HerlanderArt LLC is a New Jersey based fabrication business that specializes in custom furniture and painted back drops; fabrication and installations for photo shoots, video sets and fashion shows; painting of props; window display set-up and arrangement; refinishing vintage furniture pieces; and prop styling. The owner, Herlander Passos, has been designing and creating artful furniture for more
than 20 years. He founded HerlanderArt in 2010, and with a masthead of talented, dedicated artists and craftsmen has completed large-scale design and fabrication projects for major corporate clients to smaller boutique firms such as Alice + Olivia (NYC), D. (Japan), Probus (NYC), Saks Fifth Avenue (Miami), Bloomingdales (NYC) Harvey Nichols (London), and Lane Crawford (Hong Kong). Passos also designed and produced photo sets for Sebastian Smith Photography (NYC) and Rowena True TrueLaLa (London). The son of Portuguese parents, Herlander Passos was born in Bronx, New York. He attended Elizabeth High School in NJ, and under the guidance of his art instructors he began creating. In 1990, Passos studied art throughout Europe, and briefly, under the direction of painter Nuno Siqueira. Once back in the United States, he enrolled in the Newark School of Fine & Industrial Arts, and then in 2002 he moved to Puerto Rico and attended Inter-American University where he graduated with a BBA in Marketing and MBA in Finance. By 2007, Passos moved back to New Jersey to continue painting and showing his work at gallery events. No matter the medium, Passos is client focused. He sees design as a shared experience between audience and artist where space is transformed to be functional but inclusive of experience. From playful to elegant, to vintage to ultra modern, Passos designs have been described as “colorful,” “unusual,” and “playful.” He encourages people to think of design as a collaborative process where color and texture create rich, surprising content.
