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Day One

Building Authentic Connections with Carmeon Hamilton

For all of the hand-wringing around getting social media strategy right, designer Carmeon Hamilton has a key piece of advice: Be yourself. By staying true to her core values in all of her online interactions, Hamilton has discovered a winning approach that attracts new design clients and brand partners—one focused around authenticity, clearly communicated boundaries and honesty about her inspiration and expectations.

Cultivating a Growth Mindset with Arianne Bellizaire

When you start your firm as a solo practitioner, it can be hard to get out of your own way once your business begins to grow. (After wearing all the hats from the outset, it’s easy—and understandable—to believe that no one else could pull them off even half as well as you.) But by systematically reorganizing her approach so that she could focus on the aspects of interior design she loves the most, Arianne Bellizaire cracked the code to developing talent, delegating effectively and telegraphing the value of her team to clients. In this empowering talk, she shares how she shored up her processes, then got comfortable not having her hands in every part of her business.

Leveling Up with Christi Barbour, Barry Goralnick and Christina Kim

Attending High Point Market is not just about getting inspired—it’s also about leveling up. Three distinguished designers—Christi Barbour, Barry Goralnick and Christina Kim—share how establishing relationships with vendors, building new trade partnerships and making a larger margin on trade products have allowed them to transform their firms’ growth trajectory and increase profitability. To bring such benefits to your own business, be sure to lock in your travel plans to join the industry at High Point Market twice a year. Save the dates: Fall Market is coming up, October 22 to 26, 2022; Spring Market will be April 22 to 26, 2023.

Making Online Design Work for You with Elizabeth Bennett, Tina Ramchandani, Mallory Robins and Katie Rosenfeld

The sharp pivot to working remotely at the onset of the pandemic has cemented online design as a fixture in the industry, but what form it takes is still open to interpretation. Four designers with a variety of reasons for venturing into virtual services—as well as a mix of approaches to connecting with clients digitally, from 15-minute video calls to longer-term relationships that culminate in a shopping list—shed light on what they’re doing, how they make it work, how they’ve made it lucrative and what you stand to gain (and lose) when designing online.

Reframing the Metaverse with David Truog

Rather than dismissing the metaverse as a dystopian notion, David Truog views the digital landscape as an enhancement of the physical world—provided we make good design decisions about it. He makes the case that the metaverse is not new: Humans have been world-building for centuries, whether in a novel written 300 years ago that presents an imaginary place; designed objects and interiors that can act as an escape from external realities; or even modern-day digital experiences on your iPhone. In this presentation and conversation, Truog highlights some of the ways the metaverse offers a profoundly human experience, demonstrating how the basic concept is one designers are already using and sharing examples of how they and the brands they represent can further embrace it to enrich their craft.

The Aesthetic Advantage with Pauline Brown

Good taste is a critical yet undervalued contributor to business success, according to author Pauline Brown. While most designers inherently possess a high level of aesthetic intelligence (or AQ, as she calls it), most are not trained to apply it to their own brands and leverage it for long-term competitive advantage. Brown believes that being more attuned to the aesthetic preferences, sensory experiences and design aspirations of clients will not only incent them to invest more in goods and services but also elicit greater delight in the process, especially in the luxury category. In this fireside chat, Brown outlines the fundamental steps for heightening your aesthetic sensitivity, identifying and expressing your brand’s aesthetic codes and striking the right balance between commercial and creative objectives.

The Future of Homeware Trends with Niki Cordell

The next generation of influential consumers, characterized in part by their ever-changing shopping behaviors, is turning to “buy now, pay later” to finance their lifestyle wants and needs, notably in the home category. To capture this complex Gen Z customer, retailers need to first understand and then leverage relevant data. Niki Cordell, Afterpay’s enterprise sales director, is here to help explain the purchasing habits of this growing demographic at the core of the company’s business, as well as outline the key factors impacting their decisions and identify the home goods trends evidenced by their choices.

