Elegant Dining requires an excellent chef and a fabulous dining room set for your elegant dining room. Don’t skimp on the important stuff. Yes, the wine is important, but clearly the dining room table is priority!
Bolier & Co. Furniture Manufacturers provide elegant dining rooms that demand elegant dining tables. For contemporary dining rooms that are classic in design, Bolier furniture is an outstanding solution. With a blend of traditional, wooden materials and clean, modern design…the result is a flawless dining table that will withstand the test of time. Enjoy your entertaining years in your home with classic and elegant design by purchasing a Bolier Dining Table.
Harrington of Design is located in the heart of Chicago. A variety of programs and Talented Designers graduate from a rigorous program located in one of America’s Best Architectural City’s Chicago. Meet Jennifer Sompolski, a student at Harrington and 2nd Place Winner at for the Eating and Seating Design Competition.
Best Interior Designers come out of Harrington College of Design. Sprouting with new, innovative ideas! 3rd Place Winner, Teresa Poulos shares her rendering for the Seating and Eating Challenge. Great Design, as it can fold up and easily be transported.
Wholesale Furniture Manufacturers, Distributing Furniture Companies and Furniture Dealers Retail are invited to join! Stop by our FaceBook if you are in the neighborhood!
Home Interior Designer Talent? Photography?Communication Design? Harrington has some of the best programs offered in the heart of Chicago.
Home Interior Designer, Anneka Pesch, from Luminaire Chicago Judges at Harrington College of Design. She loves the approach Cameron Wudtke takes. You have a fan club building up, Cameron!
Wholesale Furniture Manufacturers, Distributing Furniture Companies and Furniture Dealers Retail canjoin here. Stop by the YourFurnitureLink FB page if your in the neighborhood!
Check out more of our FAVORITE BLOGS in our directory! Have a favorite blog you would like us to put in our directory? Put it in our blog comments box please!
Thomasville Cabinetry for the Kitchen and the single guy! Streamline, clean and simple. A perfect kitchen for the single, bachelor. No little, peanut butter and jelly fingers here.
Search for more Kitchen and Dining Room Products here in YourFurnitureLink.com Directory!
Harrington College of Design is located in the heart of Chicago. A variety of programs and Talented Designers graduate from a rigorous program located in one of America’s Best Architectural City’s …Chicago.
Meet Maki Fujii, a student at Harrington. Maki was the first place winner Over All for the Fall 2009 Design Competition for best piece of furniture for “Eating and Seating”.
Join the Your Furniture Link community by signing up in our design directory! Get your name our there in this creative networking tool that shows off your work, product and amazing designs. Please follow the link to learn more about how you can get your name out to the industry and consumers around the world!
Interior design is visions, dreams, feelings, and emotions. Do you have these? If so check out Harrington College of Design for great programs teaching you what you need to know. Degrees available are Associates, Bachelors in Fine Art and their new Masters program.
Peter Klick, instructor at Harrington Institute of Interior Design.
Interior design encompasses what you see when you close your eyes. Imagine! Try to do it, it’s amazing. Human Scale is everything in the interior process. So remember who you are choosing furniture for. Are they small or large, young or old; whoever you are designing for this is the place to start.
Frank Fontana from HGTV fame uses a great collection of furniture in the room above that you can find on Your Furniture Link! Check out the video below for a fun look at some of Franks work!
Your Furniture Link and Harrington College of Design bring you The Seating and Eating Challenge
photo courtesy of ooh_food’s photostream on Flickr
A Furniture Design Competition open to all Harrington College of Design Students, who over the next 16 weeks will be given the opportunity to create new cutting edge furniture designs in Chicago. We at Your Furniture Link in association with Retailers Mig and Tig, Chicago and Mortise and Tenon of Los Angeles, are looking for new trends and ideas and asking you to take a closer look at the living/family and dining room spaces.
