DW Design Director Nancy Fire in Furniture Today

26 Thursday Apr 2012

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Nancy Fire, Design Director of Design Works International and Design Director of HGTV HOME appears in Furniture Today this week. As the magazine notes, Nancy recently joined others behind the HGTV HOME brand for a Design Trends panel discussion. Find out more below:

Stars to join HGTV HOME, Bassett for furniture line launch

Furniture Today Staff — Furniture Today, April 17, 2012

HIGH POINT — Two design stars from HGTV, Emily Henderson from the network’s “Secrets from a Stylist” and Taniya Nayak of “House Hunters on Vacation,” will visit the HGTV HOME showroom here on Monday, April 23, during the High Point Market to help Bassett launch the furniture line.

The HGTV HOME line of more than 300 pieces in four collections of case goods and upholstery will debut in its own space in the International Home Furnishings Center, C-1003.

“We are extremely pleased to have two of HGTV’s top designers in the HGTV HOME Furniture Collection showroom,” said Renee Loper, Bassett vice president of independent retail business development and marketing. “Emily and Taniya are trusted design experts watched by millions of people each month on HGTV. We are very excited to have them help us with our debut.”

Monday afternoon, Henderson and Nayak will be joined by two other HGTV experts – Sara Peterson, editor in chief of HGTV magazine, and Nancy Fire, HGTV HOME design director – for a Design Trends panel discussion. The event, for media, designers and retailers, is invitation-only.

Henderson, the season five champion of “HGTV Design Star,” now hosts a show that has her customizing a room, layer by layer to ultimately help the homeowners discover their personal taste.

Nayak is a designer for several HGTV series, and her most recent show explores beautiful homes and resorts around the world with families looking for a place to vacation.

Nancy Fire, HGTV, Bassett

Nancy Fire

As design director, Fire provides insight, support and direction with design, style, trends and product development to help cultivate the HGTV HOME design brand image. She works with licensees and plays a crucial role in project conception, trend analysis and developing the brand’s design direction, then continues to coordinate with licensees on products.

Peterson, the former editor of Coastal Living magazine, says that HGTV Magazine aims to give readers inspiring, real-life solutions for what homeowners deal with every day, from painting to pillows to property values.

Design Works Intl. Creative Director Nancy Fire judges for Surtex

04 Wednesday Apr 2012

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Nancy Fire, Design Director, HGTV Home Brand and Founder of Design Works International, was recently a judge for the designext international student competition organized annually by SURTEX.

“The competition theme,” reports Surtex, “was Outdoor Celebration in the Year 2020. Students were challenged to create an overall concept and a minimum of six surface designs that project future trends.”

“More than 50 submissions from 16 colleges and universities worldwide were received and reviewed by the prestigious panel of judges. Many entries focused on sustainability and the natural environment.”

“The four winners were selected for their creativity and development of surface design, as well as the potential commercial appeal of their designs.”

Find out more in Surtex On the Surface, April 2012.

Check out Design Works Intl. in Surtex preview article

04 Wednesday Apr 2012

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Design Works at Surtex 2011. Center: Nancy Fire.

“This year we are focusing on eclectic mixes of patterns,” Nancy Fire, Creative Director of Design Works International, tells Gift & Home Today, “like large scale floral designs paired with geometric accents.

“In addition,” she says, “there are lush tropical patterns in deep color combinations, sun-struck mid-tone colors for retro florals, and
coconut grove brights for junior conversationals. Nature remains strong, including birds with pattern-fill images in many
styles.”

Check out the Gift & Home Today article here. And check out Design Works Intl. here.

Design and symbolism

22 Thursday Mar 2012

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By Angel

Design and symbolism are integral to one another. The point of the motif — whether a logo, an element in a pattern, or some form of ornamentations — is to encapsulate and articulate a specific idea, or, usually, an array of interlocking ideas.

Although symbols have become more sophisticated over the course of human history, even the most primitive symbols were, in some sense, designed. Geometric signs, composed of no more than a few lines (for example letters of alphabets) had be made distinct, and — in cases where they also doubled as representatives of meanings, not just sound — such as the letters of the ancient Greek alphabet — the creators also sometimes intended there to be visual similarities between them, to create a more complex semiotics. Continue reading »

Geometric and floral textiles: symbolism in design

17 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by in Design, Fashion, Textiles

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A Buddhist-inspired comforter at Target.

By Angel

Have you ever found yourself straining to read a caption, or make out the image, on someone’s tee-shirt as they pass by? Everything from pop music bands to health food stores, and from spiritual practices to artists seem to be on tee-shirts these days.

But the humble tee is only the most obvious way in which textiles is used to convey a message to those around.

In fact, textiles has a very long history of being a medium for expressing some of the most profound and complicated ideas. Continue reading »

spirituality-inspired fashion: trend

17 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by in Branding, Fashion, Textiles, Trend prediction

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By Angel

Its logo — the zinnia flower — “symbolizes lasting affection, goodness, and daily remembrance,” according to fashio and home furnishings company Garnet Hill. And clearly, with its new line, Zinni(TM), GH hopes to capitalize on  the young and affluent’s steadily growing interest in spirituality — especially the idea of cultivating a healthy mind and a healthy body.

Zinni is Garnet Hill’s just-launched line of yoga clothing for women inspired, the consumer is told, “by the relentless pursuit of balance, [and] stylish practicality.” Clothing may be practical, but they are — if we take Garnet Hill’s word for it — part of our spiritual life and identity. The modern tendency to idealize “balance” is portrayed in the yoga postures (and the healthy, natural and largely cosmetic-free looks) of its models, not to mention the clear sky and the Southeast Asian landscape of the photo shoots. Continue reading »

Trend prediction, and its importance

30 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by in Creative Corporate, Trend prediction

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By Angel

Have you noticed how occasionally several designers will show runway collections inspired by the same things (probably something you wouldn’t have though of yourself: pirates, Victorian Britain, bikers, etc.)? If so, you’ve probably asked yourself what was going on? Did these designers — who are competitors — conspire or steal each others designs? No. What they did do was make the same estimations about trends.

Trends in fashion and in culture emerge at different rates. As a general rule of thumb, if a trend has bubbled away under the surface for some time (and that’s often the case) and then starts to become suddenly much more popular in that underground scene, then it’s probably about to go mainstream. By the time it’s being used in adverts to sell soap, online banking, or whatever have you, it’s already passed its prime as a trend — at least as far as the designer is concerned. Continue reading »

“Negative space” in textiles design

30 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by in Technical, Textiles

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By Angel

Negative space is probably the most difficult concept for non-designers to grasp. If you are designing a floral pattern, why worry about the space around the flowers? This might seem especially an unimportant consideration if the space around the motif is just flat ground. But, in actual fact, that’s when you need to think about it most of all, because it is going to create shapes that will either work with or fight with the shapes of the motifs themselves. Continue reading »

Fashion, textiles, and the psychology of color

30 Monday Jan 2012

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By Angel

We tend to think of colors as simply what we need to match together in an outfit or a room. But have you ever considered that there is more to color than just appearance?

Color is deeply psychological. First of all, color can create a “mood” or atmosphere, and it can express an emotion, or how we’re feeling. And, color can help us convey an idea or brand image. Mobile phone company Orange used… you guessed it… the color orange for its branding. But why? The tone of orange that the company adopted was a clean, modern color. You wouldn’t really find it in an antique painting, for example. It was close to the orange used frequently in 1960s textiles and fashion. So, it had both a feeling of modernity and of being familiar. Continue reading »

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