New Homes Inspired By Nature

Photo: Art GrayThe homes you decorate always start from what we like to call "the bones." These are the architectural features of the house, from the walls and ceilings to the floors, doors, windows, and room shape. One of the first jobs in interior design is to "get the bones right," or to make sure that any weaknesses in the architectural decisions are addressed. It helps when a home is newly made, but even new construction can be a nightmare for decorators, e.g. open-plan spaces need to be better defined by their function and still maintain good flow with the rest of the house. We admired these Andersson-Wise "natural houses," new-construction spaces that celebrate nature through the use of beautiful building materials and clean lines. The natural homes in this video are what we mean by good bones!

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Wedding & Event Trend: Movie-Style Video Production

In the competitive and growing wedding and event planning market, it's not enough to follow the norm; you have to break the mold and be a trendsetter. If you're planning the Big Event, you'll want to make sure your clients know how to turn their affair into an amazing "wow" happening that pleases and delights everyone. One big trend we've been noticing in the events biz is the amping up of photography and videography. Mili and Sid Ghosh, for instance, began their Memories in Motion event cinematography business in 2004 to produce true cinema-style films for their worldwide clientele. They use motion picture camera supports and cine lighting to tell the story of grand, high-end weddings and other events. Here's an example of their luxe work.

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Marketing Tools Promote Jewelry Designers

If you're a jewelry designer, you want to get the word out about your creations - unless you're designing for you and only you. Case in point, Sarah from Brown Dog Studio. She's put together the underpinnings of a great marketing program. 

• Her Brown Dog Studio blog showcases her work, and her posts allow Sarah to talk about her creative process and get readers inside her head. (It's a very entertaining and engaging ride!) She also uses the blog to push out her creations with direct sales and invitations to email her for her studio address. She invites custom work and promotes trunk shows and public sales from her website.
• She recently hired a professional photographer to do a photoshoot of her creative process and final creative results.
• Sarah put the photographs of her work into a video, and it displays the creative process and wraps a feel-good song about working with your "own two hands" around her work. Here's the result, providing a very effective marketing piece for her business.

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Great Interior Design Comes from Great Ideas

It's always a learning experience to go behind the scenes to see what makes interior design vendors tick. For DwellStudio, we can all get a great backstage video tour of their SoHo headquarters studio from founder and Creative Director Christiane Lemieux. A fan of Paul McCobb and classic mid-century modern design, she and her team create private-label work for Target and other companies as well as lines of furniture, bedding, home textiles, and design media.

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Blogger's Home Critiqued by Feng Shui Consultant

Anyone who seriously practices feng shui as an interior design discipline should take a look at our featured video (see below) and take a little humor break. Outrageous - and frankly silly - Singapore blogger Wendy Cheng produces a flippant Internet video series called Xiaxue's Guide to Life, and in the following episode, she bravely shows her messy apartment to a feng shui expert. The practitioner is a pretty good sport about the entire thing. While many of us would have advised Wendy to dynamite her apartment rather than attempt to tidy it up, the practitioner gives a restrained and sensible set of recommendations - even after Wendy/XiaXue sticks her foot in her mouth and

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