S5E08 Color Rebellion with Masquespacio

In this very open and frank conversation, Christophe speaks about how color influences their projects, what are crucial elements for the success of their work and the difficulties they came across on their design journey and the challenge to innovate and pick projects that reflect their values. Connection, Rebellion, Artisan and Sensory, that is what Masquespacio is all about. 

Christophe Penasse was born the 4th of March 1983 in a small city next to the capital of Belgium, Brussels. Since a very young age his mother taught him to be a saver. Something that motivates him to sell his old games on trail markets and to his friends. When he was 15 years old while he studied Commerce in his country, during holidays and his free time he started to work for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in Brussels. Being music his passion, at the same time he started to buy and sell records online. After finishing his college studies he went to study marketing in Mechelen, next to Antwerp, while he continued to work during his free time at Sony giving a helping hand to the commercial and marketing department, without losing his passion for music. After schooling in marketing he worked a short time for the American Enterprise Federal Express before accomplishing his dream to go live in Spain, a country that he felt in love with because of its culture and way of living. In Spain the first 5 months he only dedicated to study Spanish and its culture, to later on being contracted as a customer manager for the German cash & carry Makro. After two years of work at the customers’ department he decided to start up design studio Masquespacio with his partner Ana Milena Hernández Palacios. At Masquespacio he is in charge of the marketing and commercial department, as well as being involved in the strategic part of the creative consultancy’s projects.

Masquespacio is an award winning creative consultancy created in 2010 by Ana Milena Hernández Palacios and Christophe Penasse. Combining the 2 disciplines of their founders, interior design and marketing, the Spanish design agency creates custom-made branding and interior projects through a unique approach that results in fresh and innovative concepts. In 2020 they won the EDIDA 2020 ‘Young Talent Award’ by the international network of Elle Decoration Magazine and in 2019 they have been awarded ‘Interior Designers of The Year’ by the Spanish edition of The New York Times’ T Magazine. Previously they also have been awarded with the ‘Massimo Dutti New Values’ award by Architectural Digest Spain and the ‘Wave of the Future’ award by Hospitality Design USA, next to a continued international recognition by media specialized in design, fashion and lifestyle trends. They have worked on projects in several countries like Norway, USA, France, Portugal, Germany, USA and Spain.

Actually they are working on several hotel and restaurant projects in Spain, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Germany, Qatar, Singapore and Cambodia amongst others.

In 2019 they also created Mas Creations a new lifestyle brand that shows their most personal vision through a universe of textures, materials and colors represented in new furniture collections as well as interiors.

Transcript

Judith van Vliet: Good morning, everyone, and welcome back to the Color Authority podcast. Today I'm going to be talking to Christophe Penasse. He is part of Moscow Espacio, which is an award winning creative consultancy created in 2010 by Ana Milena Hernandez Palacios and indeed Christoph Penasse himself. They combine two principles of the founders, which are interior design and and marketing. The Spanish design agency creates custom made branding and interior projects through a unique approach that results in fresh and innovative concepts. In 2020, they won the EDIDA 2020 Young Talent Award by the International Network of ELLE Decoration magazine. In 2019, they have been awarded with Interior Designers of the year by the Spanish edition of the New York Times Magazine. Previously, they've been awarded also by the Massimo Dutti New Values Award by the Architectural Digest. Spain and the wave of the future specialized in design, fashion and lifestyle trends, they work on projects all around the world. Currently, they're working on hotel and restaurant projects in Spain, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Germany, Qatar, Singapore and Cambodia. In 2019, they also created mass creations, which is a new lifestyle brand that shows their most personal vision through the universe of textures, materials and colors represented in the new furniture collections, as well as interiors. Good morning, Christophe, and welcome to the Color Authority podcast. How are you this morning?

Christophe Penasse: I'm very good. The sun is shining and we have a good weather, so I'm very happy to be here.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, the sun does a lot to. We were just talking privately about what the sun does to our well being, both coming from the north. Actually, our countries are quite close, Belgium and the Netherlands, and that we both are going to the south and south because we just feel better when, you know, there's a lot of light and a lot of sun, which is color and design. I think.

Christophe Penasse: I think the thing is, like, there is some slow life, especially where we are living, like in Valencia, which even if we have the character of nordic people, where we want everything to go fast, it helps us to be much more creative. And of course, the sun is an attraction point for any creator. It's an attraction point that will help you to improve your inspiration, without any doubt.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, no, very true. Yes. I went from Milan to Madrid, so I'm going more south. I wonder where I'm going to end up in Milan.

Christophe Penasse: Maybe in the Middle east, there are a little bit hotter, but I don't recommend it because it's very hot.

Judith van Vliet: Yes. Yeah. You just came back from. From Saudi. I was in Saudi in January. But we're definitely going to talk about that because I think I. It's super interesting what's happening. It is new design. But my first question already, since I already forgot how many episodes I did, is what is color? So, Christophe, to you personally, what is color?

