If you visit Ellen Van Dusen’s Brooklyn apartment-slash-studio, you encounter a lot of (really brightly colored) source material. And ‘zines, specifically, are such a go-to for her that she and the BF recently had to invest in a rack to hold just them. “I just love that they are so tangible. I love that they are handmade, and I think a book is a really nice way to showcase an artist’s style,” she says of her collection/addiction. Bonus: A lot of otherwise-too-fancy artists make them, which means you can access their work for less than a Jackson. Here are a few that, in Ellen’s humble opinion, are worth seeking out. —ericaJust Desserts by Tara Sin “It’s all 3D images of desserts with naked women in them or on top of them. It comes with 3D glasses—it’s a crowd-pleaser when we have guests over.”Girl Gang Zine by Kristina Hens and Maren Karlson “I was so excited to find this—it’s the second in the series. They interview lots of cool girls like Cassie Ramone, Tavi, the girls from Grass Widow, and Marnie Stern. It’s all about girl power, and it rules.”Disfunction Junction by Taylor McKimens“I love this ‘zine because it’s so tiny and detailed. Taylor McKimens’s paintings are in there along with photographs and some artist collab stuff, too. I really like his paintings, so it’s nice to be able to own something that he made.”Jessica Ciocci ‘zine with no name“This was the first ‘zine I ever owned, so it has a special place in my heart. There are a lot of drawings in here of Miss Piggy and of Barbie—and also a lot of funny pop culture collages. There are some really awesome patterns, too. I almost always look at this before I start working on prints. The cover is totally worn-out—you can see that it’s had its fair share of use!” Don’t miss out on Ellen’s denim pillows, screened with ‘zine-inspired prints. Just 60 of ‘em!

For Ellen Van Dusen, the Brooklyn-based designer behind Dusen Dusen, it’s always been about the textiles. “I loved to search for them. I could never make them small-scale because it’s just way too expensive,” she explains, “but it was always something I wanted to do.”It took Ellen a while to wrap her head around the idea of going into fashion, though. Unsure that she could actually survive making clothes, she took a more intellectual road into the design world, creating her own major at Tufts University that allowed her to learn about how we experience aesthetics. “I basically studied the visual system from as many different perspectives as I could,” she says.After interning for Norma Kamali and working for Mary Meyer (another textile genius), Ellen decided it was time to start crafting her own collection and trying to get it into stores. Within no time, she was picked up by the New York boutique Duo and was knee-deep in orders. “I was constantly sewing—back then I was doing all the sewing myself,” she recalls. “That went on for like four months, until I decided that I had to do it full-time.” No big surprise here: The pace hasn’t slowed since.As for what’s next, Ellen’s focusing on how to move her line forward for fall 2011: “I want to make sweaters. I’m having a hard time figuring out how to do that on a small scale. And I’d like to do pants. Those are my short-term goals.” —erica Ellen’s edition (for your home!) is here! Make sure you don’t miss out on these denim pillows, guys.

Which came first: the Dusen Dusen mastermind’s desire to spiff up her Brooklyn pad, or the idea to make pillows with some of her rad textiles? What really matters is that we benefit on both sides. In addition to making two crazy-good white-on-denim pillows for us, Ellen Van Dusen also opened up to us about some of her hopes and dreams on the décor front. No surprise here: She not afraid of a little color. —erica Ready to get a load of these denim pillows? Have at it! Only 60 in the world. “My boyfriend Will and I don’t have any plants inside our apartment right now, so we got this thing called a Woolly Pocket. It’s this planter that you put on the wall so it looks like you have a living wall. [Ed: Pictured above in not-Ellen’s-home.] The goal is to get a lot of hanging plants that grow downwards and have it cover the entire planter. I’m really psyched about that. I’m really excited to fill it.”“Something I’ve been thinking about buying but haven’t pulled the trigger on yet is a print by my friend Dave Singley. It’s a night floral scene, and the colors are really nice. He usually only does painting, and he just released his first series of prints.”“I recently bought this giant Stendig calendar that is really awesome. It’s really big—it’s like four feet by three feet—so it totally dominates the space above my computer, which is great! I found it through a series of internet clicking.”“I have really gotten into this artist from RISD—her name is Morgan Blair. I bought a print from her recently, but my dream is to buy one of her paintings. I think they are pretty reasonably priced, so it could maybe happen. She uses a lot of really bright, fun colors and really geometric stuff—it reminds me of my prints. This is a bunch of her paintings, but I want all of them together.”“Have you ever heard of the designers David David? They’re awesome. They are British, and their stuff is really cool—colorful and wild. It’s a dream to have these chairs around my dining table!”