We are very excited to be working with Ondine Karady, former set decorator for Sex and the City, finalist in Bravo TV’s Top Design, and acclaimed interior designer.  Ondine was just recently named one of 20 Young Designers by Traditional Home.

We will be working with Ondine on spreading her great design and personality even further through the beauties of social media and online PR.

As part of the 20 Young Designers feature from Traditional Home, the magazine is holding a Reader’s Choice contest.  Please support Ondine and support us by voting for her!

Note:  Make sure that you click on the “Vote!” button and not just the “Like” button to vote!

Also, by voting you are automatically entered to win a complete room design and $5,000 in fabric to outfit the room so there’s some extra incentive…besides your undying love for us.

Success comes in many sizes and forms, sometimes when you least expect it; and those successes are particularly sweet.  Recently, I was explaining the benefits of project sourcing to a potential client, a very talented, well known and respected designer, how we could assist by pulling fabrics or supplying tear sheets within the parameters that she would specify for us, staying true to her design vision.  She didn’t feel she would ever use that service, as she wanted to make those design decisions, she loved that process, and didn’t want to let that go.

To my delighted surprise, I was given the opportunity to pull supporting fabrics for one of her projects!  She had a presentation in several days, and could not fit the 5 hour round trip to the design center into her schedule.  She supplied me with the vendor and pattern numbers for the driving fabrics, and a few details about durability needs and budget.  The design center is 15 minutes from my office, and within 90 minutes, I had pulled approximately 60 fabrics from numerous vendors and showrooms, stopped at the FedEx store, and sent them off to be delivered to her doorstep the next day.

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Motifs are a powerful touchstone, bridging the gap between history and design, past and present. While some have been relegated to the ages, many are seeing new iterations, blending into the design schemes of today. Let’s take a peek into the fascinating stories of their symbolism.

Quatrefoil – From the French, literally meaning four leaves or petals, such as a four-leaf clover. It’s popularity peaked during the Gothic Revival and Renaissance periods, and can be seen on countless churches and cathedrals to this day. It has also been an official part of the Bishop James Madison Society, established 1812 at the College of William and Mary, and the national symbol of the women’s fraternity Phi Mu, the 2nd oldest female fraternity and founded at Wesleyan College in 1852.

Fleur de lis – Originally used by French royalty as far back as the 12th century. It depicts three petals of the iris flower, literally “flowers of the lily”. It is a symbol of royalty and government for many countries; England, Scotland, Hungary, Italy and Bosnia, to name a few. The three petals have been associated with the Holy Trinity, and also represent faith, wisdom and chivalry. Like the quatrefoil, it is used by military and fraternal organizations, and surprisingly, it is incorporated into the badging for the Chevrolet Corvette! The fleur de lis is the main element in the logo of most Scouting organizations, representing the themes of the outdoors and wilderness.

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I love showrooms! Everything about them appeals to me, from the beautifully lit and displayed product, to the wings of fabrics waiting to be discovered, it all presents infinite possibilities available to designers.

Holly Hunt - New York

The perfectly sharpened pencils nestled in bins with memo sample request pads handily located next to them, the colorful and imaginative shopping bags full of gorgeous fabrics and funky trims, yours for the taking.

Fadini Borghi Fabrics & Trimmings

Graciously offered space to spread out and work, with water, coffee and snacks readily available. A sales associate ready to offer assistance; pricing and tear sheets swiftly and efficiently proffered.

But showrooms are more than that, they are a designer’s life blood, and designers are theirs’.  A perfect example of a symbiotic relationship.  Showrooms and their well-trained staff should be considered allies, a first line of defense. They are problem solvers, who will go to bat for a customer to help in getting to the bottom of a freight issue, or working with a vendor to push a lead time, or getting a difficult question or problem resolved.

The showrooms I have been fortunate to work both for and with have been much more than the selling, they have been about the relationship and the connection.

Gibson Design Management recently launched a Review Center.  This is a place for the design industry to review showrooms on the customer service that it receives.  We hope for it to be a place for showrooms that are providing great service to be lauded, and for those who are not serving the industry well, to improve from.  The way for this review center to be successful is for you to be candid about your experiences and to share those experiences.  We would love to have you contribute to our review center, and spread the word to your industry partners.

Currently, you can review showrooms in the Denver Design District and the Washington DC Design Center.  Please add your stars and reviews.  Posts can be anonymous if you do not feel comfortable adding your name, and of course, your email address will be kept strictly confidential.

Time Inc., the publisher of Southern Accents, announced on Thursday that the September/October issue would be the last issue for the 32-year-old publication.  According to Publishers Information Bureau, Southern Accents’ ad pages declined 37%, to 176 pages, in the first six months of this year.

Southern Accents is the latest shelter magazine to face the guillotine.  Earlier this year, Conde Nast closed Domino; others to face the ax in the last two years were House and Garden, O at Home, Blueprint, InStyle Home, Cottage Living, and Country Home.

While the economy is much at fault for the lack of advertisers for our beloved shelter mags, could it also be that the emergence of social media is too taking its toll?  With advertisers opportunities to stretch their dollars farther by utilizing online tools and the online ability to microtarget, could it be that shelter magazines’ only possibility for survival is to also move more substantial efforts online?

We will miss Southern Accents.  As someone who has spent a great deal of her life in the South, it appears to be one of the only luxury design magazines that exemplifies and embraces the beautiful design, ease, and elegance of southern living.

Are you feeling a bit overwhelmed keeping up with your blog?  Blogs are a great marketing tool, but in order to keep traffic coming, you need to keep the content fresh and interesting. 

