What are the Surface Skins designs?
We’re collaborating with several Blik artists to bring you a new design created for the Surface Skins line. First off, we’re teaming up with our Venice-based neighbors WRAPPED to launch 12 Surface Skins based on WRAPPED’s artfully-crafted gift wrap. Their wrap uses high-res photography of animal hides, insects and modern art with such vibrancy and clarity that the surface skin looks real to the touch. Surface Skins by WRAPPED come in four different rectangular shapes and are designed to be trimmed down to any surface or table size. The designs are: Homage, Clement, Legal, Abbot Kinney, Burst, Gouache, Broadway, Ride, Mildred, Oversee, Stratus and Still. The graphics will fit the following size rectangular shapes:
48″ x 24″ – $42
60″ x 30″ – $64
72″ x 36″ – $90
80″ x 30″ – $87

 
3. What took you so long to bring Surface Skins to me?
Until recently, there really wasn’t a proper film that could cover a surface with ease and not damage it. We’ll credit Blik co-founder Scott Flora (we fancy him a revolutionary) as having the idea a few years ago and finally finding the new material to make it a possibility.

 
WIN A SURFACE SKIN:
To celebrate this momentous launch, we’re giving five WRAPPED Surface Skins. To enter to win*, tell us what piece of furniture you’d cover and what design (use the product name) you’d like to win. It’s a giveaway as easy as Surface Skins.

*Giveaway Details: The WRAPPED Surface Skins giveaway runs until 11:59pm PST on May 3, 2013. To enter, leave your comment below. Valid only to US and Canada residents (sorry!) Winners will be announced on this blog on May 7, 2013.
Go ahead, invade your space with art and color. And keep an eye out for other Surface Skins to come. We’re just getting started!

UPDATE: Congrats to Anna Vainer, Janie L, Linda, Sarah & Eileen. You are all getting the WRAPPED ~ Surface Skin of your choice. Keep an eye out for an email from us.

 
In the past, we’ve shared our inspiring work for Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA. Since that project, Blik Design/Build (the custom arm of Blik) has carved quite a niche for itself in the healthcare world. We’re excited to share the design process and environmental graphics for three recent custom clients: Kaiser Permanente’s Pediatric Clinic in San Francisco, the UCLA Daltrey/Townshend Teen & Young Adult Cancer Program in Santa Monica and our second round of graphics for Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA.

As the saying goes, laughter is the best medicine and we truly love doing work for hospitals and bringing joy to an otherwise scary environment. Making kids and teens smile and helping ease the fear associated with hospitals was our goal.

 
Kaiser Permanente:
We worked directly with the pediatric team to develop a customized set of wall graphics and murals for the waiting rooms and hallways of the peds clinic. We took inspiration from the city of San Francisco and created a narrative – think of it as a guided tour – using a number of colorful characters and themed environments to escort visitors through the space and toward the waiting room. The art is meant to create a welcoming and colorful place and provide the functional purpose of wayfinding. We were happy to collaborate with illustrator Felix Wong again and create synergy between our custom world and Blik products. You might recognize Felix’s style as he’s the illustrator for Babybot x Blik wall graphics.

 

These creatures and characters are very impactful and they really help soften the space and enable a scary hospital to become kid-friendly. The transformation of the space was incredible. Looking at the storyboards and how this process began, we think the project almost transcends wall graphics. It’s storytelling for walls.
-Scott Flora, Blik co-founder

UCLA Daltrey/Townshend Teen & Young Adult Cancer Program:
Working in tandem with the hospital staff, current and former patients, Blik developed and designed a mural for the new cancer center from Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of the legendary rock band The Who. Based on feedback from the teens, we designed the space in soothing blues and purples, which was determined as the best colors for patients during treatment. The design is a series of layered silhouettes that kept the location by the beach (Santa Monica) in mind. As the pictures reflect, the “chill space” is peaceful while still bringing an uplifting energy to the hospital.

 


 
Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA: Phase 2:
Working again with the design team at Mattel, we have continued our imaginary graphic world for the walls of the pediatric unit at the Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA, this time bringing joy to another floor. For the second round, we went with a beach and water theme based in part by the nurses’ thoughts on the space, as well as the kids. We like the challenge of designing not just for patients, but for the hospital staff as well. Just try not to smile as you look at the photos.

 


 


 
Congrats to Blik Design/Build. This was an impressive undertaking and the results are beautiful. Think you would like custom graphics in your office? Connect with our team and let us see what we can do for you.

