Successful designers have systems
What do you do when a call comes in? When you measure a room? When you hire a contractor? Do you have specific steps to follow for every part of your business? Or do you wing it? I used to! But I learned that "winging it" leads to chaos and confusion, and you certainly can't grow from there. Successful designers handle each part of their business the same way every time. They follow a system for everything. Systems lead to consistency, organization, and effectiveness.

Successful designers study marketing
Unfortunately, being a terrific designer doesn't necessarily make you successful. In order to succeed in business, we need to be super marketers. Successful designers are either great at marketing, or they hire people who are. The most lucrative design firms actually spend more time and energy on marketing than they do on studying design.

Successful designers are detail- oriented
This may seem obvious, but are you doing it? Successful designers take care with every detail of the business - from all aspects of office work to each element of design projects. This doesn't mean they do it all themselves (in fact, profitable design companies delegate a lot of the details.), but they always make sure that every part of their business - down to the smallest details - supports their exceptional image.

Rebecca emailed me to tell me about her awesome cushion business: Cushlab. I can’t get enough of the textures. Plus, faux bois ones are really fancy.

http://www.cushlab.co.uk

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Or should I make that Hutton Wilkinson style? In the June/July issue of C magazine, there is a neat little article about the way Hutton Wilkinson and his wife Ruth entertain at their home "Dawnridge" (you know, Tony Duquette's former home). On the table above, set for a luncheon, Wilkinson chose an emerald green tablecloth for the table, which is adorned with Chinese figures and pagodas from Duquette's collection. I just love the ballroom chairs with their malachite-patterned chair pads. And continuing with the malachite theme are the plates by D.L. & Co.

And what will the guests eat and drink at this elegant luncheon in a rather exotic setting? Hibiscus lemonade, Fattoush salad, and fromage blanc with berries and honey for dessert. I don't know if the guests will get the chance to have a piece of the "coral" cake, seen below- it's too pretty to cut!

Finally, the satiated guests will get to take home a very stylish party favor- a D.L. & Co. Duquette candle. My luncheons and dinners tend not to end with favors, but I just might change my mind!


A cake too pretty to eat! Cake by Cake Divas in Los Angeles


I'm smitten with these malachite plates D.L. & Co.


The Duquette candle by D.L. & Co.

(Image at top and of cake from C Magazine; Peter Wintersteller photographer)

Photos by Marv Bondarowicz THE OREGONIAN
Moving to the Pearl Design Center allowed Bev Landfair to more than double the space for her store, Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery.

Debbie Madden, whose husband, Mark, is a principal in the development company Stark Group LLC, had spent an entire day crisscrossing the greater metropolitan area to look at fabrics and furnishings. After cruising nearly every county -- and enduring a car accident to boot -- she lamented Portland's lack of a design district where a person could see all these things at once -- hopefully without incident.

So, in classic Portland fashion, Stark Group bought a city block under the trusses of the Fremont Bridge and transformed buildings that once housed Quimby Welding into the Pearl Design Center.

Photos by Marv Bondarowicz THE OREGONIAN
Studios and storefronts now occupy the Pearl Design Center. The space used to be Quimby Welding.

Set between Northwest 14th and 15th avenues and Northwest Raleigh and Savier streets, the approximately 34,000-square-foot showroom and studio space opened last spring and is about 60 percent full, says Tami Wood of Stark Group.

Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery, a showroom of furniture, fabrics and accessories, is its largest tenant. A handful of other businesses -- Architectural Elegance, Quince Flowers & Events, Studio Olivine, Northwest Framing Commercial, Progress Construction, Intrinsic Design and WDC Properties (which manages Stark Group) -- are scattered about the complex.

Just a quick reminder that Top Design starts on Bravo tonight (10 p.m. on the east coast; as for the rest of you, I don’t know). Apparently they have retooled the show and added the fabulous India Hicks as the host. Jonathan Adler, Margaret Russell, and Kelly Wearstler will be returning as judges, and I believe Todd Oldham will be returning as a studio critic. I enjoyed the show last year but had a ton of constructive (and not so constructive) criticism to offer; it will be interesting to see how they have changed it. I hope they branch out from the PDC with some creative challenges, and that they don’t have another garage decorating challenge that is a thinly veiled advertisement for an SUV. Anyway, we’ll be dishing about the show tomorrow on decor8, so come on over and join in if you want to add your two cents.

