I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Dannon Rampton, new interior designer and now blogger. His creation: The Interior Environmentalist. The site will be an online resource for green design – specifically focused on the high-end, designer market, with in depth product reviews. While the site is just getting started, I think it’s a worthy cause and I like to support fellow entrepreneurs. Dannon asked me about why we don’t have a “green” section on Decorati right now, which you can read about here (manufacturers need to provide the information!). We also had a fun discussion about all that’s involved in starting a new enterprise -I hope I have not scared him away with my descriptions of long days. Dannon, we look forward to seeing more from your site. Good luck!
One resource we discussed – a number of our manufacturers are members of The Sustainable Furniture Council, which I first heard about from Tucker Robbins.
Some other good blog resources:
Decorati Forums discussion on favorite design blogs: http://decorati.com/forum/thread/96/recommended-design-blogs-up-on-decorati
Blog list from Sarah Rich, Dwell Editor: http://access.decorati.com/2009/11/17/tools-of-the-trade-a-web-based-resource-guide-san-francisco-design-center-panel-recap/
If anyone knows of other good blogs on environmentally friendly design, please add it here and/or in the list in the forums.
I was honored to be a panel speaker at the San Francisco Design Center, along with PR consultant Alisa Carol and Dwell Magazine editor Sarah Rich (hosted by California Homes Magazine and editor Vanessa Brunner). We covered lots of topics, including a sneak preview of Decorati Pro Premier – our new elevated service available to designers looking to use the web to promote and grow their businesses.
Here is a list of websites mentioned:
www.apartmenttherapy.com
www.coolhunting.com
www.core77.com
www.designspongeonline.com
www.dezeen.com
www.dwell.com
www.decorati.com
www.grassrootsmodern.com
www.habituallychic.blogspot.com
www.inhabitat.com
www.mocoloco.com
www.notcot.org
www.psfk.com
www.spaceinvading.com
www.swiss-miss.com
www.theselby.com
If you want to recommend other sites, please feel free to do so here, or better yet, join the conversation in the Decorati Forums where we are compiling a great list of design blogs.
http://decorati.com/forum/thread/96/recommended-design-blogs-up-on-decorati
While visiting Edward Ferrell + Lewis Mittman in High Point, I got to take some snapshots of new products. The sofa above is my favorite – so pretty! I love the pleats and other details. The two sofas below are so plush. The company is also introducing some new large ottomans with a sturdy table-like top (read: comfortable to put your feet up but can also hold your drink – brilliant!). Stay tuned for all these and more on Decorati. Read the rest of this entry »
Curious to know what happens after you place an order in a trade-only showroom? Well, if you are smart enough to order from manufacturer Edward Ferrell + Lewis Mittman, your order goes to the headquarters in North Carolina. There, a state-of-the-art manufacturing system insures your piece gets completed with high-quality craftsmanship in record time (see our previous Decorati feature on EFLM). While at High Point market this past weekend, I caught up with EFLM President Jobi Blachy, who gave me a tour of the facility. I was so impressed, I wanted to show you a few snaps.
Working on the design for a townhouse in a suburb of San Francisco, my first step was to simplify and unify the wall colors. I went with Benjamin Moore’s Baby’s Breath (OC-62). I love how this paint works almost anywhere – it can look grey, light blue, and even white (but it’s more interesting than white). The color works with almost any color combination. We used it all over the house. Click here to GET THIS LOOK.
A popular topic of discussion among designers (and homeowners hiring designers) is how to create a fair agreement. Why is it that so often both sides feel like they got the short end of the stick? Are there good models out there from other industries?
I asked our FORUMS this question. What do you think? Feel free to anwer here or in our Decorati Forum on the topic.
While at Fall Market in LA last week, I was struck by how much curiosity there still is about the basics of design blogs. Designers want to know what they are, which are the best ones, how they can help their businesses, etc. Decorati has hosted packed panel discussions at Design Centers all over the country (examples: Schumacher event, Stark event, Robert Allen event, Jerry Pair event) on the topic of blogs, so, I must say, Designers, it is time to check them out. Your clients may be reading them.
People often ask if blogs are more important than print for exposure. The short answer is no. Most of the top shelter magazines have many times the circulation of blogs. For example, Elle Decor reports a circulation of 520,000. Other than a few notable exceptions, most design blogs have far fewer than 10,000 unique visitors per month (and by the way, many design bloggers do not understand web metrics and often misreport their traffic when asked). But of course, blogs are searchable and live “forever” online (something magazines have not figured out yet) so comparing them to print circulation is not entirely fair. And, bloggers who have managed to build an audience with original content often have a very loyal following with a unique point of view or taste, such as Peak of Chic or Cote de Texas. So, while print is still the heavyweight in the design industry, blogs play an important, and ever growing, role.
I recently asked our community Forums for their favorite design blogs. CLICK HERE to see the list or add more. We also keep a Blogroll of selected blogs on the right rail of Decorati Access Blog. Enjoy!