Wellness for Designers with Caleb Anderson, DeAndre DeVane and Amanda Hilton

Heavy workloads and demanding schedules are the new reality for many designers, resulting in unsustainable patterns and, in some cases, burnout, anxiety and poor mental health. After experiencing aspects of this personally, designer Caleb Anderson embarked on a multiyear journey of wellness, which led him to co-found an initiative dedicated to supporting the design community through shared wellness experiences. In this discussion, Anderson and his co-founder DeAndre DeVane, along with psychologist Amanda Hilton, explore the importance of adapting a healthier framework for work and life, offer ways to authentically connect as an industry and outline a path designers can take individually and collectively to achieve a healthier way of being—one where creativity, relationships and business flourish.

Working in the New World with Billy Clark and Clayton Apgar

What does work look like in the 21st century, and how long will “The Great Resignation” be a pain point for employers? Career experts Billy Clark and Clayton Apgar posit that, while work has undoubtedly evolved, it still retains its existential importance in giving us structure, meaning and a sense of identity. What form work will take going forward, however, is the subject of much debate. Drawing from their new book, The Little Book to Land Your Dream Job, and new podcast, The Hire Life, the business partners examine the elements critical to developing a professional identity, hiring the right candidates and creating a work culture that supports your best people. They also share insights and lessons from the decades of work they’ve done with companies and individuals in the interior design and home industry. Stay for a book signing following the talk.

Design Services at Scale with Lee Mayer and Raad Mobrem

Entrepreneurs and investors haven’t given up on the idea that design services should be more accessible. While business models in this category are constantly shifting—and despite the failure of at least four major players in the e-design space—both newcomers and those still standing continue to find innovative ways to evolve their companies in response to the growing consumer demand for online design. Consider: After nearly a decade of exclusively digital offerings, Havenly rolled out in-person design services earlier this year, while venture-backed startup Intro is shaking up the consultation model by connecting consumers with designers in 15-minute increments. How are these companies finding success while scaling services, and what can designers learn from them? In this discussion, Lee Mayer and Raad Mobrem analyze what consumers are connecting with and why, what’s unique about selling design online and how to digitally communicate the value of design.

Designing for TV with Adair Curtis and Erik Curtis

On the new Netflix series Instant Dream Home, a high-energy team of design pros complete dramatic 12-hour transformations for unsuspecting families. Dubbed “part home renovation show, part heist movie,” each episode details the ups and downs of a project as it unfolds over one long day of painstaking plans and big risks. But how did they really make it happen? In a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to push a project across the finish line, interior designer Adair Curtis and carpenter Erik Curtis (no relation) share how they utilized innovative built elements to meet looming deadlines—and how those same strategies and solutions can be applied to today’s challenging design/build environment.

Emotional Fitness in Leadership with Dr. Emily Anhalt

The world is beginning to understand that stress, burnout, anxiety—and, let’s face it, the universal pains of adulting—can drastically affect a company’s bottom line. To be successful today, business leaders and employees need to be emotionally and physically healthy. There are plenty of apps and products that claim to help achieve this, but an effective focus on mental and emotional health must be built from the inside out. In this 30-minute interactive presentation, renowned psychologist Dr. Emily Anhalt explores the importance of supporting yourself and your team by developing emotional fitness and gives practical, concrete tips for building a true culture of wellness.

Entrepreneurial Mindset with Alexa von Tobel

One of the most acclaimed entrepreneurs of the last decade, Alexa von Tobel is a “startup whisperer” who incorporates elements of design into all facets of her work. In New York, her Inspired HQ provides a collaborative space that combines design expertise, operational support and access to the capital required to turn bold ideas into category-defining companies. In this discussion, she’ll share her most important rules for entrepreneurial success, including how to raise capital, know your customer, inspire teams and organizations and identify your success metrics. She’ll also analyze the current economic climate and address what business leaders can do to plan ahead in a downturn.

Intro to Holistic Design with Gala Magriñá

Holistic design is based on the premise that mental and physical health are enhanced by the quality of interior environments. Using that framework as the essence of her practice, Gala Magriñá explains how she works with clients to design spaces that support their minds, bodies and spirits. In addition to creating rooms that simply feel good, holistic design can also promote overall health—by eliminating poor lighting, for example, which can induce stress, and renovating to allow for more natural light, a key factor in our bodies’ regulation of immune system functioning and sleep. With a tool kit that’s as much about overarching ideas and theory as it is tactical, actionable solutions, Magriñá shares how to incorporate holistic design principles into the daily workings of a firm and promote wellness throughout the design process.