• IFWTO Designer Section 35, co-founder Justin Louis, Photo by Nadya Kwandibens
    Creative Endeavors,  Featured

    IFWTO: expression in fashion

    In a celebration of Indigenous expression in fashion and the arts, the second edition of the biennial Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto hosted runway presentations from 16 designers, a series of panel discussions on topics like land-based fashion and fashion journalism, a virtual art exhibition, and more, online last week November 26 through November 29, 2020. Co-founded by Artistic Director Sage…

  • Chicago-Mobile-Makerspace-interior-by-Tom-Harris-
    Creative Endeavors,  Featured

    Change-makers

    Within the rich architectural fabric of Chicago, there is a neighborhood where prominent architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and George W. Maher honed the art and craft of the residential design. From Queen Anne and Prairie School to Craftsman, Oak Park’s residential landscape has become known for its National Registered Historic Places, walking tours, and as a destination for design…

  • Springboard Arts Chicago - Zaira by Ed Hinkley
    Creative Endeavors,  Featured,  Travel

    Springboard Arts

    Art and architecture will have a sublime fusion within the new Springboard Arts Chicago gallery in the city’s vibrant Wicker Park neighborhood this fall. The gallery, which is expected to be unveiled November 28, 2020, is a 4,500-square-foot space following the establishment of Springboard Arts Chicago’s online presence earlier in the year. It is envisioned as a place where inviting,…

  • Etna Supply Kintsu bath fixtures -- Courtesy of Brizo
    Featured,  Form

    Transitional in accessory

    The kitchen has become a multi-faceted living space and many specialists in the kitchen and bath accessories market are delivering innovative new products and technologies to meet the needs of homeowners, contractors, engineers, and designers. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, ETNA Supply Company has been serving industries since 1965 as a plumbing products distributor with six state-wide showrooms and a suite…

  • J.L. Hudson Company, Hudson’s, passenger elevators, DesRosiers Architects Inc., Michigan, Bloomfield Hills, Louis DesRosiers AIA, Detroit history, Detroit Elevator Company, Vogue Furniture, Royal Oak
    Featured,  Form

    Restore in residential 

    Throughout the 20th century, The J.L. Hudson Company, or Hudson’s, department stores were fixtures in Detroit’s history as a fashion and design capital, and played a major role in holiday shopping traditions and style development alike.  Opened on Woodward Avenue in 1911, the Hudson’s department store in downtown Detroit would eventually grow into a massive, 25-story structure that was the…

  • '71 Barracuda Front End Facelift Concept," 1968, Donald Hood, American; crayon, gouache, ink, felt marker, prismacolor, pastel on vellum. Collection of Robert L. Edwards and Julie Hyde-Edwards.
    Creative Endeavors,  Featured,  Form

    Detroit style

    Between the mass production of accessible, timeless car designs, and the artistic innovation that pushed the automotive industry into each new age, Detroit’s influence on American car design, technology, and manufacturing has remained since the turn of the 20th century when Henry Ford touched down his Detroit Automobile Company and Charles Brady King test drove the first self-propelled carriage along…

  • Fig40 Community Chair
    Creative Endeavors,  Featured,  Form

    Systems of design

    “People find their own ways of using things regardless of how prescriptive it can be,” said Lee Fletcher, principal and co-founding partner of Fig40, an award-winning, multi-service, industrial design firm based in Toronto, Ontario. “We need to have a sensitivity to that.” This intention to the intrinsic human nature of design underscores the Fig40 portfolio, which Fletcher has been building…

  • The Den axe throwing - Photography: Grand Traverse Resort and Spa
    Creative Endeavors,  Featured,  Travel

    The Den

    Since its establishment in 1980, the Grand Traverse Resort and Spa of Acme Township, Michigan has helped define northern Michigan hospitality, with its picturesque location near Grand Traverse Bay atop nearly 900 acres that host the fresh fairways of its three championship level golf courses, clubhouse, golf academy, and grille. The resort itself holds nearly 600 room suite ensembles, and…

  • Vispring Sublime 4 courtesy Chicago Luxury Beds
    Creative Endeavors,  Featured

    The new restful

    The craft and curation of a restful, residential atmosphere is often a foundational priority for design professionals, and in many ways, it has become even more relevant with a global pandemic as new stressors on the body and mind arrive at home in lockdown. Along with a changing notion of home, one valuable resource—sleep—has changed as well. Interior design professionals…