Christophe Penasse: Color, for us, it's emotion at the end and emotion, it can bring you joy, it can bring you happiness. So we think about all positive, like very joyful, especially if you look at most of our designs, diversion. But it can also be serenity. It doesn't need always to be very joyful, very, very playful. It can give you different states of mood. You know, I think it's something that penetrates your mind, your in consciousness, and it can give you a sensation. And at the end, when. When we play with color, it's something very natural because of. Especially of Anna's character, also my character, but especially of Anna's character. But we don't think about. We do this because we want to generate this sensation in a customer. No, it goes natural. And I think when you enter in a space where we have some sort of color palette that is very well worked on, it gives you some sort of sensation. You don't know what it is. It can give you that calm. For example, if we go especially to places of Ibiza, we have these neutral colors where it gives you a calm feeling also with the scene next to it, of the sea. But then you kind of the opposite. No. When we go to spaces like a science museum for children, we can have very powerful colors where children are very active, very in action. So it's. It generates some. Some sort of moods on every person.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, yeah. Very true. I think colors depending on what. How you're feeling in the day or in the moment, you need different colors depending on to elevate or to calm you or. I think that's interesting indeed, in the work that you do, because definitely your faces, they elevate the spirits. I think one of the. That should be your mother. Like, we elevate your spirit.

Christophe Penasse: That's a good one. We didn't talk about it, but I think I'm going to use it next time when a client knocks on our door and he makes this type of questions. So I think it's a good argument without the doubt.

Judith van Vliet: You. I mean. I mean, color is. That's a very good answer. Like, there's no wrong or right answer. But it is true that color does so much to our human physics and how we feel and how we perceive color, but it's not your background at all. And you talked to me already before that, you know, Anna is very much on the color side, but obviously, you are a partner you're a partnership.

Christophe Penasse: Yes.

Judith van Vliet: Come from a completely different background. Tell us how you ended up where you are right now. Like, how did the studio come about? You coming from Belgium, having started more marketing, and here you are, you have your own design studio.

Christophe Penasse: It's all about love, I think. No, but it starts honestly, because Anna, she was studying interior design and I finished marketing in my country in Belgium, and then I moved to Spain. So I was studying Spanish and I started to work in a very big company. I wasn't feeling very comfortable. She was finishing our studies and when she finished, so we had, we were in the middle of a financial crisis here in Spain, which was hitting Valencia very much. So this is 2007, 2008. And yeah, I said, and I was looking for a job again, I think it was all about love because I saw her projects and like our projects from our student period and I said, you are great, you are doing a great job. I think you have a lot of talent. So I said, why we should not start a studio together? That was like the first step. But I said, look, we have a lot of competitors design, especially interior design. At that moment in Spain especially, it was very for the elites. So we had like five, six very big studios. Like with 2025 years of experience, we couldn't compete with them. So we said, like, we need to do something different. And we started to do a market studio and we realized that most, there were a lot of designers that were just focused on having a typical specific style, but they were not focusing on the business model. So I said, like, from my background of studying marketing, I said, look, why we don't put the two together and we start to have an approach towards projects focusing on a strategy. Like when you go to a branding agency, they work with any type of business and they have a strategy for each business. So I said, like, why should we not put this two together and work as a branding agency? So when a client knocks on our door, we develop a strategy for that business. And it doesn't mean you cannot have your own style, you cannot work on innovation, but it's having a clear view of working with businesses. So I think that's where we started and what, of course we evolved during the years, but what made us also success. And it's true that in the beginning with real workshops, with the clients, like 2 hours of workshop really to work on the strategy. I was very involved in that part of the project at the beginning, but then with the years and I learned to do it on her own. So it's not that I'm still involved in that part. So she really involved too. Okay. I have this type of business. I need to study a concept for that business. So, yeah, everything comes together.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. It's interesting how, you know, it's one thing to design beautiful objects. I'm not saying that that's easy, that's a beyond. That's obviously complicated, especially in a highly competitive market. But the other thing is indeed thinking about the brand strategy, which indeed obviously is also something that I need to do when I work with a client. I have to know about branding strategy before I can adapt color to their products and their interiors. But it's interesting that made you completely different, obviously, in those years, especially in like Spain. And that's what completely differentiated you, of course.

Christophe Penasse: Completely. And it's also true that we are starting, we started a few years ago to do like own projects, like with other clients. And it's very hard now. It's progressing in a good direction. But at the beginning, it was very hard for Anna to say where to go because she was so used to focusing on a strategy and there was no strategy anymore. So it was just design whatever you want. So it was very hard for her to find, uh, find to do it that way at the end.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, it's like the other way around. Like she learned one way and then suddenly, sometimes freedom is actually limiting even more than having a design brief or being brief. Complete freedom. There's a lot of people that need it. I think they're more in the artist area, like. But some people freeze, like, they were like, what do you mean, complete freedom? What are you doing?

Christophe Penasse: That's completely true. And there is a funny thing because now we are, like I said, we're more and more progressing on projects, products, specifically collections. And she's completely free, but she's always designing lamps. And I'm unaware because she wants to explore more artistic parts. And it's like, why are you still designing lamps, you know? No, it's because I'm used to working on an interior design project, on a strategy, on a function. So it's always thinking about a stool and a lamp, you know, like a table, a stool, a lamp.

