Meet Clarissa Lewis

French designer Claire Lavabre has created an innovative mirror called "Reflet" that distinguishes itself through its unique activation mechanism. Unlike conventional mirrors, Reflet's reflective properties are fully realized only when positioned over a dark, matte-painted shape on a wall. While a partial reflection is discernible against a white surface, the mirror's true clarity emerges when the ultra-reflective, yet highly transparent, glass overlaps with a dark background. This effect is akin to observing one's reflection in a darkened window at night or from a well-lit room when the exterior is dark, where the contrast enhances visibility. Lavabre's design exploration delves into the interplay between reflective and transparent surfaces, aiming to create new visual perspectives by superimposing images. To facilitate user customization and adaptation to various environments, she proposes a series of six distinct geometric shapes and colors that can be painted on the wall to accompany the mirror. This allows individuals to personalize the mirror to their preferred aesthetic and integrate it seamlessly into different spaces. The Reflet project originated during Lavabre's studies at École Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle (ENSCI) in Paris, where she completed her graduation in December of the previous year. The mirror is slated for exhibition at the Design Parade 8 festival, held at Villa Noailles in Hyères, France, from July 5th to 7th, as part of a showcase featuring works by ten emerging designers. This innovative approach to mirror design follows other recent explorations in the field. For instance, New York designer Joe Doucet developed the "Fathom" mirror as a tribute to Hurricane Sandy victims, which creates an illusion of partial submersion for the viewer. Similarly, Canadian studio The Practice of Everyday Design crafted a mirror that presents ghostly reflections through its buffed stainless steel surface, highlighting the diverse creative directions within contemporary mirror design. Lavabre's "Reflet" project contributes to this evolving landscape by challenging traditional perceptions of mirrors and introducing an interactive element that relies on the surrounding environment to unlock its full potential. The system comprises a wood frame, the specialized glass, and the wall paint, allowing for variable shapes and sizes of the geometric backdrop. #ProductDesign #HomewareDesign #MirrorDesign #FrenchDesign #DesignInnovation #InteriorDecor #InteractiveDesign

Amber Bullis shares the journey of establishing Olive Peach Autumn Leaves, a business specializing in custom home and event decor. Initially, the venture began from a personal hobby of crafting unique wreaths that differed from mass-produced options available in retail stores. This passion evolved into a business offering custom-made seasonal wreaths, distinguishing itself by creating one-of-a-kind pieces and never replicating designs. Over time, the business expanded its offerings to include floral arrangements and custom signs, becoming a comprehensive provider for home and event decoration. Amber's entrepreneurial path started during a period as a stay-at-home mother with three young children. Her initial wreaths were made from leftover garlands, and their unique appeal quickly garnered requests from friends, prompting her to consider it as a business. She dedicated time to learning floral design techniques and bow-making through tutorials, transitioning from using salvaged materials to artificial and eventually preserved and fresh flowers. The expansion of her services grew from crafting home decor items to creating centerpieces and custom signage for events like baby showers and weddings, offering printed, wood, acrylic, and mirror signs for purchase and rental. This journey helped Amber rediscover her identity and purpose. Regarding business development and marketing, Amber recounts a significant moment where she took a personal risk to showcase her abilities. As a self-taught floral designer, she recognized the need to actively market her skills rather than waiting for clients to discover her. This led her to host a brunch for friends who had supported her business, transforming her home with elaborate floral installations and custom signs, akin to a bridal shower. She hired a content creator to document the event, leveraging it as a marketing tool. This proactive approach to self-promotion resulted in promising new projects and validated her talent and vision. Amber emphasizes the importance of building strong relationships with her clients, viewing each custom piece as a reflection of their personal story and style. She engages deeply with clients to understand their preferences, ensuring that the final product aligns perfectly with their personality and event. This personalized approach often transforms client relationships into friendships, as she accompanies them through significant life events like weddings, pregnancies, and home decor projects after major life changes. This focus on personal connection and attention to detail, which mass retailers cannot offer, fosters client loyalty and repeat business. She highlights that the love and care put into each custom design resonate deeply with her clients, bringing joy to both her and them. #Entrepreneurship #FloralDesign #CustomDecor #HomeDecor #EventDecor #SmallBusiness #CreativePursuits #PersonalBrand #ClientRelationships

