Interview: Pixels Per Inch “The First Look”

We Recently got the chance to meet with the two awesome ladies, Sydney and Andrea from the new company Pixels Per Inch. They have turned their childhood favorite hobby into stylish accessories and works of art. These girls have been circulating their stylish pins around town and have garnered the interest of many people. With accessories playing a big part in fashion world, they have a lot of creativity to bring to the table.

JGM
So with so many pins and mosaics I’m seeing what was the first thing you girls ever made?

Sydney
I think the first thing that I ever made was a Pac-Man pin.

Andrea
Mine was the character Yoshi from the video game Super Mario.

JGM
What inspired you to start making pins?

Sydney
The whole retro toy thing that came out; Pearler Beads. I remembered them from when I was younger. I went on a mission to find out their name and I found out they sold them at this arts & crafts store near my house, then I bought a box and I just started making things.

Andrea
I remember these from when I was about ten years old. I would just fill up the whole star design and make it multi-color; not even trying to make something out of the shape. So it turned into something different than what we used to make as kids.

Sydney
As a kid you think, “this is a star I need to fill it.” I just made some patterns and then, it didn’t mean anything. I actually found one I made when I was a kid in my house it was nothing, just plain. Now, as an adult, it’s just a whole different thought process.

JGM
Is there any particular place that you distribute your product at?

Sydney
Atmos in Harlem, NYC and a place called Cube on 7th street on the lower east side in Manhattan. Also, off our Facebook page.

JGM
What did you start making first, the pins or the art pieces?

Andrea
We first started off with the pins and then we just wanted to do something different. We were like “lets just see if we can pull off something big”. Syd found this big picture of Jack and Sally from the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas and that was our first big piece. That took us about a month to do and ever since then all the other pieces take us a couple of days to make.

JGM
Would you say your product is easy to duplicate? For example, the Lego heart pins created by designers Dee and Ricky, I see other brands and just regular people taking their ideas and making it themselves.

Sydney
Honestly there is no other material that can do this. Not that I’ve come across, not with the colors and the amount of detail we can put into it. If someone were to knock us off they would have to do the same thing we did. I mean I’ve seen people do it but not the same way that we do it. I’ve seen a few people try to bring it back just the whole idea of the old school toy but never like the way that we’ve done it; we actually made a business out of it. I love doing custom pieces for people, sitting and doing it its really fun!

JGM
What are the price ranges for the pins?

Sydney
They go from $5 to $20 retail, or $6 to $20 some places, and other than that we do custom pieces that can go infinitely depending on size and intricacy. We usually start custom pin prices from $15 to $20. It would go up, depending again, on the intricacy of it or whatever you wanna do with it. Like, if you wanted a chain it would add to the cost of the whole thing.

JGM
What do you think it is about your work that makes it stand out?

Sydney
I think that we are able to provide a fun and customizable product that’s inexpensive.

Andrea
That’s just about right. It’s not that expensive of a pin. Most people right now accessorize scarves, hats, even pins that have diamonds or like fake crystals on it, and they are about 30 dollars a pin. Here you can get a pin for $15 dollars and you’re out the door.

JGM
Where do most of your design inspirations come from?

Sydney
Well basically, we started off with iconic things, Nintendo ,Yoshi, Mario. I was inspired by famous pixelated art. I started doing computer symbols like the file symbols. People get it and it’s fun, so there was that. We have also had the most random requests. We started doing holiday pins because people wanted holiday ones, which I never expected, but (laughter) I’m not gonna say no.

JGM
How long does it take you to make one?

Sydney
It depends, it can take as little as 5 minutes to make one or sometimes it could take days depending on if we do a mosaic. I think the longest we spent on a mosaic was about a month.

JGM
Do you have any other uses for you product besides the mosaics and the pins ?

Sydney
We’ve made magnets, people asked us about making headbands and other accessories. A guy asked me to do a collaboration with him for his sneakers. There’s a limited amount of places we can go with it, but whatever people are into I’m interested.

JGM
To wrap things up, where do you guys see yourselves in the future with this company?

Sydney
Honestly, I have no idea where the future will take us on this one. It’s taken us thus far, the fact that I’m being interviewed over this, I’m extremely impressed with myself (laughter).

Andrea
I feel the same way, because I started off just helping her out, then we ended up being partners. After everything, it’s funny that we’re being interviewed. I didn’t expect it.

Sydney
I remember we went up to Kid Cudi’s album release party and I was like, “Oh, I donated stuff” and they were like, “Oh yeah, come in” (laughter).

Andrea
We did that for a couple of parties, donated stuff just for the gift bags and I didn’t think people were into our stuff to even ask for them in the gift bags.

Sydney
The craziest thing we did was a release party for The Life Files blog. They gave out our pins at the door instead of the gift bags and it was so crazy! It was an event at the Rivington, and everyone was wearing our pins. Like Ron Browz was there with his posse, and people were wearing pins. It felt good, it was pretty awesome, so it’s just been great!

Photos By Demilade