 
We’re not saying don’t try this at home, but a few tiny details you should know:

1. Putting Blik on your cars is at your own risk (but then again so is crossing the street, so be a risk-taker). We only vouch for walls.
2. Your beloved Blik graphics might fade in the sun. We recommend buying lots of Blik to navigate around this problem.
3. You want to take your car to the carwash? Didn’t you hear that dirty is in? At the carwash, there is slight chance the washing might affect the ink. See #2 & buy lots of Blik!

 
We are soooo Hello Kitty excited! Today we are launching nine Hello Kitty x Blik graphics that take both a traditional and an artistic spin on classic Hello Kitty images. And to celebrate this momentous day, we’re giving away 25 Hello Kitty: Chalkboards and 25 Hello Kitty: Dry Erase Boards. Plus, we are offering free U.S. ground shipping for today (Thursday, March 21) on all Blik products including Hello Kitty. Now, that’s cause for celebration.

 


 

HELLO KITTY X BLIK COLLECTION

1. Hello Kitty: Supercute, Set 1 & Set 2 – Say hello to two sets of oversized Hello Kitty graphics – $35/set.

2. Hello Kitty: Hide & Seek – We spy Hello Kitty and her friends. Use these Hello Kitty graphics to interact with the furniture and objects in your space – $55

3. Hello Kitty: Faces – Have fun with Hello Kitty deconstructed. Singular elements of the friendly Hello Kitty are broken down giving you the ability (and creativity) to place her iconic red bow or whiskers around different objects – $55.

4. Hello Kitty: Chalkboard Re-Stik - Grab some chalk and scribble some notes. Hello Kitty won’t let you forget! Made with Blik Re-Stik™, these two chalkboards are movable and reusable – $45 (Chalk not included.)

5. Hello Kitty: Dry Erase Re-Stik – Scribble some notes with a dry erase marker. Hello Kitty won’t let you forget! Made with Blik Re-Stik™, these two whiteboards are movable and reusable – $45 (Dry erase markers not included.)

6. Four Hello Kitty: Pattern Wall Tiles – Bring a multitude of Hello Kitty to your room with Blik’s popular Pattern Wall Tiles. $50/each.
Hello Kitty ~ Pattern Wall Tiles, Set 1
Hello Kitty ~ Pattern Wall Tiles, Set 2
Hello Kitty ~ Pattern Wall Tiles, Set 3
Hello Kitty ~ Pattern Wall Tiles, Set 4

A few weeks ago, we put together a list of our favorite love-themed graphics for Valentine’s Day. Today, we’ve gone a step farther and designed seven custom Valentine’s Day cards. The Blik Valentine’s Day cards can be ordered exclusively through Society6. Order a pack now to have them in time for your Valentine. The cards come in three sets: a 3 pack, 5 pack and a 10 pack.

As our Valentine’s gift to you, we’re also giving away seven sets of the 10 pack of cards. So, seven lucky winners can save their pennies and get a set of 10 cards for free. We’ve have one set of each card to giveaway. Let us know which design you’d like to win and we’ll do the best we can to match those up.

TO ENTER:
Comment below on what card you’d like to win for that special Valentine in your life. We’re not usually the sappy type, but once a year, we’ll make an exception. You can also send us your funny, silly Valentine stories – you know we heart those. Leave your comments by Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 11:59pm PST. We’ll announce the seven winners on Friday, February 8. And if you win, make sure you get back to us ASAP! Don’t leave those Valentine’s Day cards without a home. Or if you don’t want to wait to win, order a few from the Blik shop on Society6.

Choose from the following cards:
Make Room for Love
Candy Hearts
Chocolate Hearts
Love Garden
I Love You Like…
XOXO
Shot Through The Heart

DETAILS:
Winners must live in the United States or Canada to win. Winners who do not claim their prize by the set date, will forfeit their chance to win.

UPDATE: The seven winners were randomly selected and have been notified.

 
You might remember that last month we debuted three wall wraps from WRAPPED, and Macro by Charles Arnoldi for WRAPPED was one of those graphics. Since Charles Arnoldi’s work inspired WRAPPED, we thought it only fitting to give away a signed book that presents the work of Arnoldi.

Titled Charles Arnoldi, the 360-page book is a beautiful representation of his paintings and includes a forward by Frank Gehry. Arnoldi has been described as an artist who “draws in space” to create his unique assemblage works of art. We’ve got one book (published by Radius Books) to give away to the Day 9 winner.

What are you waiting for? Enter now. And don’t forget to come back tomorrow for Day 10.

UPDATE: Congrats to Tracey! She is our Day 9 winner and is getting the signed Charles Arnoldi book.