Elements of Style: Miniature Chairs, Take a Seat

At Shelter Home we have a series of miniature chairs from the Vitra Design Museum. People eye these miniatures in amazement, often wondering aloud, sarcastically, that they would prefer to sit in the chair before purchasing. I try not to laugh, because they are right. A chair like the seemingly delicate Knotted Chair by Marcel [...]

Elements of Style: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Back in the rainy days of June, Mike Sodano and Nancy Sabino asked me to curate a film for The Showroom to be shown in July. I wanted the film to be a reflection of myself and the store, Shelter Home. The aesthetic had to be striking and colorful and a film in July needed [...]

Elements of Style: David Weeks, Design at Play

I was recently introduced to David Weeks during the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York. David had run into production issues with his wooden animals for Areaware and the problem had finally been resolved. The lanky Brooklyn-based designer was visibly relieved. In the design world David Weeks is known for his elegant, high-end designs [...]

Elements of Style: Bohemian Modern

Bohemian Modern, or BoMo. /Bohemian, n./ person with artistic/literary interests who disregards conventional standards of behavior + /Modern, adj. /of or pertaining to recent times or the present. Barbara Bestor in her 2006 book “Bohemian Modern: Living in Silver Lake” described Bohemian Modern as a movement of a variety of “people who live happily and [...]

Elements of Style: Harry Allen’s REALITY

Design wunderkind Harry Allen has elevated the objects of our every day lives and cast them in resin: a rabbit’s foot, a roller skate, his brother’s picture frame. Highly detailed, these objects cast in white, frosted, fluorescent green, chrome and even gold, appear to be the original but with more substance and weight. A bookshelf [...]

Elements of Style

Good product design is tactile: it engages the viewer to touch. Such is the case with designing with cardboard. The simple act of touching an object changes the relationship with the viewer from passive to interactive. With Cardboardesign’s Liquid Cardboard the object, a small corrugated disc of cardboard, upon being held, transforms. The disc flips [...]

Elements of Style

Trends in Design (Furniture & Home) Recycled, reused & repurposed is everywhere these days. The recent New York International Gift Fair featured hundreds of vendors incorporating recycled products into their lines. Green has impacted everyday design with gusto, not only because designers are looking for planet-friendly solutions in product and design, but because consumers want [...]