Tony Piloseno is an entrepreneur with a very original story. The voyage of his company, Tonester Paints – founded in Florida in 2021 – begins in Ohio, where he was working in an important paint store. Hoping to add a bit of creativity to his routine, at the time of the COVID pandemic in 2020 Tony began to demonstrate his talent for mixing colors on TikTok. Soon his videos, catalogued with the trend/label ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response), went viral with over a million followers and over 20 million Likes.
After quitting his job, Piloseno continued to mix colors on TikTok. This led to the project of the company Tonester Paints, to offer his own very personal range of colors, inspired by trends in design and art. The basic idea is to create paints (available at the moment only in the USA, with European marketing slated to begin in the fall) for interior use with strong emotional impact.
To get an idea: one of the bestselling colors is a very dark bluish-green that seems gray, known as Storms in Paris. Total narration, as in many of the other names in the catalogue: Anecdote, Even Angels Cry, Lost Souls, Secret Society. The colors blended by Piloseno, whose inventive mixing techniques add depth or remove saturation, are ready for personalization, to create spaces in the image of the people who inhabit them.
“Filling spaces with color is the best way to narrate the personality of any individual,” he says. “This is why I try to create rich tones of great impact that are not too oppressive, however, though their presence does get noticed. I take inspiration from European interior design projects I find on Instagram or Pinterest, and from various works of art. When I see projects and shades of color I like, I formulate my own variations, using my personal techniques to achieve the final result.”
The company presents new color collections twice a year, based on the season and on emerging trends. Piloseno has clear ideas about his career path, decidedly different from the usual standards in this sector: “TikTok is a unique platform because it shows your work to millions of users all over the world,” he explains. “I have learned that if you create content with the simple aim of inspiring, informing or connecting on an emotional level, success is guaranteed. With my colors, you get an emotional connection with the environment, like what happens when you look at a work of art.”
