Everyone loves a list…here’s a great creative one for a change
A Chat With Verity du Sautoy – Her Thoughts On Winter Fabrics
KOTHEA Fabric Picks For A Chilly Winter’s Day
With Verity du Sautoy of KOTHEA.
We love the seasons. All have their beauties and all have touched our senses in memorable ways over the years. Winter is no exception: lower, more balanced light; quietness and chaos with both the shopping and the weather; festive celebrations; the cuddle of a loved one; the hope and expectation of early spring flowers grasping for rare and tiny glimmers of light; and, perhaps, the welcomed warmth of a beautiful fabric.
Some of my best memories are centred on family: a warm fire; a little baby; or a bouncing toddler. Then an old children’s classic on the iPlayer watched on my Mac as it balances precariously on an elegant coffee table. I stroke my children’s hair with one hand and rest my other hand on my sofa. A generous cushion is warm, encapsulating and a bit of fun for the little ones to hide under. The curtains are not yet fully drawn but they smooth the boundary to the cold outside and give us tantalising glimpses of the world beyond – should we venture too close to the sheers that offer the final, soft protection from the elements.
I work for a fabric company. I love fabric. I can’t pretend that it (fabric) is a be-all and end-all to life and that somehow it will make your life complete. It can’t. But what it clearly can do is complete the sensory experiences in the parts of life that, if you choose, you have control over…the parts of your home. Memories are not just photo-like snapshots in your brain; they are stored, multi-sensory splashes of emotion.
Here are my Winter picks. They are actual ‘picks’ that I’ve recently purchased or are about to purchase.
Take my sofa as an example. My sofa isn’t Continue reading “A Chat With Verity du Sautoy – Her Thoughts On Winter Fabrics”
We Like: Valentines Day Flowers from Marks & Spencer
There are plenty of different inventive ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day with somebody you love. In fact, this is an ideal time of the year to access your creative side and really come up with something unique to surprise your partner with – it can show how much you care, and help to represent your love. So, this year, instead of addressing the holiday with the same old cliché gifts and symbols and hallmark cards, try to go a little bit further. Here are a few tips on how you can design the perfect Valentine’s Day evening right at home, without even going out for a date!
To begin with, flowers are an essential part of any Valentine’s Day celebration, and can be just as useful in a unique home Valentine’s Day as in a traditional night out. In fact, your loved one probably expects flowers, so you almost don’t have a choice! Head out to Marks & Spencer and browse the various floral arrangements and rose selections available, and bring home (or have delivered) enough to decorate your home in an impressive way. This is something with which it’s a good idea to maybe go a bit over the top – an impressive display of flowers can make a nice, charming statement, and can help to set an atmosphere at home.
Once you have your flowers set up, and perhaps a few candles and a nicely set table, you can go about preparing the rest of your home date. If possible, try to decorate the rest of the room in a similar, appropriate way, in order to further set a romantic mood. Then, most importantly, you can start to go about preparing a nice meal to enjoy with the person you love. Going to the trouble to cook a nice, special home meal can show even more care and devotion than taking him or her to a nice night out, so this is a great thing to consider, especially if you’re looking to do something a bit different this year.
Obviously, there are plenty more details that will need to go into your home Valentine’s Day celebration. Whether you want to go a bit further with decorating your home, or have gifts prepared for your loved one, or whatever else, you will likely have a good deal of preparation on your hands. However, in general a nicely organized Valentine’s Day date at home can be quite the romantic event, and may do well to add a bit of uniqueness to a holiday that has become very commercialized.
Luxury Cashmere Throws & Blankets: Why is cashmere the best wool?
- Luxury Cashmere Throws
We would always recommend 100% Cashmere Wool for luxury throws.
Cashmere wool is made from the fibres of the undercoat of the cashmere goal (capra hircus laniger). The fibres are extremely fine, not exceeding 19 microns. To ensure that the high quality undercoat fibres are used a criterion exists to ensure that 97% of the fibres are below 30 microns.
Cashmere wool thus feels ‘fine’, is lightweight and provides good insulating properties without the weight typified by other wools for the same degree of warmth.
No other commercially available wool offers as high a level of quality as cashmere.
So to ensure the best quality Cashmere Throw it is important to specify 100% Cashmere Wool – neither a blend nor any other wool is as good.
Click <here> for further information on Luxury Cashmere throws.
Related articles
- Luxury-Cashmere-Throws-Colour-Tea (KOTHEA.com)
- Luxury-Cashmere-Throws-Colour-Malt (KOTHEA.com)
- Luxury-Cashmere-Throws-Colour-Rose (KOTHEA.com)
Yes the Jack Lenor Larsen stuff is timeless. And it is always interesting to go though our own back catalogues of Homes & Gardens. My how things change!
Nice clean images and I like the recurring theme!
Interior Designers – An Update On using Facebook, LinkedIn WordPress blogs and Twitter
Interior Designers have been moving much of their sales and marketing into the digital world over the last few years. Maybe this was because of great looking Apple products or maybe just because as new, young designers come into larger business they bring in with them the gadget trends of youth. Or maybe because all this digital e-stuff actually can work and can work quite cost effectively if done right.
