Your Decal Shop, Hastings' newest product of 22 carat gold decals are, for the most part, Kiwiana-inspired. Photo / Supplied
Hawke's Bay businessman Antony Clark isn't just sitting on a potential gold mine, he's about to stick one to your wall.
Clark, the founder and director of Hastings store Your Decal Shop has created a "world first" range of 22 carat gold designer wall decal stickers.
Clark's creative brain was triggered a few years back when he saw a Facebook post about a golf-flecked ice-cream sundae being sold for $1000.
He figured he could do one better.
Clark has a background in product design, but to create the unique decals he had to put in hard yakka and do thorough research.
On the way he discovered gold vinyl had never been attempted by anyone else in the world. He noticed American fire engines sporting gold detailing on them and decided to use them as inspiration.
"We had to invent the product from scratch," he says.
"I discovered that fire engines in America had gold detailing, so I touched base with a New York firm who were working with gold."
Clark, together with the American company, re-engineered the gold to be suitable for high-quality wall decals.
The process, which took over a year to perfect, involved some trial and error with different gold finishes, adhesives and designs.
"When we were making the mock-ups, we couldn't just wing it, after all, we would be throwing away gold," Clark said.
"This meant creating smart, fast and fewer mock-ups in order to reach perfection."
The end result is a polished 22 carat gold with an adhesive which can be applied to almost any smooth interior surface.
The 22 carat gold is sourced from the US and meets the requirements of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act implemented by The US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The decal material is processed by a family-owned business in Florida who vaporise the gold in a vacuum system and adhere it to a film with their engineered burnished matte finish, he says.
"We work with microfibre gloves to prevent any fingerprints or marks and the 22 carat gold wall decals come in an exclusive matte black and gold packaging that includes a named, signed and dated certificate of authentication."
The gold decals will set you back nearly $820 for the biggest in the range, with the smallest one fetching $120.
Clark believes people will still buy the product.
"The popularity of decals has gone up, people are realising that art is not limited to canvas or prints, and that it can be celebrated in different ways. The sales of decals is doubling year on year.
"The gold decals are a really innovative, customisable product and I think people like customisable products."
He expects the gold custom name wall decal (where you can literally write your name in gold and put on your wall) will be quite popular.
The gold decals will officially be launched on May 9.
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