Judith van Vliet: Well, that's her signature. Then, you know, that's stability. It's a stability to then do next step or to do different projects completely. So, yeah, I've seen that there's always a stool and there's always a lamp. I've seen that in your designs. But one of the other signatures definitely in your case is color, I think, except for some projects that we'll talk about in a while where there was slight absence of color. I think color is one of your, also part of your strategies behind your design. I know it comes to you naturally, and it's an intuitive part of your design studio. But how do you make color work in your designs? Like, what role does it play?

Christophe Penasse: Like I said, the first thing is we need to understand which type of business model we are working on, because we need to find the color palettes for the type of business. So if you do something, for example, in Saudi Arabia, where their generation is very young, if you do something for people of 20, around twenties, beginning of the twenties, 1819, go for something. And the, the business model is very based on trends. Selling a product that is very trendy, then you go for something very poppy. But then if you do, like, for example, an organic cafeteria, organic food concept, you go for more palettes. You go for more softer colors that connect directly to sand or to ground or whatever. You need, really, to find a pallet for each business. But also, it's true that we need to guide the client in that sense and be very honest with him, because many times he comes to us. There are small clients, and they come to us, and they trust in us 100%. So we need to be very honest with what we do, because we could do something that is very good for our ego, very good for our portfolio, but not focused on what he needs for his project, and then he will go broke. And then you're in a bad situation, because the project you presented to everybody is not there anymore. The client has lost money, and he will not work with you again. So you really need to find that focus. And Anna is very good at this. She loves colors. She's Colombian, so she's very, very into color. And she's always also trying to evolve with the colors. It's not like, because many times they come to us nowadays, everybody has a mood board, and they come with their mood board. But then you look at the mood boards, like, okay, this is a little bit outdated. So this is what we were working on five years ago. So we need. We need to evolve. So it's like, let's evolve with that color palette. We can respect it, but let's evolve with it. You know? Like, let's bring it a little bit more to the future, because if we take that color palette and we use it right now, it's not going to work or it's going to get outdated very soon. So we need to project towards the future at the end. So that's also part of our job of choosing a color palette in a space. And also on the other side, it's not only about paint. No, it's also about the material you use. Because the material itself can have a color. The texture gives you a different feeling of the color. So there are a lot of things that are involved in the selection of colors, you know, and make a connection point.

Judith van Vliet: How do you make sure that you design a space in which your client, whoever the client is, is going to make? It's going to feel good? Because I think color is a big part of what we just discussed, of feeling good, or it can give you what you need. How do you get to know your clients? Because I think this is essential. But beyond, you need to know the person that's going to be living in this space a little bit more to know what colors are going to fit to that family. Or perhaps even if you're designing for a restaurant, who their target group is.

Christophe Penasse: For us, it's like you're coming to the design psychologist. So if you're a client, you need to speak with us and you need to express yourself. So if you don't express yourself, it's not going to work. Because we need to know who you are as a person. Because it depends now, because when we work for a bigger corporation, so we have like mixed portfolio of clients. We have small, very small clients, medium, and then we have big corporation. The corporations, many times they come with a clear briefing. They have a design agency that make a strategy for them and then we need to work from there. But most of the clients are smaller businesses, so they are very personal about their business. It's something very personal for them. So we need to know that person. If we don't know that person, it's not going to work. So it's about confidence. It's about speaking together, listening to the client. Many times they don't want to send those images. We say, no, send those images, please. We want your inspiration. We need to be in your head. So from there, if we have this, we make a design strategy. We show some mood boards, etcetera of the direction we can take, and then we develop the 3d. Even then, sometimes it can happen and many times it happens with the colors that I get a little bit scared about the color palette or whatever. And then we need to do some modifications, but we are happy to do them because we are here to make it a success. But we need to know, and I wrote something about this on my Instagram yesterday about last project we did because yes. In Barcelona, for Amica, the first project was rejected and we had the option of saying, okay, we don't continue or we continue. We said, look, there was a good feeling, there is a trust with the clients. Let us do another proposition for you. Let's speak about what you're not liking, because sometimes he also comes to you, he's very excited. He speaks about innovation and you say, okay, innovation. For us, the limits are the ones the client is giving us. So if he gives a wise card to us, he needs to watch out, because we can go very far with innovation. So he needs to put the limit. In this case, he wanted to go to a very innovative direction. And then when he saw the proposal, he got scared. Scared is not the right word. Nobody said, oh, is this going to work for my business model? We had a nice conversation, we spoke about it and said, don't worry, we have another id, similar direction. That's completely different. Let's do another proposition and let's go for it. And it was. And at the end, it's a success. And you need. It's about psychology. You need to work with the client and you need to. Don't get frustrated as a designer, because at the beginning, when you start and when you. The beginning as a designer, sometimes difficult, because it's like your creation, but you need to accept that it's. I always say, like we are the father and the mother. No, the uncle and the aunt, but you're the father and the mother, or the father or the mother or whatever. I. So you want to. You want to treat the little one very bad, but the client wants to treat him very well. He wants him to be, or her to be well educated. So you need to find that balance working together.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, that's true. And I think also what I find out and also my projects, very often they can tell you why they don't like it. But then back with a second proposal, and you changed the color and suddenly they like it. Because color has a very strong.

