So a couple months ago the folks over at
Adorn magazine invited me and two other design bloggers (Holly from
Decor8 and Kayte from
Love Forever) to contribute for a "creative spaces" feature titled, "One Chair, Three Ways". The premise was each of us would use the same chair as the inspirational starting point and design a room around it. I finally got my hands on my own copy of Adorn's Fall '07, now out on newsstands, so I thought I'd share my spread.
Believe it or not, the inspiration for my room was a junior high love. On the eve I began brainstorming, I happened to be revisiting some of the goth/new wave music of my angst ridden teen years, specifically the darker sound barrage of bands like Joy Division, The Jesus & Mary Chain and most specifically, Siouxsie and the Banshees. Then and there I decided to forgo my midcenturist tendencies and pursue a much more romantic and embellished interior, one inspired not only by my teen musical memories, but also the memories of the Parisian interiors I visually inhaled during my first jaunt to Paris. The Adorn team did a commendable job working from my
design inspiration board, capturing just about everything I had imagined the room to look like. Definitely worth picking up a copy to take a closer look at Holly and Kayte's design direction and the Adorn team's hard handiwork. A most fond of thank you's to Adorn for inviting me to participate, and a very special thanks to Siouxsie Sioux.
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Does that mean you gave them the inspiration board but they bought their own stuff based on that board and then actually constructed the room? If so, did you get to see and improve their choices? What if it looked horrible, would you still have to take credit for its design?
Yes, the crafty Adorn team constructed the room using remote direction, since all three of us participating reside in different corners of the nation. I sent them resources, an outline of what DIY solutions they could resort to using to emulate some of my higher end inspiration, and a detailed description of how each element was supposed to work with one another. I was given previews of their preliminary layout/design, and made adjustments and recommendations to the team.
To be honest, I don't think I even pondered the possibility it would look "horrible". Optimism, faith or whatever you'd like to call it, I just assumed the Adorn team would make it work out and they seemed to "get it" during our preliminary email exchanges. And yes, just as an art director or architect has to fess up for poor direction of an overall project, I would have taken credit for the design if it didn't come out as well as I had hoped. Fortunately, I think they did a smashing job.
Yes, I ditto what Gregory said. We had a lot of creative control over this project despite being remote. We sent in images of what we wanted the room to look like, the paint color to use on the walls, we selected all the elements for the room, from the rug to the artwork. On their end, they styled it based on our ideas and then sent back an image of the room completed. It was an amazing process - so completely easy - it made me realize that the future of interior design could really start taking on this whole "idea in a box" concept completely through email and the web. You don't even need to be in a space anymore to design it.
hey gregory-
it was a pleasure to work on your room! anything we changed was purely for money and space restrictions. it was actually my favorite story that i have worked on for adorn, so thanks for being a part of it.
i love what holly said about using the web to design rooms remotely! you guys really did a great job of setting the mood and then all i had to do was go out and find everything!
This is super-cool Gregory. What a fun project! I am totally envious.