Speaking of very obvious vehicular product placement, did anyone catch last week’s Project Runway? I was on vacation without cable so I just caught it last night. All I could think about was how ridiculously heavy my Harvey seatbelt bag is and that Korto’s seatbelt coat must have weighed about 100 pounds. It is really flippin’ cool though; I don’t think Korto has had a bad design hair day yet; she has REALLY got it going on. You might have missed it, as she seems to be a nice, normal person with normal color hair who doesn’t have diva fits, add “-licious” to the end of every word, live in a tanning bed, make snide comments about her competitors or talk about herself in the third person (Hey Suede, you sound like Jimmy on Seinfeld!).

While I’m on the topic of design tv, I have a tiny teaser from The Fine Living Network. It’s a sneak peek into their new show, Whatever, Martha, which premieres on September 16th at 9:00 p.m. Click here for clips. Alexis seems cool and well-adjusted, in spite of having a perfectionist mother. She also has really cute hair.

All right, I’m off to set my DVR.

• top 2 photos from bravotv.com

• third photo from Fine Living Network

Photo by wespionage

Have a lovely weekend!

For example there was a pair of traditional drum tables flanking the sofa in the Living Room that he topped with organic tree trunk lamps. Very unexpected, but it gives the space a humorous edge. Instead of the expected Oriental area rug, he uses a goatskin rug to change things up a bit.

In the Family Room, he uses soothing light colors with just one punch of color in the art to expand the smallish space into something that seems much larger. Gorgeous!

For many more photos from the Wick Design Group's portfolio, be sure to check out this post from Desire to Inspire.

I believe I have a new crush!

I really went gaga over legendary magazine editor Mary Jane Pool's apartment that was featured in the March Domino. I thought it was such a beautiful mix of graceful antiques, 20th century pieces, and gorgeous fabrics and wallpaper. So, while I was reading Tiffany Taste(aka Table Settings of the Rich and Famous) the other day, I came across a chapter on Ms. Pool and her style of entertaining.

According to the book, Ms. Pool has a fondness for all things Venetian (this is confirmed by the Domino article, which notes that Pool has a decent sized collection of 18th and 19th c. painted Venetian antiques). For a summer lunch, Ms. Pool would likely start with a salad of shredded celery, mushrooms, Gruyère, white truffles, and a vinaigrette of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The main course might be a pasta gratinée of green tagliarini, béchamel, prosciutto, and tomato. For dessert? Chocolate twigs or truffles, grapes, or strawberries accompanied by mandarin orange tea. Oh, and no wine- "nothing dangerous"- with lunch, only San Pellegrino. After all, when you're an editor of a magazine, you have to stay on your toes!

What I enjoyed most were the photos of Pool's Sutton Place apartment circa 1986. Author John Loring wrote that Pool "knows as much as anyone about the domestic pleasures that make life sweet." I wholeheartedly agree.


What a sumptuous mix of yellow satin curtains, yellow walls, and red satin(?) chairs. In fact, those chairs appear to be the same ones that were featured in Pool's Olympic Tower apartment, although at that time they were covered in orange cotton pique. The mirror is 18th c. Venetian. And notice the pedestal table, which Pool still owns today (see image of Pool at top). According to Tiffany Taste, the base is in the shape of a neoclassic Italian urn.


Another Venetian piece- this time an 18th c. painted commode. The tea service is Royal Berlin, and the silver Tiffany basket is filled with chocolate twigs.


Tiffany's classic "Chrysanthemum" flatware and "Nymphalidae" dessert plates adorn the table. Strawberries are nestled in a Tiffany sterling basket.

(Image at top of Pool- photographer Annie Schlechter)

Posted by Kendra

If you're needing some visual inspiration, an excellent place to go are photographer or stylists' websites. Here are some of my favorites:

MARTYN THOMPSON

ROBYN GLASER

GENTL & HYERS

ROLAND BELLO (Sadly under construction, but be sure to check back. you won't regret it.)

Bright ideas we gathered from your comments.

1) Microfiber is a good choice for people with cats. Pencils let us know that while her Sleepytime Rocker is a big hit with the cat, cleaning it isn’t a big issue: “Can?t wait to rock a baby in it, but so far the cat really is enjoying it — and her abundant Maine Coon fur doesn?t stick to the microfiber upholstery.” See where else we clicked last week.

2) You can find toothbrushes that not only are colorful and recycled, they look like they’ll fit in most holders! Inez weighed in on the toothbrush storage post with a link to these toothbrushes by Alan Stuart. Too cool.

