Designer Cristian Zuzunaga refuses to follow seasons and trends, and instead turns the pixel into the next big thing

Specialising in interior accessories the Catalan designer is best known for his pixelated designs combining digital and analogue worlds

The Dreams cabinet is the latest collaboration between Zuzunaga studios and BD Barcelona

Today’s world is obsessed with the very fine line between the virtual and the real. People insist upon living as virtually as possible while still physically in the real world. But in art and design, these opposites can work beautifully together, as artist and designer Cristian Zuzunaga proves.

Best known for his digital meets analogue pixel designs, the award winning founder of Zuzunaga Studios has specialised in unique, bright interior products, textiles and fashion accessories that are based on the little individual square of colour, which he says capture the dynamic nature of contemporary living.

Based in Barcelona, his signature prints proudly put hand-crafted individualism over mass production.

His inspiration comes from modern architecture housed inside the world’s most famed cities, from London and Barcelona to New York and Shanghai , where the architecture has created a space for human vitality within a digital world.

The Spirit cushion is from the Squaring of the Circle collection, £66 from Zuzunaga.com

After studying an MA at the Royal College of Art from 2005, the designer realised the importance of accessories, and analogue and digital relationships followed shortly. He formed a technique that combines the modernity of the world in its digital form with analogue traditions including print, letterpress, photography, sculpture, textile and furniture design.

The Mercury cushion is from the same collection. Every cushion features a unique pattern. £66 from Zuzunaga.com

Using a palette of bright colours, from pinks to yellows he explores it as a means to evoke emotions and counterbalance negative ways of seeing and thinking. His latest collaboration is The Dreams Cabinet with BD Barcelona. Inspired by a dream Zuzunaga had, it has been created using artisanal processes, resurrecting a typology of furniture that was lost toward the end of the last century.

“The inspiration behind the project is to make visible the invisible and to use the pixel to represent the present moment we live now; where digital technology is taking over our lives.

The Dreams cabinet is available from Chaplins, £6634

“The use of digitally printed glass resembles the look of our mobile phones and tablets and uses this as a narrative to represent the actual moment we all live in.

The white Inca side table is from the latest collection inspired by South America £529 from zuzunaga.com

“The way the legs are placed and attached to the actual cabinet allow the viewer to have the illusion/experience that the cabinet is floating, as if it is suspended. In a way there is a contradiction in place: on one hand the cabinet has so much gravity towards it and at the same time it seems to be floating,” says Zuzunaga.

Zuzunaga's Inca range has stepped away from his usual bright colours and uses more monochrome tones, £5130 from zuzunaga.com

Using large coloured pixels, the design house worked with design brand nanimarquina to create the Digit rug collection, which is hand-knotted and made from 100 per cent New Zealand wool.

As well as rugs, the brand created a range of cushions based on the pixel trend, representing the zoomed-in image of a cityscape. No two are ever the same.

His latest launch is a new furniture collection, called INCA, inspired by his recent travels to Peru. Starting with a visit to Cuzco and Macchu Picchu, he was fascinated by the precision and detail of the constructions.

He returned to Europe where he handmade prints using a 1950s FAG proofing press machine, which formed the pattern that runs through the entire collection. Zuzunaga claims not to work by following the seasons and trends – he only creates the trends, it seems.