Never Chase After Anyone

This is good advice.  In all aspects of life.  Including online.  Do you chase after people online that never give you the time of day in return?  Never read your tweets, posts, updates when you constantly high-five them?

Then stop!! 

Stop feeding the egos of narcissistic people who feed off the joy of ignoring the people who admire them.  If the person is someone in your field that you like to follow, then admire them from afar, but stop giving them more fodder to make themselves feel more superior and you feel worse.

 

A narcissist is a narcissist is a narcissist.  They ain't ever gonna change.  So move on and give your attention to people who deserve it and care about you back.

There.  I feel better already.  Don't you?

Will Design Blogs Make Us Get Too Homogenized?

I was thinking today.  (A dangerous thing I know.)  I was thinking about the blog phenomenon and the effect it is having on design in this country.  It is a very different effect than magazines have.  Magazine design was always lofty, somewhere "out there" in an otherworldly, often unobtainable place.  Now, with the explosion of design blogs, we have access to each other every day, minute by minute.  We are in each others' kitchens and bedrooms whenever we want to be.  We can watch the real-world evolution of so many bloggers' design ideas come to fruition, backstage photos and all.  We share our sources and tips.  We educate each other on color theory and decorative arts history.  And we certainly opine freely on what is trendy and what should never, ever be seen.
Which brings me to the big question.  Is this a good thing, or will it eventually make interior design in America so blended that a uniqueness that was there before will forever be gone?  You know how back in the day you could travel to a new city and it was so completely different from your hometown?  But now you exit the interstate and the first thing you see are stretches of strip malls full of the same Pottery Barns and Targets that you see back home. As a result, we all now wear the same clothes with same accessories in the same colors.  It depresses me sometimes.
So now when we are designing a room, will we hop on the web and travel around to make sure we are aren't making a huge design faux pas too uncool for blogland?  Will we freeze in our tracks with the thought,  WWJD?  (What Would Joni Do?)
The big challenge for us all is to reap the benefits of the camaraderie of Facebook and blogging while retaining our own unique viewpoints and styles.  Sort of like art class when we walked around and viewed and appreciated each other's work, and sometimes felt even a little intimidated.  But we ultimately walked back to our canvas and put our own brushstrokes down.  We have to challenge ourselves to be true to our own style while appreciating others' work.  Not easy, but if we support each other, it is possible.

Designer/Decorator (Potato/Potatoe)

Titles are for royalty. What matters is your work and what you stand for.

I was recently at a gathering in my city attended by many area decorators and designers, a little wine and cheese affair. (You know what I'm talking about, where your competition is there pretending to be your friend!) Anyway, the topic of title acts came up, and suddenly the fake smiles faded. Two distinct camps suddenly emerged among us; the decorators and the designers. Those who support title legislation and those who don't. You could even go so far as to say there are several sub-groups; decorators who call themselves designers anyway, designers who wish they made as much money as some decorators, designers who look down on the decorators, decorators who are intimidated by the designers, etc. I am actually in the group called "I don't care what you call me as long as you call me". One designer had a name for the decorators; "people who work out of their cars". (Actually, I joke all the time that even though I have a studio, my Chevy Tahoe is my REAL office. I didn't know there was an actual put-down out there!) Another designer looked at me during the conversation and said, "If this passes, you'll probably be out of business."

WOW. My first thought was, "the host better shut down the wine tray", then I answered, "I will never be out of business because you will never be able to legislate art". She glared. I left. (Nothing good was going to come of this.)

Can't we all just be friends? There really is enough work for everybody. There are as many facets to this business as there are stars in the night sky. Everybody chill. Figure out your niche and fill it. Planning how many cubicles fit into an office is not my thing; if it is yours, go for it. Live and let live; design and let design.