Diana Beltrán Herrera

A hot air balloon floats through hand-drawn clouds, drawing ever closer. As it approaches, you notice something odd: Instead of the usual wicker basket, this hot air balloon has a bright pink bag for a gondola!
Before you can take a second look, a character — dressed in the same stripes that adorn the balloon — falls out of the sky, and tumbles head-first into the bag-basket.


If you’ve watched this sequence unfold across our social media platforms, you’d have seen the work of Diana
Beltrán Herrera, @dianabeltranherrera, who we teamed up with to create our holiday campaign. Launched at
the end of 2023, the campaign finds Diana’s whimsical world of characters turn up in a variety of amusing situations involving our holiday bags: the POUF, PENNY, PIXEL and PARACHUTE.

We speak with Diana to find out more about how she conceptualised this fantastical universe, as well as her thoughts on collaboration and working with paper as a medium.

[start:#808080]TELL US ABOUT HOW YOUR COLLABORATION WITH IN GOOD COMPANY CAME TO BE. WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS PARTICULAR CAMPAIGN?[end:#808080]

Last year, I had the opportunity to travel to Singapore for work, and during my trip I connected with Jaclyn. After long conversations she invited me to create this campaign. She was looking for something fun and unexpected, and I was excited to work with a new product and material, which were the bags.


Working with fabric presented itself as a challenge, and we started looking at different ideas with the aim to transform the bags into objects or create situations where something unexpected could be happening to/with them. I previously created some fun characters for Christmas last year, and we felt that idea could be the right complement for this holiday campaign.

[start:#808080]THE CHARACTERS YOU CREATE ARE INSPIRED BY PANTOMIME, THE BAUHAUS BALLET AND CIRCUS ACROBATS. ARE THERE CERTAIN QUALITIES THAT YOU FEEL ARE SHARED BETWEEN THESE ART FORMS, YOUR OWN WORK, AND IGC'S CREATIONS?[end:#808080]

I love IGC as a brand. I like how design oriented it is, and the different cuts, textures and choices of colour. I love
fashion and I love to draw inspiration from it for my artwork. When we decided to develop different stories with
each bag and create different characters, I thought it was a great opportunity to play with outfits and costumes, and imagine a world in which the bags could be something other than an accessory.

When I think about playfulness, I always remember the theatre and circus, as well as references such as Alexander
Calder and the Bauhaus. I love from the last one how geometry plays in the construction of identities and the
boldness of forms. I like how the body can be also considered a sculpture in movement, so I drew inspiration from
acrobatics, dance and ballet. I wanted to create a little world where paper, fashion and art could collide.

[start:#808080]HOW DID YOU LAND ON THESE SOURCES OF INSPIRATION, AND HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT DEVELOPING THESE CHARACTERS?[end:#808080]

I like to draw inspiration from design, which is something I'm really passionate about. I like mid-century design and am always looking for references for my work. On a recent visit to the Vitra Campus in Germany, I rekindled my love for wooden figurines, and have been trying to develop a range of my own in recent years.

Since I was given freedom to create, I reached out to my sources of inspiration and dressed up my characters with
patterns and bold shapes, with a vintage feeling, bringing into them a little bit of what I like. I think there is also an element of fantasy in my work, which comes from the possibility that paper gives me to create unique universes.

[start:#808080]IF YOU COULD CAPTURE THE ESSENCE OF THIS CAMPAIGN IN THREE WORDS, WHAT WOULD THEY BE?[end:#808080]

Fantasy, playfulness and movement.

[start:#808080]WHAT DID YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT CRATING THE SCULPTURES YOU DID FOR THIS CAMPAIGN? AND CONVERSELY, WAS THERE A PARTICULAR FORM THAT WAS NEW TO YOU / ESPECIALLY CHALLENGING TO MAKE?[end:#808080]

I have never created a visual campaign from sketch to final product on my own. I like that it was a digital result, so that I could use different tools to deliver the final images. I really enjoyed transforming the vector drawings into paper sculptures.

What was really challenging was to integrate the bags with my paper elements since both materials are very different. But I am really glad they both worked at the end and seem to belong together now. I have worked with just paper for so long, and I am happy to find new materials and ways to put them together.

[start:#808080]YOU WORK CLOSELY WITH PAPER THROUGHOUT YOUR PRACTICE. COULD YOU TELL US ABOUT HOW YOU BECAME INTERESTED, AND SUBSEQUENTLY DECIDED TO FOCUS ON THIS CRAFT FORM?[end:#808080]

At design school, we use paper to create prototypes and models of our designs. When I graduated I wanted to carry on creating, and as a graduate student with no job and not much income, I found in paper a possibility: It was a very inexpensive and very accessible material. By playing with it on a daily basis, I started to feel really curious and developed a passion for it. I am curious to see how far I can take it, and how many things I can do with it.

[start:#808080]WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT WORKING WITH PAPER?[end:#808080]

At design school, we use paper to create prototypes and models of our designs. When I graduated I wanted to carry on creating, and as a graduate student with no job and not much income, I found in paper a possibility: It was a very inexpensive and very accessible material. By playing with it on a daily basis, I started to feel really curious and developed a passion for it. I am curious to see how far I can take it, and how many things I can do with it.

[start:#808080]WHAT, TO YOU, MAKES A COLLABORATION MEANINGFUL?[end:#808080]

To share the same interests and have a similar vision. I love how in this campaign I was guided throughout the process, and that the things we were finding weren't outside or far from the things that I like, but they felt very exciting. The thing I am most interested in about a collaboration is making the other party happy and fulfilled, but also to not lose who I am during the process. And this indeed felt very me. I am really proud of the work we created
together.