Yesterday was fall market at the Pacific Design Center in LA. I sat on the keynote panel hosted by Traditional Home covering “The Past, Present, and Future of Design,” along with designers Tobi Farley, Windsor Smith, Joe Lucas, and Peter Dunham, and moderator Candace Ord Manroe, Senior Design Editor at Traditional Home. Candace asked many probing questions about design trends and how elements of design, from colors to materials, can be timeless. I mentioned how on Decorati we can see data across all manufacturers, and that there are certain shapes of furniture that appear to be timeless in their appeal because they are always the most popular, no matter what color or finish or debut date. As far as the future of design, I discussed how the speed at which products come to market now via online tools is allowing for far more innovation for interior designers. I look forward to many more years to come of wonderful design.
Thanks again to Traditional Home for a wonderful day of learning and sharing.
After a bit of a break from blogging, I am back. It’s been a busy month. For starters, I got married! I wore a Melissa Sweet dress and added a band of Donghia fabric (Get the Look: Debutante 10032) as an accent color, and to personalize the dress with an element of interior design. Officially, my new last name is McCarroll, but I’m easing into that. In addition to a brief honeymoon in Italy, I finished a design project, headed to NY and checked out the Metropolitan Home Showtime house, and the Veranda Art of Design party, for which I was delighted to be on the award nominating committee. Back in San Francisco I worked with the Decorati product team on a number of new product features, including “Get This Look,” which links photos with the products in them. Did you see our big story in the NY Times? Today I was at the Pacific Design Center in LA to be on the keynote panel hosted by Tradtional Home. Needless to say, it’s been a packed couple of weeks. Stay tuned for more pics.
One quick note – a big congrats to the First Family of San Francisco, my college friend, Jen Siebel Newsom, and her husband Mayor Gavin Newsom, for new baby girl Montana!
By AUDREY TEMPELSMAN, Read the story at the NY Times.
Published: August 19, 2009
ALTHOUGH the economy has made it easier to gain access to high-end interior designers, it can still be hard to find the perfect fit. One route is to connect with a new online venture called Decorati Design Advisors(decorati.com/designadvisors), begun in May by Shane Reilly, a San Francisco interior designer and founder of Decorati, a decorating Web site.
The new service matches interior designers with people shopping for help with projects large or small. Decorati customers choose from six project categories, then complete an online form describing budget, needs and whether a local designer is preferred (although e-decorating renders location irrelevant). Photographs can also be attached.
A selection process that is “part algorithm, part human intervention,” according to Ms. Reilly, helps the Decorati staff cherry-pick 100 designers from their database of 20,000. (The site plans to begin charging designers a $200 to $500 annual membership fee in September.) “It’s like a dating game,” she said.
The staff then sends an e-mail message notifying the designers that they are a potential match and outlining the project’s specifications. The first five designers to pay the $10 lead fee have access to the customer’s contact information. Customers can then chose which designer they want to work with. The leads, which typically sell out in an hour, are being snatched up by some of the most established names in interior design.
The New York designer Amy Lau, for example, a frequent presence in top national decorating magazines, bought a lead for a three-room apartment renovation in Manhattan. “To do a living room, a kitchen and a master bedroom is not something that I would particularly look to take on” under normal circumstances, Ms. Lau said. But in this faltering economy, she said, she is more receptive. “In a world where everything’s up and down, it just provides that many more choices,” she said.
Some designers express frustration with the impersonal element that the Internet introduces, particularly with small projects that the client wants completed quickly. Shirley Parks, a Mill Valley, Calif., interior designer, bought a lead to find eight new dining chairs for Paul Schneider, 66, a computer consultant in the same town, and was hired for the job. Ms. Parks suggested they meet so she could understand his “goals, who you are, what you want,” she said.
But Mr. Schneider shied away from an intimate — not to mention expensive — relationship. “He told me: ‘No, we don’t need to meet. Let’s just keep e-mailing and we’ll tell you what we want, and you’ll go get it for us,’ ” she said. Through e-mail messages and phone calls, Ms. Parks selected a set of clear acrylic and steel chairs from Janus et Cie, a California furniture retailer, but found the process dispiritingly disconnected.
“As a designer, it’s our job to come up with ideas they wouldn’t have ever come up with and to understand their style better than they even understand it themselves,” she said. “The client is going to miss out on that if they keep the designer at arm’s length.”
But Mr. Schneider thought that the low-cost, low-commitment project was the perfect “trial balloon” for building confidence. “We have ideas that we’d like to pursue, if our 401(k)’s inflate a bit more — again,” he said. “I wouldn’t hesitate now to go and talk to Shirley and say, ‘This is what we’d like to do next.’ ”
In fact, he said, he is thinking of hiring Ms. Parks for a larger project: renovating his large open-plan living room. “It’s like you can’t paint one wall — once you start, you’ve got to keep going.”