Ted Boerner discovered his passion for furniture design while working as an interior designer in search of products for his clients. Infusing his furniture with a singular creative spirit, Boerner frequently incorporates influences from a variety of cultures, giving his designs a quality of their own that is distinctive and sophisticated.
With a well-earned reputation as a provider of exceptional products and service over the past two decades, Boerner’s work is an expression of his desire to breathe positive energy into any context in which he is involved. The importance of a ‘sense of place’, creating a feeling that includes a wonderful flavor of wit combined with the ease and comfort of good design, is evident throughout Boerner’s new creations.
Agnes Bourne ASID has been involved in the practice of design for over forty years. She created the Agnes Bourne Showroom at the San Francisco Design Center to include the work of furniture artists and selected manufactured furniture, fabric and lighting lines. In 1987 she introduced her own line of furniture, The Agnes Bourne Collection, and began a design-licensing program. Her design practice includes interior design for residential and commercial clients, product design for international companies, remodeling and restoration projects, retail display and healing spaces. In 1999, she passed her San Francisco business on to her employees. She became a consultant and an educator, and continues her community work in design and art. Living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Ms. Bourne currently serves as a trustee for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum - Smithsonian Institution, The Jackson Hole Center for the Arts, and as emeritus trustee of the San Francisco Art Institute.
Laura Guido Clark is an expert in the skin of consumer products – their color, materials, and finish. This is perhaps the area of industrial and textile design that requires the greatest understanding of the human heart. Laura has spent her life studying the always new and always surprising ways that human beings react to the look and feel of any given product.
Throughout her twenty-plus year career, Laura has analyzed the conscious and unconscious influences that drive buying decisions. Her ability to translate those influences into prescient forecasting and, ultimately, into concrete applications of color and finish has helped companies such as Samsung, Apple, Mattel, and Toyota design products that resonate with consumers and succeed in competitive markets.
Laura Kirar is "THE design talent to watch and follow." Named as one of "America’s Top Young Designers," by House Beautiful in September 2003, Laura Kirar commands a strong reputation for creating elegantly refined spaces and objects. Kirar is founder and director of two companies, LAURA KIRAR * TRU design, a NYC-based multi-disciplinary firm that creates high-end residential and commercial interiors and LKDL Miami, focusing exclusively on product design for the residential and contract markets. Laura’s designs emphasize the appeal of classic proportions and unique modern forms, revealing her incisive understanding of art history and the decorative arts.
A Chicago native, Kirar began her professional career in design at the Merchandise Mart design studio of Holly Hunt. After moving to New York in 1995 to work as a furniture designer in the residential field and home product designer in retail with Ralph Lauren Home, Kirar founded her own firm, TRU, in 1999.
Michael Koch is an honors graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, and continues to consult with their textile department. He is a nationally recognized textile designer and, with his partner Andrew Kohler, founded Michael Koch Designs, LLC, in 2003. The firm designs a range of products, produced domestically and internationally, including fabrics for contract and residential markets, manufactured and hand-loomed silks, rugs, and wall coverings.
Mary Jo Millerhas much experience in both architecture and design. She was a color materials specialist with H.O.K. in St. Louis, where she developed custom textile, carpet and paint schemes. After two years at H.O.K., she moved to Chicago and was a color materials specialist and art consultant at the architecture firm VOA. In 1987, Mary Jo became a design consultant with Interface acting as a liaison between manufacturer's representatives and designers. Her accomplishments also include creating a new carpet line for Interface as well as recoloring many existing designs.
Mary Jo joined HBF Textiles as Program Manager in 1989. Her current title as HBF Textiles Director of Design encompasses her responsibilities of textile product development, coordinating work with outside designers, as well as developing her own collections.
Diane Paparo founded her interior design firm, Diane Paparo Associates, in 1982. More than 175 projects later, Diane’s talent for innovation, penchant for uncompromising quality and high energy work ethic have won her and the DPA staff national acclaim. With work that graces the aeries of New York City, the blue valley ranches of Montana and the glittering abodes of Las Vegas, she is renowned for her "international modern" sensibility, but has proven to be equally adept at a wide variety of design styles.
Diane’s projects have appeared in numerous shelter publications including "Great Designers of the World" Second (2002) and Fourth (2004) and Ninth (2009) Editions. She takes pride in her charitable affiliations including the National Council of Women’s Business Enterprise and service to her alma mater, Keystone College and the Everhart Museum.
Mark Pollack has been "solving problems" - his definition of the design process - since graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1976. "Anything you design can be used," he insists, "but how well it can be used is a critical measure of how well designed it is". Put into practice at his namesake fabric company, Pollack's emphasis on both function and beauty has earned him the recognition as one of his field's greatest talents.
He has taught textile design at RISD, Philadelphia University and Moore College of Art. Prior to the founding of POLLACK, he spent eleven years as associate design director with Jack Lenor Larsen, Inc. He lectures widely to professional groups around the country and serves frequently as a juror for design competitions.
Pollack's designs have won numerous accolades, including Roscoe/BOY awards and IBD awards, and countless nominations. His widely published fabrics have been included in many museum and gallery exhibitions and are in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, the Denver Art Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the RISD Museum of Art, among others.
In 2007, for his contributions to the field of textile design, he was awarded the prestigious Honorary Royal Designer for Industry by Great Britain's Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce. He is the 2008 recipient of RISD's Athena Award for Alumni Achievement.
The fine art sensibility infuses every aspect of a Mark Pollack design: "My background is in fine arts. I am interested in fine arts. And I try to inform my fabrics with a fine art sensibility."
Cameron Sinclair is the co-founder and 'eternal optimist' at Architecture for Humanity, a charitable organization that seeks architectural solutions to humanitarian crisis and brings professional design services to communities in need. Over the past ten years the organization has worked in twenty six countries on projects ranging from school, health clinics, affordable housing and long term sustainable reconstruction.
Sinclair is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2006 TED prize and the 2005 RISD/Target Emerging Designer of the Year. Recently he was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
Susan Szenazy is Editor in Chief of METROPOLIS, the award-winning New York City-based magazine of architecture, culture, and design. Since 1986 she has lead the magazine through years of landmark design journalism, achieving domestic and international recognition. She is internationally recognized as an authority on sustainability and design.
Susan sits on the boards of the Council for Interior Design Accreditation (formerly FIDER), FIT Interior Design, the Center for Architecture Advisory Board, and the Landscape Architecture Foundation. She has been honored with two IIDA Presidential Commendations, is an honorary member of the ASLA, and the 2008 recipient of the ASID Patron’s Prize and Presidential Commendation. Along with METROPOLIS Publisher Horace Havemeyer III, Susan was a 2007 recipient of the Civitas August Heckscher Award for Community Service and Excellence. Susan holds an MA in Modern European History from Rutgers University, and honorary doctorates from Kendall College of Art and Design, the Art Center College of Design, and the Pacific Northwest College of Art. She lives in New York’s East Village in a small loft designed by Harry Allen, where she moved in 2001 to reduce her ecological footprint.