Krysti Lyn, a whole home designer, discusses her career journey, design philosophy, and personal experiences. She reveals that her career in design began at the young age of seven, identifying it as an innate gift for "seeing in scale." This ability allows her to visualize how objects fit within a room beyond their aesthetic contribution, a skill she considers a designer's superpower. Despite not actively choosing this path, she expresses gratitude for the opportunity to fulfill her purpose daily, serving clients who benefit from her unique perspective. Lyn specializes in a transitional design aesthetic, which involves blending and merging various design styles and periods. She emphasizes her versatility and ability to select appropriate materials for her clients, attributing her success to this client-centric approach. Her professional journey, however, has not been without challenges. She openly shares that her personal and work life was significantly impacted by domestic violence. This experience, while difficult, ultimately strengthened her resolve, teaching her the importance of self-advocacy and re-focusing on her future. She highlights that this period of adversity made her more determined and taught her to establish boundaries, including learning to say "no." Her professional goals include maintaining her status as an authority on design options, continuously integrating new products, tools, and styles into her practice. She prides herself on creating timeless designs for her clients, understanding that her work involves a significant degree of responsibility and trust. These two elements, she notes, are fundamental to her profession. She considers the ability to build and maintain trust with clients as paramount to her success. When asked about her recommendations for a friend visiting Los Angeles, Lyn outlines a personalized itinerary. This includes a casual meal at In-N-Out Burger, followed by a three-day staycation at her home in Palm Desert, complete with a hot tub, private massages, charcuterie, and Malbec red wine. The trip would also feature a short visit to Las Vegas for a show and a stay at a luxury hotel, interspersed with visits to quaint local spots for improv or murder mystery dinners. A morning drive to Malibu for breakfast to enjoy the scenic views is also on the list. For those interested in Hollywood, she mentions a visit to a famous celebrity cemetery. Significantly, she emphasizes introducing her friend, Kathy, to as many clients as possible, revealing Kathy's integral role as a faithful assistant, confidante, and source of support throughout her career. This acknowledgment underscores the importance of personal relationships in her professional life. Lyn also touches upon the role of mentorship in her career, stating that she did not have a traditional mentor. Instead, she navigated her early career through prayer and faith. She acknowledges one instructor from Harrington design college who authored a notable Modern Furniture Resource Book, and expresses that being recognized by Harpo Studios for her participation in "The Ugliest Room Contest" was a pivotal moment, making her feel understood and appreciated early in her career. This recognition served as a validation of her unique talent and approach to design. #InteriorDesign #HomeDecor #TransitionalDesign #DesignPhilosophy #Entrepreneurship #PersonalJourney #CreativeProfession #ClientRelationships #LosAngeles

This article introduces Rashelle Campbell, a multidisciplinary designer and artist, who shares her journey from conceptualizing her rug tufting business during the pandemic to establishing a successful brand. The inspiration for her business originated from a personal search for unique, asymmetrical, colorful, and groovy rugs for her own home, which she found unavailable in the market. This led her to decide to create one herself, purchasing a tufting gun and beginning to design. After creating her first rug and sharing it online, she received significant positive feedback, leading to numerous custom rug requests within the first two months. Six months into her venture, she collaborated with her first retailer and launched her inaugural full rug collection, which sold out on the first day. This organic growth and demand prompted her to develop a website with an online store, solidifying her brand's professional presence and commitment. Rashelle Campbell identifies as Nehiyaw Iskwew (Cree) and is based in Amiskwaciy-wâskahikan, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, residing on Treaty 6 territory. Her artistic philosophy centers on playfulness, embracing imperfections, and a vibrant use of colors. Before founding her brand, she gained experience as a publicist and freelance photographer, which she credits for enhancing her current skill set as a business owner and artist. Her brand, simply named "Rashelle," is conceived as a boundless creative space, unrestricted by conventional design rules or specific categories. Initially focusing on rugs for home interiors, her brand has expanded to include glassware, accessories, and clothing. She emphasizes that her creative work is not limited to a single medium, allowing her to continuously produce pieces that reflect her current interests and inspirations. The services she provides include custom rug orders, which she finds particularly fulfilling as it allows her to design and produce unique items tailored to clients' display preferences. She also releases small, distinct collections of rugs, accessories, and clothing. All items are either handmade by her or through collaboration, with a focus on limited production quantities to avoid overproduction. She differentiates herself by being among the pioneering tufters to establish a brand, offering unique designs that evoke youth, childhood nostalgia, and Y2K memories. Her work is characterized by the love and happiness infused into each piece, driven by a desire to spread joy and authentically represent herself as an Indigenous woman who enjoys creating "wacky fun things," rather than being primarily motivated by financial gain or exposure. Rashelle expresses pride in her resilience, particularly in facing attempts by others to copy her designs. She advocates for trusting the creative process and maintaining momentum, advising against overthinking, which can foster fear. Instead, she encourages artists to keep moving forward, reminding themselves of their core motivations to overcome challenges. She also discusses her strategy for building a social media audience, which involved a giveaway linked to her first collection launch, requiring followers to like and comment to enter. She views giveaways as an effective way to expand reach and engage the community, while also providing an opportunity for individuals who might not otherwise afford her pieces to own them, aligning with her value of giving back. As an Indigenous woman, she perceives the act of sharing her work as an everyday act of resilience, drawing inspiration from the Indigenous women in her life and prioritizing Indigenous joy. Her journey, the support she has received, and her access to resources for creation are all testaments to her resilience. She highlights the significance of her presence as an Indigenous woman representing creative Indigenous women and using her voice, considering it a success in itself. #RashelleCampbell #MultidisciplinaryArtist #RugTufting #IndigenousArtist #CreativeEntrepreneurship #HomeDecor #SmallBusiness #Y2KAesthetic #SocialMediaGrowth