Christophe Penasse: Yes.

Judith van Vliet: Reaction, but people are not aware of the reaction. They don't know why. No thing is off, but something is not. They're not feeling it. And this is very sensory. You and you, what you design is also very much based on sensory. I love how you work with unique pieces as well. You do a lot with local artisans who embrace what is local authenticity, origin as well. That's also challenging to stay that way, isn't it? You know, it's. It's. It's a lengthy process.

Christophe Penasse: I guess it is very tough. It is very tough. And in a global world, it's getting even tougher day by day. So to find innovation, I think for, as a designer, as a creative, you're always, if you, if you want really to progress and you're not in a moment that you say, okay, enough, I've done it. And until here, if in a moment you want to continue to create and to evolve, you will always find new ideas to evolve with. But it's true that we are like very affected by global trends. So when we started, everything was still a bit new. So there was most of my clients, it was the first time that they hired a designer in Spain. But in other parts of the world, I know in the, in the Netherlands, they are like very advanced in this since a lot of decades before other countries, but in most England, also the states, but in most countries, it's very new. So we really need to. So it was difficult to convince in a sense, like do something innovative. It was very challenging. But now the problem is that design is everywhere. So they come to you, they know the trends and they want the trend. So the last years we were suffering with this because they see a business model with a trend, with a design aesthetic that is working and they say, I want something like this. And you're like, no, we are doing something. We are going to do something different and we're going to innovate for you. We are going to make something for you so you stand out and you don't make, you're not being, competing with that other business.

Judith van Vliet: You know, not copy pasting also.

Christophe Penasse: Yes, not copy and pasting, but that's the big challenge we have now. And we are a little bit suffering with it because it's more and more. Maybe it's, maybe it's only happening to us. I don't know.

Judith van Vliet: Oh, it's a global thing. Trust me. There is so much trend information available. There's so much color trend information available. I'm not talking about the quality, because the quality sometimes is just, you know, I just want to, but it's everywhere. And the color thing, the trend thing, I don't even like the word trend anymore because I think it's, it has become just like the word sustainability. It has all become very. What does it mean in the end? You know?

Christophe Penasse: Yes.

Judith van Vliet: And also you're designing in the end for people, and people, they like trends, but on the longer end, trends are going to end.

Christophe Penasse: That's the thing. That's the thing. Knowing you go everywhere. Because we travel a lot, we have the luck to travel a lot for our work. And everywhere we see the same. Sometimes we've entered in a hotel, seeing a copy paste exactly of parts of our designs. So it's like, okay, what's happened? But in the middle of nowhere. So you say, okay, so it's great. In India, in the middle of nowhere, we went to a hotel and we saw the cafeteria, and it was like part of a design we did for a project in here, in Valencia. We don't mind the copies, you know, so we don't have a problem.

Judith van Vliet: It means that you're inspirational.

Christophe Penasse: Yeah, but it's like you see, like, the arches. Like, the arches trend is like the last year is very saturated. So we are part of this. But you see it everywhere. Everywhere. You go to Thailand, you go to Middle east, it's like everywhere you see like this, the same trends going on.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. Globalization, not always, is a good thing. It's good for information spread, to be well informed. But in the end, we're losing our origin, we're losing our heritage, which I think is something that's very important. And it's also something that you guys are really working with as well. I love what you did. I have here the latest Manera magazine. And I love what you did with your own studio.

Christophe Penasse: Thank you.

Judith van Vliet: Own house. Studio, yes, everything. I guess this was one of those projects where Anna and you. You had complete freedom, and then you. Like now what we do. But it was interesting to see. I mean, how did this. It's very eye catching, of course, but what is it like to live there? Because you obviously reflect both your personalities at home, because you're the ones live there.

Christophe Penasse: We didn't have complete freedom because something we always complain about with our clients is about the budget. But then we did our own project and we said we have less budget than our clients. So that was one of the limitations. But the thing here is that we. Yeah, Anna had complete freedom. I trust 100% in her. I had some minor points on a functional level. My office also a little bit, because I. I wanted, like, a more minimalistic office, like, with less things going around, with less decoration. But she created it from what she thought it should be, you know, with minor functional details. I wanted the thing with the house. It's like. It's a reflection of what we are as a studio, what we've been. And it's an evolution at the end, you know, like, what we feel is that it's surrounded by many of the. Because we touched. We have a specific style, but we touched different styles during the generation, we've been working as a studio, like from the new Memphis art deco. So the art, just concept also, these are all coming together in futurism is also part of it all coming together in our space, in our design. But one of the other things which was very important is that we've always tried in our projects, if there is something beautiful in the interior, if we have a brick wall or whatever, try to maintain it. So we are not the ones of throwing down everything and starting again, you know? So we really, if it's difficult to find these type of spaces, but if we feel the space has something charming or something that is part of the history of the space, we want to maintain it. So the same thing with it here, you can see it on the scene you see behind, behind me. So we maintained it how it was, because it's part of the. It's a farmhouse, so it's part of the farmhouse, so we wanted to maintain it, you know? So this was very important. What was also important for us is like, especially, and as a designer, as interior designers, to have big spaces, you know, because for her having big spaces, it's luxury, you know, it's like.