Gibson Design Management is pleased to now offer Blogging Services to designers.  Heather Bien has joined our team, bringing years of experience in the design industry and her terrific writing and research skills with her.  Our blogging team will work with you to determine your needs and then handle writing the posts to keep traffic coming to your blog.  Posts are $20/each.  You decide the frequency that works for your budget and let our team handle the rest.  For more information about this service contact Heather Bien today.

Don’t have a blog?  Our Social Media team would love to help you with that as well.  For more information, click here or contact Alexandra@gibsondesignmanagement.com today about our Social Media division.  Don’t be a dinosaur.  You can’t afford to be uneducated about this new way of marketing.

If you’re like most interior designers, you’re feeling the pinch of the economy.  You are not alone.  Some firms are facing difficult decisions about closing their businesses or reducing staff.  At the same time, there are firms that are busier than ever.  What are they doing differently?

They are specialists in eco-friendly and sustainable design.  They’ve built their brand around environmental responsibility and the consumer-driven demand for energy-efficient and healthy spaces and buildings.

In fact, 82% of Americans believe it is “important for companies to implement environmentally friendly practices.” – McGraw Hill

Do you need to be LEED certified to get this business and promote green products and services?  No, but it helps.

If you’d like to know more about how green can help you get business and build a thriving practice, please Click Here

Another study by the American Marketing Association and Fleishman Hillard International Communications shows that 63% of the people surveyed believe that the new administration’s policies will further accelerate the adoption of sustainability programs.

If you are looking for answers to help you grow your firm even during tough economic times, we encourage you to check out and attend Design Success University’s upcoming Green Design Summit – a ground-breaking virtual education program with 11 architecture and design industry experts, NY Times best-selling authors and environmental leaders including:

v  Penny Bonda, LEED AP & “the Mother of Green Interiors”

The New LEED Version 3 -What You Need to Know

v  Sarah Susanka, FAIA, certified Interior Designer & Author

“not so big remodeling” (and how to build a sustainable
practice)

v  Libby Langon, HGTV Star of Small Spaces, Big Style and author.

How to Work With Small Space Clients (plus she’ll share
some of her favorite tips that her clients love)

This is just a small sampling of the outstanding speakers you will hear during this two day virtual event on June 29 & 30, 2009.

No travel is required – you’ll be able to listen from the comfort of your home or office by webcast or telephone.  And, if you can’t listen to all of the calls, you’ll receive downloadable MP3s and transcripts of each session.  If you have employees, you can listen for the price of one ticket.  One ticket per firm, please.

If your colleagues are busy with eco-friendly projects, you don’t want to miss hearing about what you can do to restart and green your own business.

Click Here for more information:

Sign up For the GREEN DESIGN SUMMIT TODAY!!

Click Here

We’re making it easier than ever for our members to utilize everything Gibson Design Management has to offer.  For just $47/month your design business has the opportunity anytime to outsource Accounting Services, CAD Services and Purchase Order Management.  Your membership gives you access to a professional team available to assist you in running your design business, without the fixed cost of keeping a full in-house staff.  

If you’re looking to grow your business, but are concerned about keeping a full team employed, “outsourcing to Gibson makes perfect sense because it gives you the ability to handle bigger projects with [our] help and expertise,” says member Laurel Quint, principal of Q Interiors in Denver, Colorado.  The time to get this system in place is now; you’ll be ready to take on new projects, not scrambling to find help in putting together your next presentation. 

In addition to having our team of trained professionals available, you will also find value in your Gibson Design Management membership every month whether you utilize our services or not.  GDM members enjoy the following benefits of membership:

• Monthly Members Only eNewsletter
• Sounding Board Calls
• Discounts with Affiliates
• Semi-Annual High Point Report
• Insider Track to Industry News and Reports
• Special Pricing opportunities with Vendors & Manufacturers
• Access to GDM’s Line List
• Direct pass-through of all pricing/terms on Purchase Orders managed
• Special Opportunities for members with industry partners and affiliates
• And more…

Our new pricing makes it possible for you to grow your design business without fixed costs; allowing you to focus on the areas of your business that you enjoy while allowing our team to handle the details you need assistance with.  You truly can’t beat having a trained, professional team at your disposal for only $47/month.  Contact Kay Alessi, Director, Sales and Marketing today for membership information.

I love this blog post by designer Faith Sheridan of Seattle, WA.  My favorite quote being Faith’s quoting Reed Kroloff of Cranbrook Academy, “designers are good at coming up with new ways of looking at complex problems”.  I love this as it relates to design, but also as it relates to the business of design.  Absolutely, this is a challenging time for many interior designers – but challenge forces us all to become more innovative and clever about how we run our business.  I encourage you to read the entire post on Faith’s blog.

Michael Cannell authored this provocative, well written post earlier this month. He chronicles the excess of the recent years with $10K sofas and $8K chairs which now sit in a lonely fashion in the empty, slick condos across the nation. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/weekinreview/04cannell.html 

read Faith’s blog

Ahhh, Day Twelve of our 12 Day Countdown – Suggestions for things you can do this month to prepare for a fabulous 2009!  I’m a bit sad to see these 12 days come to an end; it’s been fun sharing some ideas for ways to get 2009 off to a great start.  I realize none of these suggestions are “rocket science” by any means, but I hope they have been good “food for thought.” 

Day Twelve’s suggestion is one I believe in very strongly – become a Gibson Design Management member.  It is well worth taking some time to discuss our memberships and learn about what we have to offer your design business.  

Our memberships, Accounting Services, CAD Services, and Purchase Order Management not only increase your efficiency – they also improve your bottom line!  Contact Kay Alessi today to learn more.  Discover how our memberships allow designers to get back to the real reason they became designers.  Gibson Design Management is an extended arm of our members’ design firms.  No need to hire, train, and manage a staff; Gibson Design Management’s dedicated team is available when you need them…and not taking up space or payroll when you don’t.

Merry Christmas Everyone – Happy Holidays!