Design with Value

The best, most cleverly designed, objects are both amusing and practical at the same time.  They have a “Why didn’t I think of that?” quality that makes life fun and worth staying awake for.

Good design can be appreciated at any stage of life, but unfortunately those who are just starting out are likely to be those least able to afford what they like.  Of course, those who have a good eye can create their own good design out of very raw stock.  Even two perfect acorns branching off a single stem, or fragments of a paper wasp’s nest, displayed on a coffee table, will artistically express the designer’s sense of what’s worth holding onto.

Our daughter used a wall of bright, very unexpected, color in the foyer of her boarding house for dogs, the Pooch Palace, located in the Adirondacks on Lake George, New York, and on those walls she placed her own unusually-staged and posed photographs of the dogs she loves.  It’s an example of art and design revealing more than an advertising brochure.

My wife, Kathy, and I decorated a hallway in our first apartment with photos and edgy ads clipped from Dwelling and Fashion magazines.  In retrospect, I think it was also a sort of to-do list besides being a design statement – not one we ever lived up to, but it made us feel optimistic.

One nice thing about having plowed creatively through the early years of your life is that eventually you’ll find yourself able to indulge yourself once in a while with an item that catches your eye, pleases you in an unusual way, or says something elusive about life – something you’ve been trying to put your finger on for years.

All of us at next summer, Kathy, Lindsay, Matthew, Olivia, Sarah, and I, enjoy searching out very good design, particularly if we can bring it to you for good value, in hopes you might begin to enjoy your own good life earlier than expected.


Posted by Michael