Pierina Merino is a 26 years old Venezuela-born, Los Angeles-based Architect, Jewelry Designer and Marketer. She is PIEMER’s Design Director— a lifestyle brand offering a 3D-printed jewelry collection and the founder of Nextifyup— a platform that curates and promotes the top digitally fabricated products and their designers. “With over four years of experience in the design field, Pierina Merino has worked at Gehry Partners, Tighe Architecture, collaborated with different architects on a variety of installations, directed the development of 3D-environments for high-end retail stores for virtual reality experiences, Lectured at colleges, participated in discussion panels, and had her work displayed at galleries and events, such as Dwell On Design, The Building Bridges Gallery and MAGIC. PIEMER designs have been endorsed and exhibited at the Los Angeles Museum of Design and Architecture. Pierina received a bachelor’s of architecture from The Southern California Institute Of Architecture (SCI_ARC), where she graduated with The Best Undergraduate Thesis Award and distinctions for academic excellence. She also obtain a UCLA Business Administration Certificate With Concentration In Marketing.
As Pierina has evolved and mastered her design skills combined with the use of digital fabrication technology, her interest in the incorporation of new technologies into the concept building of different project types allowed her art and 3D-design direction skills to become stronger. Merino is not only capable of engaging in architectural projects, but she also brings her unique and cutting-edge design skills and ideas into different areas of expertise such as product design, fashion design, brand development, experiential design and marketing.”
What’s the concept of your latest collection? PIEMER is a lifestyle brand offering a contemporary 3D printed accessories collection featuring designs made with flexible acrylic, steel with different metal infusions and precious metals. The cross-demographic flexibility of Pierina Merino’s designs it’s one of the most appealing qualities of PIEMER: Vivid by PIEMER is meant to appeal to the younger edgy crowd that looks for a more flashy, fresh and fun look. Contemporary by PIEMER was created for the professional, career-minded lady that aspires for a more neutral every-day-look to stay in trend from a day at work to a lunch meeting to a night out. Lastly, Lux by PIEMER was designed for an older, more sophisticated audience. She is classy, she is confident and she likes to stay on trend.
What inspires you the most? There is no denial of how my architectural background affects the way I perceive, design and materialize my designs. After having a successful start to my architectural career working for Architects such as Frank Gehry and Patrick Tighe I got to impact people in a macro way- by creating strategic design moves I was capable of changing and enhancing the way people live and experience spaces in their daily basis. However, I always knew I would find a way to use my design sensibility in order to impact one person at the time. Since I founded PIEMER I have come to the realization of how profoundly satisfying is to appreciate how something so little as an accessory can lift, and enhance the persona, style and sense of self of an individual.
How does the place you live in affect your design? LA is the city where dreams come true. Talented people from all over the world come to Los Angeles looking to have a chance in their industry of expertise.
What’s the future of fashion according to you? I believe that fashion will be decentralized and autonomy and more user generated products will start to emerge. We are starting to see how ‘options’ are actually becoming accessible to costumers. In terms of the ability to personalize and customized designs, materials, colors. As a designers, I will be the stepping stone for my costumers to make their next fashion statement, it won’t be my, it will be theirs.
What’s your next project? On one hand, I’m planning to keep growing PIEMER, establishing the brand and most importantly I want to keep helping women to embrace them-self, celebrating femininity, confidence and happiness. On the other hand, I’m planning to keep building my career as a creative director, using my experience in new technologies and my background in architecture to have an impact in different industries such as experiential and interactive design, marketing and product development.
http://www.pierinamerino.com
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