We will be posting competitors design progress on our Blog every Friday from now until the contest ends in January of next year. There is a required list of project components including the design images rendered in an interior view, a cataloged list of hardware, finishes, and materials used to create the piece of furniture design. We also require the detailed drawings of each piece designed including dimensions and sections. All information should be attractively compiled and sent to the competition e-mail address which is yfl.design.contest@gmail.com. This is where you will be sending your weekly progress updates. These updates should include one image reflecting the stage you are at in the process of designing the piece. This includes but not limited to, hand sketches, material selections, renderings, wire frame models, pictures of 3-D models built to scale.
This is a two part competition with the first section geared toward seating and the second toward eating. There will be a First place prize of $1,000 a second place prize of $300 and a third place prize of $200 for each section of the competition. Those who place 4th to 10th place in the competition will also be recognized on the website with honorable mention.
Take a minuet to think, what are the trends: more eating in the living room area or more lounge seating in the dining area? Are we all already eating in our sofas and watching TV? Are you eating in your bed? Is the end of the dining room near or will the dining room be upgraded with more comfortable chairs? What are the other functions we are doing while we are eating? Are we eating alone, or each one of the family different time? Re we sitting down while we are eating? Do you have communication with family members or guests? Watching TV? Reading Newspaper? Are you online while you are eating: doing emails, Face book, twitter, YouTube, news or other? What are we eating; fast food from the microwave, take away from the Restaurant, Pizza delivery or a homemade sit down dinner? How often are you using a table cloth, fabric tissue and candle lights? Incorporate the research into you final product.
Harrington College of Design Professor Peter Klick Shows students the importance of sketching by displaying his Sketches through out the school. Harrington also offers an Interior Design Elective called Conceptual Sketching which takes students through the process of starting with an idea and putting pen to paper and first designing your work by hand before bringing it into AutoCAD, SketchUp, 3D MAX or other popular interior design computer programs.
Students from the conceptual sketching class hit up Millennium Park, Chicago for a day of Sketching. Millennium Park is a great place to people watch or sketch. The park is filled with several sculptures and is home to the Frank Gehry Music Pavilion.
Here is a great example of working from a sketch and what a final project can turn out to look like. In this sketch you can see that Peter makes notes throughout his rough draft sketch that eventually become details used in the finished space seen right next to it below. This is why sketching is so important!
Think sketching with pen and paper is out of date? Well you aren’t wrong exactly. This video from MIT shows how new technology is affecting the design world!
Experience the sensation of innovative, modern designs and fashion forward custom fabrics combined with state of the art technology and highest quality materials available on today’s market. Take their seats as an example, Covet uses a Reflex™ Cushion that not only provides you with incredible comfort but also springs back into place once you get up.
Wholesale Furniture Manufacturers, Distributing Furniture Companies and Furniture Dealers Retail are invited to join us. Stop by our FaceBook page if you’re in the neighborhood!
Make yourself comfortable.
Sit down, close your eyes and lose yourself in the endless sea of dreamy fabrics and trims. In other words; cherish each and every moment, embrace the now, smile widely, treasure and Covet. For Covet is fun and exciting, and they deliver “in weeks, not months”, have tons of fabrics and bunch of styles, which probably covers all our clients dream of, when it comes to great upholstery choices.
…Oh, and an unbeatable style not only when it comes to furniture, but also in everyday decision making. See for yourself:
“Covet, a provocative and stimulating furniture company based out of Grand Rapids, MI, was recently aroused to such a point of titillation that they simply had to hire a hot, new designer, Peter Jacobs.
Peter is a principal of the alluring, independent design firm profile-Peter Jacobs, which specializes in hands on design practices for an ever growing, diverse clientele. When asked what drew Peter to make a play for Covet, his eyes sparkled with mischief as he flashed his signature rakish grin.
“I was irresistibly drawn to Covet’s sensual lines. I just couldn’t keep my hands off her frames. The visceral beauty inherent in Covet’s offerings is deeply compelling. I would find myself stroking the coverings with such longing that I knew I simply had to have Covet for myself.”