Brooke Williams, a senior at the University of Colorado Boulder, shares her journey from initially pursuing Architectural Engineering to finding her true passion in Environmental Design. Hailing from Santa Cruz, California, Brooke initially chose CU Boulder for its engineering program, drawn by her proficiency in math. However, after two years in engineering, she discovered the Environmental Design program through a friend and quickly realized it offered the design-focused education she craved, which was lacking in her engineering curriculum. She describes the competitive environment of engineering versus the supportive community she found in ENVD, highlighting the unique faculty-student relationships where professors encourage students to address them by their first names. Brooke's academic path includes a transformative study abroad experience in Rome during her junior year, where she immersed herself in a challenging 3000-level studio. This six-week summer program was pivotal, pushing her out of her comfort zone and providing intense, enriching learning opportunities. She emphasizes the value of travel for inspiration and personal growth, having also explored Germany and Venice during her time abroad. Within her major, Brooke appreciates the wide breadth of study in Environmental Design, which encourages understanding the entire human-built environment, encompassing architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning. She believes this comprehensive approach provides her with a unique edge in the field. Beyond academics, Brooke actively participates in campus clubs such as the Illumination Engineering Society (IES), Design Build Institute of America (DBIA), and American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS), aligning her extracurriculars with her passions. She recounts a particularly gratifying experience as a Teaching Assistant, where she inspired students during an impromptu lecture on the importance of model-making. Brooke also shares her involvement as the team captain for a DBIA competition, leading a multidisciplinary team to a third-place finish. This experience, which involved responding to an RFQ, creating design concepts, and managing construction schedules, solidified her desire to one day own her own firm and be involved in all aspects of projects. Her summer internship at Fuse, an architecture firm in her hometown, was a significant turning point. Initially, she secured the internship by cold-emailing the firm and was tasked with basic duties. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, she quickly stepped into more significant roles, including drafting renderings for clients and developing a schematic design for a cake shop that is now being built. This hands-on experience confirmed her passion for architecture and provided early exposure to the construction process. She plans to return to Fuse to see the cake shop project through to completion. Brooke's future aspirations include becoming an architectural intern, incorporating lighting design into her work, and eventually earning her architecture license to open a small residential firm, ideally in San Francisco or Santa Cruz. Her advice to underclassmen is to seek out as much work experience as possible to clarify career goals and to fully utilize university resources, separating the theoretical learning of school from the practical, budget-driven realities of the professional world. #EnvironmentalDesign #ArchitectureStudent #StudyAbroad #CareerJourney #DesignInternship #StudentLeadership #ArchitecturalEngineering #UniversityOfColoradoBoulder #LightingDesign