Judith van Vliet: Right?

Christophe Penasse: Yes, yes. It's like you have environment and everything, all the. Everything is open. You. We don't. We almost. We have a door for the toilet, for the bathroom, but except that we don't have doors, you know, because it's like an open space. Everything is open. And as a person, we are very open, you know, you come here, if you come here one day, we will show you the house, you know? So it's not that it's like we don't have secrets. And for our team, even when we are going, we're going, we are traveling. Our team can go up to our house. So we don't, we don't care because. So this spirit, I think it's part of the spirit of the sensation. I've never thought about this until your question, but it's part of the. It's part of the sensation of the mood of the house. Know that everybody's welcome here, you know? And that's the spirit, that's the mood of colors also, I think in the house, then we have our specific things. Like, there is one thing very important, because many persons, they say, look, I don't want, I love color, but I don't want to live in a house full of color because it will get me very tense and me from my side. So Anna is a very dynamic person. I'm a very calm person. I do a lot of meditation, so I'm very calm, but I don't feel overwhelmed by the colors. It's not getting a negative state on my mind. Or so for me, this theory is not working, at least for me personally. So this is something I'm experiencing in the house. That's one of the things. Also, it's important to have spaces where you can calm down. So the bedroom, for us, if you've seen, it's like a cocoon. So it's like really entering in a cocoon the whole time. And this really works well, yeah, no, it's, you know, so it's like minor details that make you, like, feeling in another state of mind, going to the house at the end.

Judith van Vliet: I mean, color generally, but that, because color is so personal, it's difficult to understand what color works for a person and whatnot. There's general rules. I mean, we all know red is adrenal, adrenaline. I mean, red in the bedroom, because it's. It's going to make you a little bit. Yeah, a little bit too excited and can even create feelings of anger, depending what type of red. But those are things that obviously, that's why a lot of people say, I'm uncomfortable, but that's probably because somebody else picked the wrong color for that person, for their homes or they. Some nice experiences in certain restaurants, for example, that they were not comfortable because of the color. But it can be also just one color that they're not comfortable with. No.

Christophe Penasse: And of course, it's true that we have, like, a very light color palette. And I. So I think a light color palette, it doesn't. We have some parts where it's a little bit darker, like the chair or something, but something specific. But it's true that it's very light the whole time. And also, we take opportunity of daylight 100%. So one of the things you have realized Spaniards don't do. So they don't take opportunity on the daylight. They want everything, like, very dark. And we don't understand this as a country where it's, we don't have so much sun, but it's true that we have to understand it. Like, if you have the sun every day, but we want to take opportunity of this. So this, the light is very, as you can see, it's very bright the whole time, you know, so work that.

Judith van Vliet: Like, you work with transparencies, but you still have curtains. So it comes, which also reminds me very much of Luis Barragan, you know, the way he worked and explore, but I think also, yeah, I know we in the north, we need light because there's not a lot of sun. That's why we both move to the south. I mean, Belgians are, however, not like the Dutch, which just have the full window living room.

Christophe Penasse: I love this, by the way.

Judith van Vliet: Looking inside, I remember, I always remind myself when I go with my partner who's Hispanic, and we go to the Netherlands, he just stops and looks inside and I'm like, it's not a look box. It's still people.

Christophe Penasse: I do this too sometimes.

Judith van Vliet: It's fun how even though we're in Europe, it's completely different. And I think that's also why you and Anna, of course, make a great couple, as in, you know, the confidence, the vibrations, the colors, the food, the music, and then more that steadiness, the, you know, both feet on the ground mentality from. From the north. How do you select your projects? Like, what values are important for you in a project? Because I can imagine you get a lot of projects that you sometimes are like, it's not for us. What is important for you in a project?

Christophe Penasse: A connection with a client. That's the first thing. If there is a good connection, we are happy to work. I think that's like the main part. Like 90% is the connection. And then, of course, if there is a connection is because it's understanding something about what you're doing or his understanding something about designing in general. I think that's the first thing. Then, of course he needs to. If he comes with like, I love what you do, but I wanted to be a little bit more secure, etcetera. It's not the right way, but then the connection will not be there. So. And we don't mind. You can come with a coffee shop, takeaway coffee shop of 20 m². We don't mind because we have a lot of. A lot of people that are scared to knock on our door because they think we are going to be too expensive, you know? But if we. If you have like, something and you want to be very creative, we will be happy to work with you. And it's. And. And we will adjust because at the end, it's not the same to work for a small client that is going to trust 1% from you. Then working on a. On a big business where you have more faces, etcetera, you have more involvement on the client.

