Candice Kaye - Founder & Creative Director at Candice Kaye Design
Textile design is a lofty field to get into in New York City, especially when fabric stock can easily outprice tuition or rent. Out of necessity, Toronto designer Candice Kaye turned from fabric to paper and quite literally designed her career. She developed four prints for Maman Café that branded the business floor-to-ceiling; the coffee cups, floor treatment and wallpaper generated a buzz that spread quickly via word-of-mouth and social media. In wallpaper Candice saw an application that desperately needed a facelift from its outdated roots; she was inspired to create modern prints that moved people. Responding to custom orders was market research in its purest form, and what started as small-batch custom wallpapers almost three years ago has carried her triumphantly into today, where she’s still driven to innovate in her field. She hand paints new designs to bring her client’s vision to life, and has most recently layered and manipulated a cabbage motif into a delightfully fun wallpaper displayed at Mary Be Kitchen in Toronto. The art and science of wallpaper is just the beginning for Candice, as she delves further into interiors through other textile design. Although her primary medium may change in the future, her mission to impact people and ask them to participate and interact with design remains. Finding success isn’t easy; she knows all too well that there isn’t light without darkness but she has always kept learning, kept her faith, and followed her intuition toward her goals. She believes that opportunity isn’t pretty but when it rears its ugly head, it’s important to make sure you don’t let your inner critic talk you down; instead, work hard, share your perspective, and find a way to design a space in the world that’s authentically you.