Peter pauses and leans back in his chair as runs his large hands through his tousled, brown hair. He crosses his long legs and stares pensively, lost in thought.
He continues, “For me, when I am consumed with such a burning desire, there’s just no turning back. I simply must have the object of my attention. Fortunately, Covet had an opening that I was able to penetrate with relative ease.”
Mary Mc Bride from Forbo Flooring Systems presented the product line to Students and Faculty this past month and served an excellent lunch menu during a meet and greet that followed. Students and faculty enjoyed the very informative event and learned about the great natural Forbo products. It worked out quite well in Harrington’s new SLIK space (Student Lounge and Information Kiosk) which features Forbo Bulletin Boards that were donated to the school last semester when they students desingers finished the creation of the lounge space.
Forbo Flooring Systems is a global player in high-quality commercial and residential floor coverings. It focuses on environmentally friendly, functional and design-oriented linoleum, project vinyls for specialized applications, entrance matting systems, carpet tiles for the object market and needle felt, as well as cushion vinyls for the home market. In addition to ultra-hard-wearing materials with excellent acoustic and non-slip properties, their collections include many specialty products for clean rooms and operating theaters.
Check out the video below to tour the concept plan for Harringtons SLIK Space
Remember when you were a child and it was your birthday or Christmas? Remember finding that one oblong present wrapped with a bow because it was extra special? Tearing back the wrapping to reveal a pink box with white script boasting the name on every little girls lips, Barbie. The original blonde bombshell was your favorite toy; due mostly to all the great accessories she required. Well now Barbie is no longer sitting her behind on plastic, shes moved up in the world thanks to the creative mind of Johnathan Adler. Though the interiors may have changed the house is still all Malibu.
Adler has combined alot of his own furniture designs along with pieces made custom for this particular project. The interiors respresent alot of key design ideas which Adler incorporates into his work on a regular basis. By keeping with-in his groovy mind set as well as mixing in classic Barbie colors like pink and orange, Adler has been able to bring the famous doll’s pad to life.
Now even though we love the work and the Interiors make us swoon we have to be realistic when it comes to incorporating this style into our own homes. Key design statements that will turn your space into a dream home like this are: Bright bold fabric choices, edited accessories, custom floor coverings and unique furniture pieces. By incorporating these into your home you can achieve the Barbie “look” with out overding it.
Get the Look by checking out these great furniture company’s below.
Clockwise from top left: Star Burst Wall Mirror from Christopher Guy, Marco Large Cabinet with nickel nail head from Clayton Gray and Bird Print Occasional Chair from Edge Home
Tour Barbie’s Malibu dream house with Johnathan Adler Himself! Watch the video below.
Want more Ideas for fun and Funky spaces? Check this article out from Apartment Therapy
The other day we sat down with Heather Harmston and talked a bit about her experience in Interior Design. You’ll see just as we do that her work with 3D computer rendering is superb. All eyes are on Harrington for great new design and Heather delivers.
YourFurnitureLink: What design style are you in love with right now?
Heather Harmston: I feel like my personal taste and style varies from time to time. I meet new people that open my eyes to new ideas, I find hidden treasures in markets, the more I expose myself to the world of design, the faster my style changes. Currently, I love mixing and matching furniture, textures, art, accessories. I’m very graphic and I love abstract chaotic paintings. My favorite furniture style is one that puts a modern twist on a traditional design.
YFL: Where do you find the most inspiration?
HH: When starting a project I always love to find inspiration in things that are overlooked in life. I pull inspiration from the unexpected. I find that it spices up my projects and makes them unique. Texture and color have always been a huge influence on how I envision a space. In my experience people tend to look for inspiration in beautiful visually appealing things, but what’s the fun in that? I like to take a deeper look!
YFL: What will life be like after Harrington?
HH: All I can say is whatever I do, I hope I’m happy. Harrington has taught me so much about myself and about my abilities but the most important thing I have learned is that I truly am in the right field. I am always excited to work on projects and I enjoy every second of what I do. Ideally I would love to be a part of a creative team in an Event Production Company. A company that is bold and is not afraid of color or dramatic effect, one that stands out as being over the top in their designs.
