Setting the Stage for 2012

Posted on January 5, 2012 by admin

At ethnicitiDesignOnline we look forward to the coming year with great anticipation and optimism. We will focus on our core busines, interior design, and those off shoots that add clarity and revenue. I look at the design world from two basic perspectives: services and products. We want to be able to leverage our interior design busines with complementary services that both enhance the brand and deepen our relationships with our clients.

We look at our business as a three-leg stool:

interior design and styling
pop-up design studios
tablescapes

Each of the design services will have a independent and corresponding product offer that will give our clients a comprehensive approach to their design objectives. Our disrubition will include the launch of our In-Home Design Studio where we will hold events, product introductions, along with practical ideas for those weekend styling projects.

I hope you will join us on what will be an exciting journey for the new year.

Bill

Exquisite Dining

Posted on December 12, 2011 by admin

Looking for a way to create a centerpiece for that special dining experience?

ethnicitiDesignOnline is offering a new and exiciting service that combines our love for African-inspired interior design with modern African cusine. We will design and install a complete tablescape setting that is custom to your existing dining space.

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Harvest Tablescape

We start with an in-home consulation to develop the overall approach: color, texture, palette, and how we intergrate your existing furnishings and dinerware into the setting.

Host Dinnerware

We will create a custom table linens package that will be a permanent component of your tablescape. Each presentation is one of a kind.

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Custom Table Linens

You can select from either Fruits or Vegetables as the major theme, highlighted by unique floral arrangements. Following your approval of the concept, we will take it from there, leaving you the time to focus on the meal preperation. We will set up the presentation the day of the event.

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Vegetable Theme

Following your approval of the concept we will take it from there, leaving you the time to focus on the meal preperation. We will set up the presentation the day of the event.

To answer the question ”What do we do with the leftovers?” included in the package are menus that make use of the Harvest Tablescapes items for a next-day gathering.

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Next-Day Menu

For those who need a larger group presentation we can acomadate you with our custom packages.

Contact us today for a free in-home consultation so that we can explore you needs for the holidays.

call us: 614-260-4166
e-mail us: ethniciti@aol.com
visit our web site: ethnicitiDesignonline

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Buffet Presentation

Living with Strong, Rich Color

Posted on November 28, 2011 by admin

We are often guilty of safety-net designing whereby we retreat to the cocoon of sameness and pale. On occasion, we become courageous with a color accent wall or two, but rarely the tact defined by Vinny Lee in her book “Mood Indigo.” She explores the notion of surrounding oneself with strong, rich, and compelling colors.

Green is perhaps one of the most versatile of all of the dark colors. It works well with both contrasting and compatible tone as well as many others from the color wheel. It can be used to create simple, country rustic to jewel-like gilded opulence. Here are some of my favorites.

Fusion in Paris

Posted on October 24, 2011 by admin

If you are looking for unique interpretations of urban African-inspired design, look to Paris – a city known for fashion has long ago embraced a cultural-fusion approach to interiors.

This apartment by Christian Louboutin highlighted in New Paris Interiors (edited by Angelika Taschen) is a great example of how to marry a traditional urban space with a personal cultural aesthetic.

African-Inspired High Fashion Crosses over to Home Fashion

Posted on October 7, 2011 by admin

Africa’s Masai influences collide in a mélange of exuberant hues, silhouettes and textures.

Following a triumphal appearance of African-influenced apparel presented by the ARISE Promise Of Africa Collective at New York’s fashion week, many of the world’s front-line designers are recognizing the emerging trend of high fashion African-inspired design.

Fashion spreads in the latest Essence and Ebony magazines beautifully craft a look that is so in keeping with the Afropolitan style, with it’s creative use of traditional wax prints and patterns accompanied by exquisite accessories.

The use of traditional wax prints, while new to some, has always been a mainstay in the creation of home fashion. I am always inspired by the migration of high fashion to our home environments. Moroso proves with the Binta arm chair that modern design can be creative, cultural, and inspiring.

ethnicitiDesignOnline Building Blocks

Posted on September 23, 2011 by admin

Building Blocks: Essence, Structure, Accents, Artifacts

Our approach to creating unique personal spaces provides a simple way to communicate with our clients during the critical discovery period. Many times clients are overwhelmed with the thought of making decisions in the early stages and have trouble in visualizing the end game.

Our BUILDING BLOCK phases helps establish a common language that gives the client the means to be an active partner while giving the designer a way to stay on point and keep control of the design process. No wasted motions, no trips to the dark side.

Renaissance Remembered

Posted on September 18, 2011 by admin

The growing and changing complexion of Harlem is a cause for both sadness and optimism. The progress made in creating what Harlem might look and feel like in the future is mixed with a certain familiarity and remembrance as to what it meant and how it was to live it during the golden age.

The history of Harlem, and for that matter that of blacks in America, cannot be considered without acknowledging the the work of Harlem’s most celebrated photographer, James Van Der Zee. As captured in “Harlem Renaissance Art of Black America” by the Studio Museum in Harlem, his unique style of storytelling captured the essence of family groups, activism, and lifestyle of the Harlem community photographed to show their beauty, pride, and dignity.

Kitchen Style

Posted on September 11, 2011 by admin

With kitchens playing a major role in our lifestyles today, ethniciti recommends breaking away from the traditional or expected and creating welcoming rooms that have plenty of individuality and character.

These images from “Global Style” by Lesley Dilcock are great examples of creative approaches to what has become a central space in most homes.

Furniture as Useful Artifacts

Posted on September 4, 2011 by admin

We are sometimes intimated by the artful use of artifacts in our design ideas. I think mainly because we regard them as museum pieces and not in the way they were created: to be used.

These images from “Global Style” by Leslie Dilcock offer stunning examples of how the designers have seamlessly incorporated artistic, yet functional pieces into the scheme of their room designs.

Room Attitude Change

Posted on August 26, 2011 by admin

Perhaps my favorite designer, Tricia Guild, never ceases to amaze me with her daring and color sensibility. This bedroom was her exercise in using contrasting patterns to a dramatic effect. The color schemes of shades of pink, reds, yellows, and oranges makes a nod to Mexico and demonstrates how easy and cost effective it is to completely change the attitude of a room. For ideas on how to change the attidue of your rooms, visit ethniciti’s essentials page.