3) We’re not the only ones who can’t leave Target with just one thing. Okay — we pretty much knew that already, but we did recognize ourselves in Becky’s comment: “I?m off to Target with the intention of spending $10, but I know I won?t leave until my cart is full. I?ll wind up with an array of unrelated items, like milk, a Jovavitch-Hawk skirt that makes me look really fat, a ‘fiendish’ platinum soduku book, some slutty looking shoes I?ll never end up wearing, some men?s pajama pants, a funny garden gnome, cat litter, a Victoria Hagan mirror, a Converse shirt I am way too old to get away with, a DVD, toilet paper, and a pink garden hose!” Thank you, readers, for always making us laugh. And check out that $10 hot pink garden hose here.

4) There are a lot of earth-friendly cat litters out there. (That sometimes dogs love a little too much, too). Susan Y says, “I used World?s Best, Swheat Scoop, Feline Pine, and right now I?m testing the litter called ‘Space’ which they sell at Trader Joe?s. World?s Best and Swheat Scoop were good, but I have a dog that LOVED to eat the litter. I?m still unsure about Space because they are made of full silica pellets, so they don?t have dust, but I?m not sure how biodegradable they are. Anyone have info?” See the Feline Fresh post here.

5) Some husbands have really interesting hobbies. Quite a few readers were excited by Angela’s family foray into beekeeping, and some of you have wanted to try it out yourselves. But only mod*mom had this to say: “I would freak out with all those bees. My husband is a falconer + it took a long time for me to like having a bird on my glove. I’m not as relaxed as he is.” Click to learn more about Angela and Chad’s new beekeeping venture.

So it was my birthday yesterday.

I got together with my high school girlfriends (Jeannie, Jeanne, and Robie) and my old college roommate, Gertrude, on Sunday for brunch at Universal Cafe. They gave me this beautiful terrarium--and Jeannie was the mastermind behind the design! Really nice work guys.

At Universal Cafe, Gertrude and I also ran into Cindy, our dorm floor friend...years ago. Which reminds me: when we first moved into our dorm room they so kindly put our names on the door: Gertrude and Margaret (that's my real name). Um, we sounded more like ladies pushing 80 in an assisted living facility than college freshman! Oh yeah, folks were knocking on our door JUST wanting to hang out with us.

And yesterday, I had dinner with my family. And I was surprised to see these paper plates that Marvin bought from the grocery store. I have to say this is pretty cool for Dixie (or whoever makes this), way better than cheesy florals and grapes. Wouldn't this be a nice pattern on fabric?

And this. Well, these snazzy placemats (yes, those are dogs wearing bunny ears) were a gift from my mom. Needless to say, I was speechless.

If I were off to college I would… think to brighten my space with something other than holiday string lights and a mere/sad desk lamp. There is so much more to lighting than simply preventing eye strain while in dark spaces.

There are pieces that can:

Guard your goods..

Create for an awesome visual in a boring 8′x10′ foot dorm space…

Act as a source of modern inspiration (and light) while studying for hours and hours in your favorite chair…

And, the light can be a center piece for “study sessions”…

We know that school has started or will be starting shortly for many of you so perhaps it is time to move on. Hopefully something out of the college bedding, seating, wall art, and lighting dorm room decorating tips will spark an idea beyond what you find at the major stores. You can do it, we know you can.

Best of luck in college…Go learn something!

Namba Parks is a really amazing piece of architecture, a place where you’ll spend half your time shopping and the other half admiring the design. It stands where Osaka’s baseball stadium used to be until 2003, and consists of a 30-floor skyscraper, Parks Tower, and 120-tenant shopping mall which includes many restaurants and a cinema. The eight floors of terraced gardens, boutique stores, big brands and trendy dining have been an instant hit in shopping-mad Osaka. In addition to providing a highly visible green component in a city where nature is sparse, the sloping park connects to the street, welcoming passers-by to enjoy its groves of trees, clusters of rocks, cliffs, lawn, streams, waterfalls, ponds and outdoor terraces.

Beneath the park, a canyon carves an experiential path through specialty retail, entertainment and dining venues. Namba Parks creates a new natural experience for Osaka that celebrates the interaction of people, culture and recreation. The project was so successful that Namba Parks construction is already underway for an extension - almost doubling the facility and due for completion in the middle of 2007. Finally this project is so amazing, that personally I would include it as the 8th wonder of the world. - Namba Parks on Wikipedia & Namba Parks website + Images at higher resolution - 1, 2

Post from: Interior Design, Home & House Design, Furniture