Saturday, April 30, 2011

Professional Practice Assignment 4.0 Networking

I attended two networking events recently.

The first event at the High Point Furniture Market featured four design/blog gurus: Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, Apartment Therapy founder; Brian Patrick Flynn, Décor Demon founder; Margot Austin, Style At Home editor; and Tobi Fairly, interior designer. The big idea I gained from this lecture would be that it is best to market oneself with the online community in mind. Effective marketing involves writing, linking and contributing to others blogs. I will do this more, as in the past I have commented on other's blogs only to see them return the gesture at a later time.

The second event featured Bill Indursky, co-founder of vandm.com lecturing on the design trends of 2011. His main argument seemed to be that design trends are reverting back to antique styles coupled with the prominent colors camel and grey. Though these trends may be present in many interiors, a lot of the popular design websites (freshome, designbuzz, notcot, etc.) I've visited mainly feature residences that employ bold colors, and solid modern details. Mr. Indursky seemed to imply that technology could now take a back seat to antiquity as if we have “gotten over” the Internet age. It seems more so that the technology and dematerialization in our personal devices has led to sleeker and minimized components with little ornamentation.

These two events helped me better understand the internet climate, what designs to believe in, as well as how I can begin to start relationships with others in my field.

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