Crafters, do you recall that tingle of excitement you felt the first time you walked into the paint store and noticed the display for chalkboard paint? Well hold on to your hats, because there’s a new craft paint, and you’re going to be positively attracted to it. MagnaMagic is the world’s original magnetic paint brand, and they just relaunched their brand with a new DIY website to help you get crafty.
MagnaMagic founder Joe Deetz invented magnetic paint in 1992, while working on a signmaking project for a restaurant chain. He needed an innovative way to hang a sign on a wall for a client. He came home one night from work and started mixing things up in his kitchen sink. The next day Joe tested his new creation, and lo and behold, he had invented MagnaMagic, the world’s first magnetic paint.
Joe eventually quit his job as a sign maker and took MagnaMagic to market. He and his family launched a new business in 2007 – Visual Magnetics – that was built off the innovation of magnetic paint. The company’s initial product line, intended for commercial use, offered large-scale magnetic display systems. Then in May, 2014, Visual Magnetics launched Dynamic Spaces. This new product line offers a variety of layerable wall coverings, dry-erase surfaces, graphics, magnetic surfaces, chalk boards and the like that can be used for retail or museum displays, office or educational work surfaces, and innovative home decorations.And it’s a really easy project.”
While the Deetz family knew that their magnetic paint was something special back in the late 90s and early 2000s, the small, family-run business simply lacked the manpower for a national, large-scale retail launch of the product while they were developing and promoting their other product lines. But with the DIY market’s amazing expansion and sites like Pinterest currently growing like wildfire, Joe and his family realized that it was time to make MagnaMagic a retail priority. Along with their daughter, Creative Director Tori Deetz, and Maketing Manager Naomi Mukai, Joe and Sandy re-launched MagnaMagic on February 18, 2015.
Visual Magnetics’ new website, www.MagnaMagic.com, shows a wonderful variety of innovative DIY projects for the new paint, from magnetic headboards for children’s beds to magnetic vision boards. “What’s really fun is that even if you rent an apartment and you can’t paint your wall, we show how you can create a vision board using any kind of frame,” says Creative Director Tori Deetz. “You just need to prepare a large frame with magnetic paint and top it with your choice of latex paint color, and you can have a really beautiful board. It’s almost like what you would get out of having a refrigerator or a pin board, but you can customize the style and size for your space.
Creating A Beautiful Magnetic Vision Board
The Deetz family understands the need to be involved with their clients, and they enjoy doing so. “We know that our products benefit from dialogues with our customers. Our sales are truly an interactive experience, which we love because it gives us a great opportunity for customer service. Customers can call us, and because we are a small specialized team we can give people that extra bit of service that they might not get from a larger paint manufacturer.”
The Deetz’s love sharing new ideas for MagnaMagic. Besides the wonderful ideas on their own site, Tori told us about a woman who wrote about how the kinesthetic nature of playing with objects on a wall actually helps children to learn. What better reason could there be for a parent to paint a wall with magnetic paint, and invest in a bucket of magnetic alphabet letters or words?
The company is also very involved with Pinterest and Instagram, and they enjoy reaching out to consumers who’ve used MagnaMagic and encouraging them to send in their photos to be pinned. “We love it – it’s like having our own little community of fans,” Tori says. “It’s a treasure trove of content that people are putting out there. It’s very exciting.”
And remember how earlier we reminisced about that tingly feeling we got when we discovered chalkboard paint? Well, how about magnetic chalkboard paint? Thanks to MagnaMagic this dream combination actually does exist in an all in one paint, According to Tori, “It’s a fantastic surface. It erases beautifully. We actually have one customer that keeps sending photos every single opportunity – football season, holidays, you name it – she draws a new design on her MagnaMagic wall, and it doesn’t look old or ghosted. It’s really beautiful.”
But wait, that’s not all! The best part about this product, and all of the products that the Deetz family sells, is that they are non-toxic and low-to-no VOC. Unlike MagnaMagic, most paints and finishes release low-level toxic emissions into the air for years after application because they contain VOCs (volatile organic compounds) in efforts to enhance the paint’s performance. Short-term effects of VOCs can include acute headaches and dizziness, and though the long-term effects are not certain, the US Environmental Protection Agency has posited that some VOCs may be carcinogens. Many paint manufacturers are trying to cut down on the use of VOCs, but the production of eco-friendly products has always been a top priority for the Deetz’s. All of their paints are eco-friendly and completely safe for kids.
In the future, the Deetz’s are hoping that consumers who enjoy MagnaMagic will begin to innovate with other products in their Dynamic Spaces line. Their newest exciting innovation is a line of magnetic wall coverings called ModuLayer. To date, everything from the Dynamic Spaces line has been custom, but Visual Magnetics is working with artists and designer to create special wallcoverings collections. And as always, all Dynamic Spaces products are eco-friendly – they are all PVC-free, reusable, and recyclable.
MagnaMagic is currently available at Sherwin Williams or online at www.MagnaMagic.com, along with complete directions that show how to effectively apply the paint for optimal results. Dynamic Spaces products can be seen at www.DynamicSpaces.com.
Publisher: Anthony Chiaravallo | Editor: Gail Morrison