Judith van Vliet: So also more complex.

Christophe Penasse: More complex is much more complex. You have a lot of teams involved. You need to do project management. So, yeah, I think that's the main point. And it's not budget, of course you need a budget, you know, because if, especially today, because this is one of the other hard parts of the actual economy and one of the struggles we have, it's the budget because prices rise so high that if you don't have budgets, we cannot do it only with creativity. Nowadays. When we started with, we did a project for €10,000 in Spain, it was like eight rooms. It's true that the structure was already there. It was a nice building, etcetera. But with €10,000, we could do a project. Now, nowadays, you don't start a project if you have €10,000, because it's not going to work. Not working with us, but neither working with another person, you know, so. So that's. That's one of the things, unfortunately, I have to say, this is one of the things you need. You don't need a big budget, but you need. You need some budget.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, yeah, no, I totally get that. I mean, in the end, also, people need to value the work that you put in. And also you're going to be dressing the space. I mean, yes, costs money. I mean, you can create everything from stuff that you find out on the streets.

Christophe Penasse: No, no. And it's. I know there are designers and admiring, because you have some designers that work this way, only a few. One in the ones in the world, I think, do it in a great way. And you. And sometimes you see this type of project and you say, like, this is great. You know, they didn't spend money, but it's not our quality. We don't. We are not specialized in this type of projects, so we're not able to do it so simple as it. So simple as that.

Judith van Vliet: What you do, it's not. No, especially because of the color and also because of the CMF, you have a different brand as well. You have master. Truly a dream for CMF designers also like myself. Tell us a bit more about that additional brand that you created in object, but also the selection of materials, the texture, because it's all about that mass creations.

Christophe Penasse: We started because we've always been in love with furniture decoration in general. And so we started to work on some products for other brands. We also did some at the very beginning, we did some consulting for other brands in Valorencia, for furniture brands. And from there we start to have a love for furniture decoration in general. And we always said, like, let's one day start our own brand so we can give our own vision. We can create our own products without any limits, you know, like just creating what we like and selling it on the market, you know. So it started from there. It started very organically. At the beginning. We started to work with local producers, but we had a lot of struggles doing it, you know, because it takes a lot of time. And if you. Our designs are not easy, so I need to be honest with everybody. Our designs are not easy. And I will always say with our positive minds from Colombia, this is easy to execute, but it's very difficult. So we mix materials, we have different forms. It's not standard. So you go to an artisan, he needs to develop that piece, and it can take a year, a year and off. So for us, that's a nightmare. And then when you receive it, it's too late for you. So because you're already thinking of something, something different. So it started from there. We started to produce some collections, and then we evolved to having our own ceramic workshop in house. So we always worked a lot with ceramics, with local artisans. We still do it, we still work with them. Valencia is perfect. So the Mediterranean, the coast site is all about ceramics. So it gives you opportunity to work with color. So we decided one day, after working a lot with artisans, to do it by ourselves inside, because it gives us the opportunity. Basically, when Anna is not working on a project, like right now, she's 100% in the workshop and she's every day something new is coming out. And we love ceramics because of our experience working with it, about the application of color, which is very easy, but also because it's a natural material. So we are speaking about sustainability. Of course, if we take something from the ground, we're never going to be 100% sustainable, but we're not working with chemics. At the end, we can have a glazing where we need to with some chemicals, because it's one of the other things we want to change. But if you want a specific color, sometimes it's difficult that they are very natural. So we. We are very transparent in our way of working, but with clay, we can do anything. We work with earth directly, so that's why we love it. And we can work with our hands. We can work with a 3d machine printer. So we have different options to work.

Judith van Vliet: With, I think very spanish, of course, to work with ceramics, and especially the area where you are in. So I like that touch of heritage and original.

Christophe Penasse: Yes, it's very local. And that was also important, getting again to sustainability. So we have at 5 will not say 1015 kilometers. They are making the clay we use in our workshop. So it's very sustainable for us. And of course, price wise, it's also material. It's available for us. It's not expensive, so it gives us a lot of opportunities.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, yeah. That's great. You describe yourselves as rebellious, which I think very much comes forward when we look at designs. You want to create indeed, by hand yourself items that are not conform. But to keep doing this, to keep creating something that's unknown and that is different is a challenge. How do you be inspired?

Christophe Penasse: It's very exhausting. And I give some input on inspiration, but I live with the person that needs to be inspired the whole time.

Judith van Vliet: And you need to feed her constantly.

