Design Expo

            Design Expo 2011 was a great combination of new designs, new products, and new ideas. There was just the right amount of variety between products and plenty of people to tell you all about them. One of my favorite vendors was Sabrina Fiebrich from Stone Solutions. Her kiosk caught my eye because it had a wide variety of brightly colored tile in blues, oranges, and reds. The tile designs were all so beautiful and ranged in material from porcelain to glass to recycled materials. The majority of the tile that I enjoyed most was all the bright mosaic tiles but they also have countertop and other flooring materials in just as wonderfully designed material. “Stone Solutions’” best work is done in limestone, ceramic, mosaics, slate, porcelain, and travertine. Another product line I loved was from “Coalesce” who brought part of their “Emu Advanced Collection”. This line is of indoor and outdoor tables and chairs which are mostly made of metal and using a wire form that has been bent or altered in some way or another. The piece that I greatly enjoyed was called “Emu Re-trouve” which was an aqua metal chair that had a semi-circle tall back and a simple circular pedestal base. This chair had just a simple circle pillow for a seat cushion and was surprisingly comfortable. Although it could be used for indoors it would be a fantastic outdoor chair especially since it comes in a wide range of fun and bright colors. The pedestal base used for the chair was also repeated in the base for the glass topped side table and the much larger glass toped dining table. The metal work for these pieces made them so much more aesthetically pleasing than most metal furniture I have seen.

            The design expo is always a learning experience to find out what the new ideas and trends are and this year was no exception. I saw, I absorbed, and I won $50 to chilis so it was great all around!