Sundays, looking at the coffee table at the pile of catalogs made me think about design.  As I began to thumb through I wondered how Christopher John Rodriguez or Tom Ford gets their inspiration.  Do they, like me, thumb through everything from the Vermont Country Store to Neiman Marcus to get inspiration?  Unlikely would be my thought, but it got me thinking about my work.  Working with glass and lighting most companies have a catalog.  I have tried to resist the catalog.

 Designers and architects should be free to design, not pick from a catalog.  Why should material suppliers confine the creativity of a designer or architect?  Instead, should we be using our materials as a blank canvas.  At Elevecture, our firm belief is yes, we should be lifting the ideas of designers and helping them achieve their goal. 

Next week I will ponder why developers ponder the catalog selection, and how, at times, we go from material that helps articulate the culture of the building, to a catalog selection, that may be in 100 of other buildings.

Lianne Friedman