Christophe Penasse: Yeah, yeah. But she gets frustrated when, when she, something gets out and she sees it somewhere else. So it's very, very. Especially with the ceramics, because at the beginning we were learning, so the beginning was very limited. But it's true, we find our way. Traveling helps us a lot. Before we were, we were bloggers, so everything was blogs, blogs, blogs, etcetera. Captivating material like, but not only design, also fashion, art, etcetera. We got a bit away from that and now we are like, inspiration is travel. Reading also is very important. Know what you learn reading or even listening to a podcast, know, like about history or whatever, what you can get from there can give you an inspiration, you know. So. And now we are creating a lotus lamb. So we have a little bit inspiration of. We traveled to Asia because we love Asia. So it comes a little bit from there. Now we're seeing these ponds with the lotus flowers. So, yeah, traveling is the main inspiration right now. And then also, now we have like the opportunity to create with our hands. Being. Creating with your hands helps you also to be inspired. So it's not only focused on images you see around you, it's also on what the forms you can create with your hands or the 3d printer we have and just evolve from there.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, that creates. I remember in my past, when I was still working for a big company that we made effects as well. Sometimes by mistake. You create very interesting things.

Christophe Penasse: That's completely true. Yeah.

Judith van Vliet: Become something that actually is quite sellable and people like it.

Christophe Penasse: Yeah, completely true. And you get surprised because what you think is going to work, many times it's not the most successful product you create, you know, it's very strange, but it happens a lot, you know, so what you don't expect, it's like you create something and sometimes it's very simple, like use it or an accident and you say, okay, it's nice, let's try it. And that's also the nice thing when you can do something in house, because you can test at the end, you can just launch something and say, let's see what happens. And it's also part of our process of what I say to Anna every day, just create. Don't be focused on something. Just create what you want to create. Launch it. And don't be afraid to launch it. Let's just put it on the market and. And, yeah, because as a designer, I think it's. It's very important, like, to have an input, not to see they want. They need to feel this. I'm not. Success is not the right word. No, but I see that what they create, somebody likes it, you know, so.

Judith van Vliet: Like, everybody wants likability in the end. We are beings. It's normal.

Christophe Penasse: Yes, totally, totally, completely, completely.

Judith van Vliet: In some projects. Actually, I saw your project in Cerzaia, bologna, personally, when I was still living in Italy. But also the one that you just created, but also in Saudi. I wouldn't say there's an absence of color because then we get into the discussion, what is color or what is not color. Well, let's say it's a lot more neutral, the colors that you. What. I mean, what was the mission here in that design? Your choice for using a lot less color than you normally use.

Christophe Penasse: Okay. So for Rockatile in Cersaie. So it was a fair boot. So we needed to work with the product they were going to sell during that fair. So basically we were limited to what was the collection. So we said, let's. And what we try to do is, like, show how with these materials, even with that color palette, which was very neutral, how can we create anything you want? Like just working with a tile, a bigger format in this case. But you can create a bench, you can create an arch, whatever you want to create. But, yeah, we had to really respect the color palette because there were some colors in the. In the options we had, but we were not. So a big fan of them. So like a brownish, you know, typical, because it's a commercial brand. So they want to sell very commercial products. So the brownish finish we were not fan of. So these were like, the range of colors. It's our steel colors, although it are very gray and there was some green. It was mainly gray and green. We choose the one we liked most. And I think the combination is very interesting at the end and then for more. It's a different situation more in Saudi Arabia because we started with a lot of color. So at the beginning and the client wanted really a lot of color. But then, so it's a project that started just before pandemic, and then pandemic came. So we had two years of that. It was stopped completely. And then the client want, asked us for new options, and then he wanted to see an option much more minimalistic, let's say. So we reached a point where I said, look, I want it to be very clean. And what we did is we worked with our lighting. So instead of applying the color on the furniture, on the coatings, etcetera, we play with lighting. So they have a very nice lighting, rgb lighting. So what they do, especially by night, is they play with the lighting. So you have the color effect, the moods. So they also, because they want the space to be a space for events. Okay, so it's a cafeteria, but they can turn it in event they do a great job. They do every, all type of actions, so they can adapt it to the mood they need for that event specifically.

Judith van Vliet: Okay. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. I remember when I was in Saudi, of course, there's the lack of bright colors because of the dust at least. Of course, because. And in my experience, I didn't travel a lot, but with my client does. It actually, it has a great variety in color and nature, but it's interesting how that also is beautiful to reflect that back into areas, because contact is very important, of course, as well.

Christophe Penasse: I think, like with Saudi Arabia, it's very interesting because they have this, because this color palette, because of the. Of the deserts, but at the same time, they love color and they are very. You mend them. They are very warm, warm people, so. And they are very colorful. Even if they dress white, very clean, very nice. They are very colorful. Their character is very colorful. So I think that's why we also have, like, we have. We're having a lot of projects there. And it's also because, of course, they're in a moment that are like, opening to the world, but at the same time, they like what we do because of that, because it fits with their character, you know, so. And they want really to have that color. So it's very interesting because it's contrasting with that architecture of dust, of desert, like, very, like everything brownish, like without colors.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, yeah. But it's an interesting country and there's a lot happening there. I enjoyed my stay and also the openness of the people and how, how welcoming they are to, to those coming from outside talking about color, as my case, it was really interesting.

