Maneiro is a design duo from Sunderland that uses cool typography, bright colours and Geordie sayings to create happy wall art for north-easterners, wherever they reside.
They've brought some best-selling gems to Baltic Shop, with retro-style prints of what must be the best sayings in the world: Shy Bairns Get Nowt, Yem Sweet Yem, and of course the classic, Areet Pet?
We chatted to Ben, who is half of the brains and talent behind the organisation.
"Hello, my name is Ben Deacon. I am one half of the design store Maneiro. Between myself and my partner Sarah, we design, create, and manufacture all of our products from our studio in Sunderland.
I originally studied music production at University and have no background in art or design. I have always been into creating posters and artwork on photoshop but had no intention to become a designer or to have my own business. I only started drawing digital art, around two years ago. I created a handful of designs, posted them on Instagram and asked if anyone would like them for free. To our surprise, we got rid of them all within an hour. That little confidence boost pushed us to make a website, and we started selling prints around a month later! The business has grown quite a bit over the last couple of years. We now sell our own candles, greetings cards, and various homeware items.
We take a lot of our influences from everyday life, making artwork from local sayings and things you would typically hear just walking around the North East. When it comes to the style of our prints and design, we take a lot of inspiration from 1970’s and mid-century interiors. As well as a lot of old 70s and 80s Japanese homeware. The bold colours and round shapes, give off beautiful retro-futurism vibes. Our aim is to make our products look like they're from the past, but only manufactured yesterday.
Region means a lot to us as a local business. Our products wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the charm and the strange sayings we have up here. We love being from the North East and still can't quite believe we have our designs stocked in somewhere as prestigious as the Baltic."
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