simplicity, authenticity & balance

"Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature.

It will never fail you."

Frank Lloyd Wright

Balance is a perfect word to start with. I've been away and have not updated my website or portfolio in a couple of months. You could say that I've been adding some balance to my life. I was lucky enough to travel for much of December. The highlight was a trip to Vienna.

While there I did lots of this:

Kaffee mit Schlagsahne, (Coffee with whipped cream)

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saw lots of this

Love and jealousy, Venus and Mars

The art featured at the Kunsthistorisches Museum

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I definitely ate more than my share of wonderful desserts. This is what was left of my birthday dessert.

Vienna is an incredible city, rich with history in design and art. The museum collections were amazing and I could have easily spent hours each day lost in the halls of the many museums in the Museum Quarter. December is one of the best times to visit because the streets are busy with the Christkindlmarkt. Neighborhood street festivals that come alive nightly, especially at happy hour! There are many booths serving hot chocolate with rum and warm punch (very potent). You could spend hours (and I did) shopping for handmade items and drinking hot chocolate with rum, (and I did).

The Streets of Wien

Color Trends & Design Updates..

Last week I attended Design San Francisco, which essentially is fashion week for the interior design industry. Always inspiring and good for a creative jolt. The week is filled with industry mixers & mingling opportunities, book signings, seminars, new furniture, fabric and material introductions, etc. It was nice to see many of my friends and fellow designers out and about.The seminar I always look forward to is the Benjamin Moore Color Pulse presentation. Mary Hoffman, a color specialist with Benjamin Moore, does a great job of putting together an informative, global perspective on color trends. In the last few years we've had:

• 2009 ~ Simplicity
• 2010 ~ Authenticity
• 2011 ~ Balance

The 2011 theme of Balance is represented as a return to The Farm, which represents a return to wisdom and all things organic. Balance is captured by a sense of Order, which then allows us to Escape and return to our core values of Tribe (togetherness).

These are how the themes are represented in color:

The Farm

gray~brown = soil

creamy whites and buttery yellows = milk and eggs

blue~Greens = vegetables

rich orange-reds = tomatoes & fruit

purples will have black undertones = eggplant and roots

This will translate to fabrics and color schemes with rich tones of gray accented with pops of yellow, red, green and accented with creamy neutrals.

Hand blown glass bowl found on Etsy

The Baxter sofa from West Elm

Order

This theme reflects the sense of order we need in our lives while the economy and the world is in chaos. It's represented by geometric shapes, primary colors and translates into stripes, color blocking; outlining, cubes, circles and strong patterns. Red and black have already taken hold in fashion and now it will translate to furniture and fabrics. The colors are clear and bold:

I think this theme is pretty easy to translate and it is amazing how quickly I have already seen it in new art and even tile!

A visit to the San Francisco Walker Zanger showroom features beautiful geometric patterned tiles.

Escape

Order and getting back to the farm are just the start. Once you've accomplished that how about escaping? The colors of escape are luminous, frosted pales, sheer, pinks softened by gray, ombre fabrics and soft coral. A very feminine approach to design.

The Escape palette

*421. Feelings don't deceive by Dudamix featuring Yves Saint Laurent bags

Ombre fabrics will start making an appearance in furniture

Soft corals and pinks will be accented with bolder colors and creamy whites

Tribe

Lastly, now that we've returned to The Farm, found a sense of Order and Escaped back into our imagination, its time to return to community. The Tribe represents togetherness, a return to core values and sense of belonging. The urban landscape becomes individualized as we learn to express ourselves within community.

The Tribe is represented by rich colors bronze, orange, pink, berry red, taupe, fuscia, yellow and blue. The yellows are blackened and the teal is clear aqua color.

Aqua paint color is Benjamin Moore 675 Thunderbird

"Persian Path" Bed Linens from Horchow

It will be exciting to watch as these trends emerge in fashion and design. While passing by the Robert Allen showroom I noticed that they were already showing these trends in full force!

Ciao for now. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email if there is something that you liked or didn't like. Would love to hear from you.

xo

Lydia

Eco-Eye Candy!

A round up of organic interior design and a color trend alert.

You could go to Paris or a new city everyday if you had these glasses..

by Rockett St George

Organic Bedding for teenagers by Amy Butler now available at Bed Bath & Beyond. Great colors and styles.

Purple Alert! Look for the Magenta, Fuchsia and Purple in fashion and interior design, its on its way.

The new Roche-Bobois collection is amazing, decadent, sinful, gorgeous and I want every piece.

I'm going to have to remember to add purple to my usual black wardrobe...

Designing Furniture, it can be a nail biter.

My concept for a custom Armoir

Designing a piece of furniture for a client can be a bit nerve wracking. I am constantly checking my details, dimensions and finishes. Like anything, the perfect image can exist in your head, but how will it translate to your furniture builder? And more importantly can you translate the vision to the client without the need to see it in 3-d before placing the order?

Finding a furniture maker that you are comfortable with makes a huge difference. It takes a while to develop this relationship. But once he understands your style, preferences, etc.. it can be a great relationship! (now if only I could find a boyfriend that understands me, life would be perfect!!) I am really lucky to work with a guy that will take my concepts and bring them to life. I spend a couple of hours (at least) talking through my design, reviewing drawings and then go back and forth on finishes, dimensions and the fine details, down to the hardware.

From concept to completion.. ready for delivery!

This entry piece is designed for a client and will fit into a niche near the front door, below a window. The homes' interior design is modern meets craftsman-style. The drawers will serve as a place to store shoes, keys or anything else you may want to remember, without it looking like a huge pile by the front door.

Several sources offer the opportunity to customize your furniture and lately I've seen lighting company's do the same. See Lighting Universe and their offer to design your own custom light fixture. Wouldn't it be great to have a really cool light fixture designed by you?

Butterfly's and Bikes!

"Tranquility" by Damien Hirst. Auctioned at Seoul’s Modern and Contemporary Art sale, went for a cool $1.71 million.

A few months back I wrote about the 'Butterfly' trend in fashion, textiles and jewelry, and now with the inspiration and genius of Damien Hirst, whose Tranquility painting, which was filled with butterflies and sold for $1.71m, a new LIVESTRONG Trek Madone has been created by the artist. Damien Hirst has beautifully customized the bike and added a butterfly all-over design to it. The customized Trek Madone bike has a gorgeous array of real butterflies from the frame down to the rims and replaces the bright yellow and black typically used in the LIVESTRONG design. A masterpiece for sure!

LIVESTRONG, Trek Madone, Created by artist Damien Hirst