Decorex International is a trade show for interior design professionals. Events for the 2016 conference include keynote speakers, panels, and exhibitors. The conference will be September 18-21 in Syon Park, London. Designing Brands 2.0 will be held on September 20 at 1pm BST with book signings by Martyn Lawrence Bullard and Kim Kuhteubl immediately to follow.

As women, we are deeply affected by emotional stress and we easily remember the details of emotional events. Our brains are wired for heightened empathy and we can read the emotions of others simply by looking at their faces or interpreting their tone of voice. It’s why you’ll often hear women say, “I don’t like conflict.” Our brains are massively triggered by conflict, violence, brutality because it puts us at odds with our urge to stay connected, be in harmony with, to nurture and so we would rather defuse it. It is not instinctual for us to solve problems that way.

I know. You’re convinced your branding problem is a nuts and bolts aesthetic issue and you just want to zhush your website and get a geek to tweak your SEO. It would be so much faster. So would buying an online ad or paying for advertorial in a magazine, right? (I’ll save my thoughts on those things for another post.) But is it a guarantee that oodles and oodles of clients will start beating a path to your door? For the sake of argument, and your resistance, let’s just say that they do.

Think about it. Snapchat says its users are 13-34 which means ten years from now, the oldest user will be 44, smack in the middle of their highest income earning years. Although depending on what part of the country you live in, you might be a 28-year-old tech mogul with some cash, a new penthouse and not a whole lot of education when it comes to design right now.

When it comes to doing business and doing life, we are schooled from a young age on the importance of other people’s opinions and perceptions. Many of us live in fear of negative feedback and reviews, staying silent in the face of mistruths so that we can avoid confrontation, not look like a bitch, be good, perfect, nice and all of those other things mostly women are taught to do.

It’s official. As some of you already know, my first book Branding + Interior Design will be published by Schiffer Publishing this Fall. It’s been a long road and I’m excited that I will FINALLY get to share this book with you.

We’ve had some big news in the design industry over the last few weeks, starting with High Point and North Carolina’s HB2 bill, which revokes the protection of many in the design community. Leaders like Mitchell Gold of Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, one of the most prominent furniture makers in the country and leadership […]

Shortly after her 42nd birthday, another broken marriage and scandal, fate was finally kind to Syrie Maugham. She credits her daughter as the creative impetus for her decorating career. “I began it all in Liza’s nursery when she was a baby girl. I had plenty of time on my hands and I just began to […]

Remember when design bloggers were obsessed with their RSS feeds to drive traffic to their blogs. No? Maybe you developed your digital chops with social media like Twitter, Facebook or finally got interested when Pinterest started picking up speed? Now you’re probably obsessed with Instagram? You may be up to date on the latest social […]

When your clients are a fit, working is easy.