YFL: Give us a Little information on the Project we see here.
HH: This project in particular was a culmination of vibrant colors and rigid textures. When designing this restaurant entitled RUST, a Moroccan Steakhouse in the heart of Chicago the goal was to create an intimate energy amongst the diners. An escape into a new culture that provokes conversation and liveliness. The concept was “finding the beauty of man in nature”. The interior space utilizes materials such as man made metals and new technology, while still incorporating a sense of earthiness by the way they were finished. The exterior or terrace of the restaurant acts as the beginning phase of “RUST”. The necessary elements of rust or oxidation are water, air and a metal. The terrace acts as a stripped down version of the interior focusing on the basic elements needed to create rust.
Great concept and Good luck Heather, we’ll be waiting to see whats next!
Find Heather on Facebook for more info on her Interior Design future.
Love Heathers restaurants look? Check out the pieces below to add some spice to your home!
Be Primitive
About 30 Students from Harrington College of Design with Frank Fontana from HGTV enjoyed the excellent guidance from Glen Joffe and Steve Quinlan through their exiting, mysterious, unique and beautiful showroom “Primitive” on 130 North Jefferson Street in Chicago. “We learned a lot about the design from diverse cultures on the 4 floors of the showroom and we enjoyed to see the restoration shop in the lower level.” said a student.
Students listen intently to the owners as they speak about what is “Primitive”
Students from Harrington Pose with Frank Fontana for a picture after the tour.
Check out the video below for a great Interior Design Thesis project from Harrington.
When you are searching for solid wood end tables, Coffee tables, Accent tables and unique dining pieces Tucker Robbins is the first place to look. Not many people can say they have a three ball dining table like the one below and even less people can say that they have a table which has been inspired by global culture and the life of Tucker Robbins. Robbins has proven his passion for furniture design by creating pieces which display true craftsmanship and creativity.
The Tucker Robbins goal is to bring the spirit and craft from the tribal cottage industry to contemporary life. This Dialog with ancient peoples, spanning continents and centuries, brings insight into what we have forgotten about today’s furniture industry. The Tucker Robbins furniture line also brings to life a new sense of “green” living by incorporating salvaged materials and working with the people who not only manage the forests where wood is grown but also care for it.
The Tucker Robbins look is that of refined rusticity. This means he’s added a polished edge given to a piece that has been reclaimed from an ancient village. Tuckers design process revolves around the idea of collaboration and exploration into the possibilities of the material and form of the piece. This is the approach he takes when working with a client on a custom piece. He starts at his studio on Long Island and will introduce you to many objects from all over the world that have influenced his creative journey.
Then, when working on a custom piece for a client he will walk with you through 16,000 square feet of beautiful material both recycled and carefully harvested from all over the world. Woods Tucker Robbins uses in his pieces include satinwood, acacia, nadun, kumbuk, narra and mountain pine. These are all extremely rare woods whose natural beauty have been aged and dried in order to create interesting furnishings for your home.
Tucker Robbin’s truley does work with the people whose homelands he is inspired from. The Toraja women of Suluwesi, Indonesia used this goblet shape seen in the table above for their mortar which serves as a pedestal base for the round table. He’s inspired by jewelry and homes, and many other interesting objects which he incorporates into all his work both catalog and custom.
For some helpful tips on working with a designer watch the video below:
Need help finding a side table option that makes sense for your bedroom? Check out these interiors at decor8blog.com
New Orleans has gone through a lot of stress over the last couple of years but it remains a must visit U.S. city and these photos show why. The architecture and design in this 291 year old city brings it’s residents from the modern century to a time of European indulgence. Today the big easy maybe best be know for it’s hurricanes and Mardi Gras but there is a sense of old worldliness that has me inspired to bring a french flare into my own Interior.