Christine Lin, founder and principal of Form + Field, an interior design firm based in San Francisco, shares insights into her work, inspirations, and projects. Lin's background includes studies in architecture and mechanical engineering at MIT, where she also delved into furniture and product design and art history. This diverse academic foundation, combined with rigorous training in corporate and startup tech environments and an MBA from UC Berkeley, equipped her with expert management and execution skills. Her keen eye for design has been further honed through extensive study and global travel, seeking out new art, design, and architecture. Form + Field's design philosophy centers on integration and longevity, aiming to create holistic, enduring environments that promote joy and well-being. The firm intentionally crafts spaces tailored to individual needs, whether residential or commercial. Lin describes her style aesthetic as 'eclectic modernism with an emphasis on contemporary art and architectural detailing.' The design process at Form + Field is highly client-centric. It begins with a comprehensive discovery phase, including extensive questionnaires, to deeply understand clients' personal interests, preferences, and cherished memories of interiors. This information serves as a foundation for crafting a unique space. Lin likens the design process to a Venn diagram, where one circle represents the client's desires and functional requirements, and the other encompasses Form + Field's design principles. The 'overlap' between these two circles, which varies with each client, is where the firm identifies the magical and personalized aspects of a project. Lin finds inspiration primarily through conversations with passionate individuals across various crafts and arts, transferring that energy into her design work. One of her most inspiring projects to date is the Martis Camp project in Tahoe, a collaboration with Faulkner Architects, set to conclude in 2024. This project stands out for its ambitious scope, extensive custom design integrated with interior architecture, and the exploration of new vendors, fabrication processes, and color applications. Her dream project involves designing a small boutique hotel that offers a unique guest experience, deeply rooted in the surrounding culture and context of its location. Form + Field's ideal clients are described as kind, well-traveled, cultured individuals who value quality, invest in good design, appreciate architecture, and collect art. These clients are typically open to exploration, new ideas, and unexpected design solutions. Lin identifies Form + Field's 'design superpower' as their ability to interpret clients' needs and desires through their distinct lens, translating them into elevated, unique designs. The firm prides itself on creating spaces where each project possesses a distinct personality, clearly reflecting the occupants. Her design heroes include architect Rem Koolhaas/OMA, whose conceptual approach, focus on ideas over a singular aesthetic, and willingness to take risks are deeply inspiring. Looking ahead, Form + Field is embarking on a large, new-construction generational home project in Kauai, collaborating with Zak Architecture. This endeavor represents an exciting opportunity to create a holistic vision for a dream vacation home, building on an established trust with the clients, for whom this is their third project with the firm. #InteriorDesign #ChristineLin #FormAndField #DesignPhilosophy #EclecticModernism #ClientCentricDesign #ArchitecturalDetailing #DesignInspiration #CustomDesign

Kelsey Ferrell, a 23-year-old entrepreneur and tufting artist, shares her journey from college graduate to custom rug maker. Her venture began while completing her final art classes, where she conceived the idea of creating custom rugs that would offer more than mere decoration—they would provide an experience. Following graduation, Ferrell dedicated her first year to mastering rug-making techniques and exploring various materials, a period characterized by extensive experimentation and late-night work. In her second year, she started offering workshops to her community, which were met with significant enthusiasm and support, transforming her personal dream into a collaborative and shared creative endeavor. Ferrell describes herself as a self-made entrepreneur with a passion for business and design, developed during her time at Indiana University. She emphasizes a hands-on approach and a commitment to understanding each client's unique needs, ensuring that her custom rugs are not only aesthetically pleasing but also perfectly align with the client's vision. Beyond custom orders, she conducts group workshops, enabling participants to engage with the design process, unleash their creativity, and craft their own unique pieces in a collaborative setting. She expresses pride in the success of these workshops and the positive feedback received, which she views as a testament to her dedication and the trust clients place in her work. Her overarching mission is to empower others through creativity and personalized craftsmanship, fostering inspiring and delightful spaces through collaboration. Ferrell recounts a significant pivotal moment early in her business, where she sought advice from her father regarding the profitability of her rug sales. At the time, she was producing only one or two rugs every three months, not operating for profit. Her father's encouraging words, "We aim high, and if it didn’t work we’ll try again," instilled in her the confidence to push past self-imposed limits and find beauty in the process of growth and adaptation. The initial funding for her business came from an unexpected source: appearing on the game show "The Cube" on TBS in 2022. She took a leap of faith by applying, not expecting to be chosen, but ultimately found herself on stage with NBA player Dwyane Wade, competing for a substantial prize. This opportunity, undertaken with her mother's support, provided the capital to kickstart her entrepreneurial journey. Ferrell maintains an active presence across various platforms, including her website OKTUFT.COM, Instagram (@original.kelc), Facebook, YouTube (@Originalkelc), and TikTok (@original.kelc), to connect with clients, followers, and the broader creative community. #KelseyFerrell #TuftingArtist #CustomRugs #CreativeEntrepreneurship #DesignWorkshops #SmallBusiness #ArtisticJourney #HomeDecor