CasaSugar

What Michelle Obama Loves About Design

CasaSugar — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:15:56 -0700

On Friday, First Lady Michelle Obama spoke at the 10th annual National Design Awards in DC, a ceremony hosted by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt Museum to honor designers across various disciplines. Here's what she had to say about design:

What I love about design is the artistic and scientific complexity that also becomes useful. A laptop, a bridge, an outfit. A garden. All drawn from a thousand wells of inspiration and yet grounded in the basic principles of math or science.

Roundup: Joyeux Bastille Day!

CasaSugar — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:00:40 -0700

Happy Bastille Day! While we can be grateful to the French for many things, including croques monsieur, Audrey Tatou, margarine, carbaret, etc., I'd like to applaud la France for pumping out decades of innovative and influential design. Yes, this would include la Tour Eiffel and Impressionism, but today I'm going to focus on furniture and interior accessories. You'll be surprised by how many of your favorite pieces were nés en France. But before we go there, I couldn't resist sharing The Famed and Framed Roosters ($381), a trio of hand-painted roosters, a national emblem of France.

Guess Who Dreamt of Building a Grandiose Tree House?

CasaSugar — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:30:23 -0700

A celebrated American interior designer, and regular on Oprah, recently told ELLE Decor of his dreams to build a tree house as a kid, saying, "At 11 I was sort of a mad Virgo with grandiose plans for a Palladio-Calatrava-Sawyer/Berson masterpiece. We never made it past attempting to hammer the two-by-fours into the trunk, but we had so much fun trying." It sounds like he started honing his design talent at a young age!

Can You Discern the Difference Between New and Vintage?

CasaSugar — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:00:37 -0700

Can you tell which wingback chair is an antique, and which is currently for sale in your favorite shop? Do you have an eye for discerning the difference between a real midcentury lamp and its modern update? Put your design savvy to the test with my new game, Old or New Design.
I've handpicked some tricky home accents and furniture pieces that could be either antiques or current on-the-market products. See if you can figure out the difference. It's harder than it looks! Take the challenge now.

Guess Who Is Penning a Book about Design and Architecture?

CasaSugar — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:00:00 -0700

An award-winning singer and film and theater actress is revealing a little-known interest to the world by penning a memoir, to be titled A Passion For Design, about her experiences designing her dream oceanfront compound in Malibu, as well as other residences, back to her early years in New York. It'll be interesting to hear about the way it was for her back then. Can you tell me her name?

Scenes From the Milan International Furniture Fair

CasaSugar — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:00:59 -0700

What I wouldn't give to be in Milan right now! For the next week, if you're lucky enough to be traveling in the area, you should stop by the 48th Milan Furniture Fair, which features the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, the Milan Lighting Fair, and the SaloneSatellite, which features creative new talent in the design world. Many designs that I've featured here are featured in the fair, including one of my favorites, Maarten Baas. You can download and print a map of the fair here, or take a virtual tour when you read more.

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Does Your Design Style Rule Your Love Life?

CasaSugar — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:00:06 -0700

I recently caught a first season episode of Sex and the City, Bay of Married Pigs, where Charlotte dates a man on the marriage track, Sean. Not long after they begin dating, they find themselves looking at china patterns together, and Charlotte dumps him when she realizes his pattern of choice isn't up to her standards. Carrie narrates, "Charlotte ended it right then and there. It would never work. He was American Classic and she was French Country."
Since I've never been in this situation, I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing, but it does seem a bit irrational. On the other hand, I can be quite stubborn when it comes to compromising my tastes in interior design.
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How Well Do You Know Your Design Decades?

CasaSugar — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:00:00 -0700

These days, for good reason, it's trendy to mix styles and eras when decorating our homes. It's not unusual to see an antique coffee table next to a mid-century chair below a contemporary chandelier - and often when you do, it looks flawless. And as you'd see in fashion, or really any industry, designers are looking to the past for inspiration. So, sometimes it's hard to tell a 1950s chair from a 2008 one. But I'm sure many of you can't be fooled when it comes to history of design. See how well you know your design timeline when you take this quiz!

Are You a Design Fiend?

CasaSugar — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:00:07 -0700

Are you a know-it-all when it comes to design? Do you know your industrial designers from your architects? Is a chair just a place to sit to you? Let's find out how well-versed and learned you are in design lingo and history when you take this 10-question quiz!

Question 1 of 10

This paper lantern is the work of Japanese designer ______________.

International Chair Design Competition Looking For Entries

CasaSugar — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:00:05 -0800

Calling all aspiring designers! Suddenly "getting the chair" is a fruitful, not fatal, sentence. The 13th Annual Promosedia International Design Competition is asking architecture or design students under 40 for original, unpublished chair design submissions. Design a chair that makes significant use of wood and is suitable for mass production and you could have 4,500 extra smackers in your bank account. And, the winning design will be featured in a prototype exhibition.Shown here is the winner of last year's competition: the Nube Chair by Spanish designer Tomas Alonso. The design reinterpreted the classic bentwood style pioneered by Michael Thonet by using curved wood with contemporary form, color, and proportion. All submissions must be received by May 5, 2009, so get to work!
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