While staying in the French Quarter you have got to take a walk down every street, turn every corner and discover something new. Make sure to walk the French Market after you sip on a café au lait and nibble on fresh beignets from Cafe’ Du Monde. Walk the St. Louis Cathedral square at night and have your cards or palm read just for fun! But do make sure to stop in to the Cathedral and take in the great Architecture which New Orleans was built around.
The best part of New Orleans are the courtyards and gardens. These outdoor spaces, as well as the Lobby’s and den’s of the Boutique French Quarter Hotels are where I find my Interior inspiration. Bringing the gardens into your space via small accessories like the finial shown below and other decorative accents is a great start. The nice thing about New Orleans is the amount of original art that can be bought on the street from the artist and you can usually talk them into a good price.
To really make an impact you must include a chandelier, like the one show above, in your interior. This will bring your company and you into the lounges and parlor rooms of so many great New Orleans destinations. Also by adding a frech country inspired chair or chaise you are adding style and sophistication to your space. My favorite thing to do is play off the furniture style by placing the piece in a modern space or next to a modern side table. This will bring more focus to the piece as art not just a comfy place to sit.
So when you are planning your next trip out of town remember to consider an inspiring location like New Orleans and don’t forget to take pictures of all the historical interiors and the furnishings so you can incorporate something like them in your home. And don’t forget to start your Online Search here!
The Academy of Art University was established in San Francisco in 1929 by Richard S. Stephens, a fine art painter who had accepted the position of Creative Director for Sunset Magazine. Assisted by his wife, Mrs. Clara Stephens, he opened the new school in a rented loft at 215 Kearny Street to teach advertising art. In a few years, a distinguished faculty of practicing art and design professionals was assembled and the school’s philosophy was formulated: hire established professionals to teach future professionals. In 1933 the curriculum was expanded to include Fashion Illustration, and in 1936 a Fine Art Department was added.
Dr. Elisa Stephens, the granddaughter of the school’s founder, succeeded her father as President of the Academy of Art University in 1992. Dr. Stephens has been committed to expanding the Academy’s curriculum to stay current with new technologies and industry trends, as well as making state-of-the art facilities and resources available to Academy students. In 2004, the name of the school was changed from Academy of Art College to Academy of Art University in recognition of its depth, scope and quality.
Today the University has more than 13,000 students, making it the largest private school of art and design in the country. Students now have the opportunity to pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Bachelor of Arts, Associate of Arts, Master of Fine Arts, Master of Arts, Master of Architecture, Certificate Programs or Continuing Art Education courses, with over 30 areas of academic emphasis.
The graduate student in the Interior Architecture & Design program will be prepared for professional practice through integrated theory, design and technology in tandem with industry standards. The graduate student will be taught to achieve a balance between the mastery of design skills that meet the needs of the profession, and the creativity and imagination that will lead to better ways of thinking about our environment.
For the graduate Interior Architecture & Design student’s Final Project, a site is selected in order to redesign its function and interiors; under the direction of a faculty of professional experts, concern for spatial issues, design innovation and attention to detail are emphasized. The concept of the project will demonstrate an energetic professional approach, and will be professionally exhibited upon approval by the Final Review committee.
While attending the Academy of art you will produce a body of work suitable for seeking professional opportunities in your chosen field of art and design. Solve creative problems within your field of art and design, including research and synthesis of technical, aesthetic, and conceptual knowledge. Communicate your ideas professionally and connect with their intended audience using visual, oral, and written presentation skills relevant to their field. Execute technical, aesthetic, and conceptual decisions based on an understanding of art and design principles. Evaluate work in the field, including your own work, using professional terminology. Recognize the influence of major cultural and aesthetic trends, both historical and contemporary, on art and design products. Learn the professional skills and behaviors necessary to compete in the global marketplace for art and design
So If you’re stuck in a job rut and need to find something new to do or if you have completed a BA and want to continue your education with a Masters degree, right now is the perfect time to check out The Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
All photos Courtesy of the Student Works page found at The Academy of Art University website. Check out the links for more information.