I’ve written a few articles on this general subject over the years (I’ll reference some of them at the end of this post. However things have moved on in the real world and some of what I’ve PREVIOUSLY written has been superceded or improved.
1. Blogs, Twitter, Web sites, LinkedIn and Facebook – linking them
It’s still mostly true that you will use your web site as your show case for your business. Your blog will be a part of your website and, unless you sell products that require an up-to-date online catalogue, it is your blog that will contain the information that CAN AND SHOULD be regularly updated. (That will boost your google position). Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook come in as networks you are building. All good stuff.
The problem used to come in how you would simultaneously update all these networks without having to manually re-submit the information. That would obviously be time consuming as would installing and keeping working additional pieces of software that glued all the bits of your marketing together.
Well now it is relatively straightforward to have your wordpress blog update your twitter account, your LinkedIn presence and your facebook business page. Similarly twitter can also update your facebook page automatically. Lots of these automatic links now exist within the main software websites (wordpress, twitter, etc) so you only have to write new information (blog posts or tweets or on your wall) once and then the software you use automates the distribution of that information across lots of different web site and online communities. Sorted, no mystery any more.
2. Vanity URLs on Facebook
This area used to be horrendously complicated and thankfully facebook have now simplified how to create a venity URL. What I mean by this is how do you create and use www.facebook.com/KOTHEA …or of course you would have your business name at the end of that.
Essentially you can now just create a PAGE and give it a name (eg KOTHEA in our case) straight away. Gone are the ridiculous but well intentioned rules about having a certain number of fans.
3. Building networks with Facebook
You probably already know that once you have created you PAGE in facebook then you can use facebook as if YOU are the ‘page’. Rather than the person you really are. So rather than having your facebook activities in the name of ‘Joan Smith’ you make comments as if they are coming instead from your business ‘Smith Interior Design’.
google are also trying to “do a facebook”. This is their Google plus network. You can ignore that for the time being.When was the last time you or your kids used it?
Much better for your branding. Remember to be nice ad say sensible things and don’t get carried away!
4. Gadgets
Especially in the Interior Design and Architecture industry lots of people use Apple iphones and ipads. Of course your clients may well also use these devices but perhaps are also quite likely to use other ‘tablet’ devices and other smart phones like Blackberries.
Like you, your clients lead hectic lives. They are on the go and people are increasingly looking for information on the move. So all the electronic marketing you do needs also to work on these devices so your potential clients can read it and find it.
This is not so hard to achieve. Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn will automatically do it. WordPress blogs will do it if you check a box in one of the admin features. It might be harder for your web site to do it properly so have a word with your web page designers.
You can use something like https://marketing.grader.com/ to tell you for free some of the more technical things (like working with mobile/cell phones)
Here are some of the posts I previously wrote or you can find them all in one go by <clicking here>
1. How to get links to your web site
2. Interior Designers: Why does no-one visit your web site
3. Interior Design Marketing Strategies
4. Effective Ad Writing For Interior Designers on Facebook
5. Five Crucial Bits For Your Facebook Business Page
6. Seven Facebook Mistakes Interior Designers Make
Related articles
- Can I post to Twitter and Facebook at the same time? (marketing.yell.com)
- Interior Designers: Why does no-one visit your web site? (KOTHEA.com)
- Superior Interiors with Kelly Hoppen | Channel 5 (KOTHEA.com)
- How do you explain INTERIOR DESIGN to a 6 year old boy? (KOTHEA.com)
- The Business Bible For Interior Designers (KOTHEA.com)
Interior Designers: How to specify A Luxury Cashmere Throw For Your Client Projects
Luxury Cashmere Throws are often used by many designers to add that special finishing touch. The good ones look great and feel fantastic. As well as being aesthetically pleasing a throw can also be functional – keeps you warm!Bearing in mind how often your client will interact with (touch/use) such an item over time it is very important to specify your cashmere throws properly.
Of course you can buy them from very many places. But how do you get a really good one? I mean really good, the best?
We have put together a series of designers’ worksheets. Here is a link to the main one <click here>. The worksheet goes through some of the things you should be looking for when coming to a decision on what to specify.
When looking at specific designs you might then want to look at this worksheet. <Click here>.
Click To Read More Interior Design ArticlesAll the worksheets are listed here, <click here>.
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Superior Interiors with Kelly Hoppen | Channel 5
The vast majority of us in the Interior Design industry are not in the position to be able to host a TV show like Kelly Hoppen‘s “Superior Interiors with Kelly Hoppen | Channel 5“. Such great publicity is obviously a client-winner.
From a business angle the programme is a good watch for interior designers. Of particular interest to me is how she deals with her clients. She is very good interpersonally. But, from a creative point of view, I especially like how she and the programme address situations where the client obviously does not agree with part of her design. Kelly Hoppen is very good at politely sticking by her guns and by the correctness, if you like, of what she is proposing. She is flexible enough to eventually succumb in but not without a gracious and often persuasive fight.
Of course this raises the perennial issue of whether or not ‘the client is king’ or ‘the client is always right’. However if the client is right and got their way, in such instances, then the client is happy! If the client is not right then at least that reinforces the correctness of the designer’s original scheme and the parts of it that were followed.