I really enjoyed this year's Home and Housewares Show. It was nice to see some of my favorite manufacturers there, like Flash Furniture, which has a lot of new chairs and dining tables to choose from. And of course I enjoy sampling the food in the Dine + Decor pavilion. I even had a chance to get a pancake portrait made by one of the chefs demonstrating Whiskware's new BlenderBottle.
Meeting famous designers is always one of my favorite things to do at trade shows, and this year I got to meet Jackie Shapiro, the designer behind my beloved French Bull products. She took the time to personally give me a tour of their booth and showed me all their new things, which look even more beautiful in person.
As far as creative booth designs, my favorite was Wilton's giant cake.
It looked like it could have been prepared with this larger than life KitchenAid mixer.
It was also cool to see every color of mixer in one place.
Walking around so much was exhausting. The most comfortable place to sit was on this sectional from Big Joe, known for their bean bag chairs. It's upholstered with Sunbrella so it can go outside, but I could definitely use it for a casual indoor project.
Here are some other products that caught my eye.
Fair trade home decor by Ugandan artisans from Kazi Goods
Iridescent rainbow goods by Design Ideas
Silicone and sequin trivets from Aprons by Jem
Sparkling tableware from Sparkles Home
Exquisite serving pieces from Solia's Design for Cook line.
Chemistry lab inspired barware from Periodic Tableware
Since I had time this year, I was able to attend two seminars about color from Pantone color guru Lee Eiseman. She talked about how they arrived at the decision to choose Ultraviolet as the 2018 color of the year.
They felt it captured the zeitgeist of the year because of its complexity and mystery and because it pushes boundaries and is mystical and spiritual and evocative of mindfulness. It was fascinating to learn about her process. She looks at how color is used in a wide array of fields: floral design, art, interior design, automotive design, culinary arts, stage lighting, fashion, and film. She also taught a second seminar about the updated guidelines for color harmony, rethinking some of the things many of us were taught in art and design classes. I really enjoyed seeing the vignettes set up with the Pantone palettes of the year in housewares.
As always, it was inspiring and informative and satisfies my design cravings until NeoCon in June.