Christophe Penasse: It's incredible because you don't. You hear so much about it, like, always negative because that's what we love in the west. We love to criticize everything, you know, and then, but we are, like, with, like, from our side, like, we're very open and we are here to learn from every culture. And honestly, everywhere we go, we, we find nice people, great people. But in Saudi Arabia specifically, we are very attracted to their way of being, like you said, very open and very thankful it's possibly happened to you a lot. Like, you take a taxi and everybody's like, welcome to Saudi Arabia. Thank you very much for being here. They are very happy that you want to visit them.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. And they want to show you everything.

Christophe Penasse: Yes.

Judith van Vliet: And then you're like, it's a big country. I only have one day that's going to be.

Christophe Penasse: Yes, it's true. Yeah.

Judith van Vliet: What is next for Masquespacio. I mean, how do you see your studio perhaps evolving or any exciting project that you're working on that maybe you want to give a small hint?

Christophe Penasse: We're always in an evolution, so we always need to evolve because even from the outside, people look at us and they say, you're very successful. You know, you need to work for your projects. And if you, if you get comfortable, one year, if we get comfortable during one year, only one year, we will be done. It's basically like this. So we need to evolve. We need to understand the market. We need to do it. We need to understand the market. We need to understand where we are going, where it's going, what is possible, what is not. Like I said, like before, like budget wise, like, we have having a little bit of struggle. So we are trying to adapt this on a personal level. Anna and I, we are in the moment, like, so we entered our forties a year, a year ago. So we are in a moment that we are, we are not exclusive. We don't like to be exclusive. We are not exclusive, but we want to be. We've always been a little bit selective. Again, not exclusive selective, but we want to be more selective because we're in a moment where we've done so many things, so many projects, and, and we feel that we need challenges at the end if we don't feel a challenge. And it's not only for us. The team has the same spirit. So even the interns that come here, they come, they come here because they love what we do and they love this innovation we're always looking for. So we are trying to innovate even more. We're trying to be, I'm pushing Anna to be more artistic, going more directional, explore. That's also why we started mass creation, like I told you. And we also want to try to incorporate this part in an interior design if we don't interior design. But that's one thing, and that's very important for us. Like right now, if I, if I produce it in projects, we are, for example, working on a project in Stockholm, also hotel here in a small hotel in Valencia, where we're incorporating ceramics we create in house into the project. So that's like the next step we are exploring. Maybe we will find out it's not the correct direction, but at least what we are exploring now because for two reasons, to find more authenticity. And then also, again, I go back to budget wise, because if we produce it in house, we can do it at a better price than working with a supplier. So we can give small details in a, have small details in a project that make it even more different and at a reasonable price for, for the client.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. So you're always evolving and you're always looking for. And you also, you don't want to be everywhere, you know, you don't want to be that designer team that does anything from a curtain to a carpet, too.

Christophe Penasse: No, no, no. That's, that's, that's very important. It's a good observation. And we want to be, you know, this is a business at the end also. But I. It's a personal business. So we had the chance to make it very big. We've tried to go a little bit bigger, but we've always realized when we did it that it's not the correct direction. And maybe the last years even, we've been accepting a bit too much projects, thinking about the business. There are some projects. We are not one. I'm not speaking about what you see on our website. I'm not going to say we did a good job with the clients, and the clients are happy, et cetera, but we are not 100% proud about the results, so. And now we're like, okay, we really need something that we, we want to be proud of, you know, and because we lost a little bit that spirit during the last years we, we had before, you know, when we started where everything was a challenge and we fight it for everything. Like, we, we were accepting a little bit too, more too much project at the same time to make it a business. So we are also in this, in this process north, like, say no, you know, even if you're in a moment, you need projects, because like I said before. Yeah, this, this is not a, you see us from. From the outside, you say these guys are booming, and. But we have moments where we have months that are. We are not receiving requests, you know, so. And then when a request is coming in and you're not feeling well with the request, we're in the mall where say no. Even then, we need to say no, you know? So that's. That's a challenge. Yeah.

Judith van Vliet: It's time to step back and reflect and see what 25 is going to bring you guys.

Christophe Penasse: Yes. We are also wondering what's going to happen, honestly.

Judith van Vliet: Well, everybody is. I mean, it's. It's a crazy world out there, so let's see.

Christophe Penasse: That's why we don't know. We don't know. The important thing is that we have fun, you know, and that we enjoy what we are doing, because at the end, we have one life, at least in my opinion, and. And we need to try to find joy in what we do at the end.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. And that will reflect on the quality of your projects.

Christophe Penasse: Completely. Completely.

Judith van Vliet: Well, I certainly had a joyful conversation with you. I enjoyed this.

Christophe Penasse: Me, too.

Judith van Vliet: Thank you so much for being part of the community. And it's as the first Spanish design agency since I've been living in Madrid, so this has been really great connecting.

Christophe Penasse: Nice. I hope you have a great time in Madrid, and whenever you come to Valencia, please visit us.

Judith van Vliet: I will.

Christophe Penasse: Great. Thank you very much. A pleasure.

Judith van Vliet: I hope you enjoyed this last episode. If you are a fan of the color authority podcast, please let us know by reviewing and rating our show on whichever platform you're listening on. The next episode is coming out next month, and in the meantime, I'm wishing you a wonderful, colorful day.