Annually, the design community comes together for the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) Dallas Design Ovation Awards to acknowledge the finest achievements in interior design, architecture and special contributions to the community. This year a jury of industry professionals reviewed hundreds of entries submitted by ASID chapter members and selected winners in multiple categories.

Baker Design Group, led by Linda Baker, won first place for their entries for Emerging Designer and Outdoor Living Space and third place honorable mentions for their Dining Room and Master Bedroom entries.

Winning the Emerging Designer category was the design of a trendy Uptown townhome. Custom carpentry and modern, geometric patterns complement the sophisticated design with creativity and a pop of the unexpected. A sophisticated melting pot of metallic finishes, from gold to bronze to silver and pewter, evokes a classic and refined palette throughout the home. Addressing every last detail, the design also includes custom stair railings, custom art and custom pillows and accessories.

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The first set of palettes which is called Connoisseur ranges from cool interior design tones to bolder design colors with deep mahogany and violets. Leatrice Eiseman, Excecutive Director of the Pantone Color Instiute, states “We are seeing a resurgence of classic shapes and traditional styling, combines with a much more updated feeling. That has been going on for the past few years and I don’t see that going away.”

The Glamour palette is all about art deco and us interior designers are loving it! In this palette the reds, blues and light black definitely make this color palette one of the more dominating ones in the interior design world.

The New Old School palette is very similar to the Glamour design colors but are a little more classic in their pattern. It includes color with Ribbon Red, Bright White, Sodalite Blue, Nautical Blue and Ultramarine Green.

The Extracts Palettes are going to be seen a lot in the clothing world with the Spiced Coral, Brandied Melon, Apple Cinnamon, Dusky Pink, Baked Clay and Green Banana. This pallete includes zesty colors to be paired up with some crisper shades.

Footprints is sure to make a bold statement with these vivacious ethnic colors. We will see a lot of the former Pantone Highlighted Colors with Tangerine Tango showing up in the design color mix along with Peacock Blue, Pink Flambe and Solar Power.

And then we have the Sojourn palette that Eiseman says is one that is more magical, with mixtures of Syrah Wine, Black Plum, Rosy Foxglove, and Baton Rouge. I am loving the soft natural colors with soft hues of color brought in.

Surface Treatments which is a very earthy and textural pattern that has both irregular and smooth color tones. I love that the Medal Bronze adds a completely different dimension to the Maui Blue, Tornado, Fallen Rock, and Birch.

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What is inspiring and forming your work in 2013? (Phyllis Harbinger)

CO – It’s a real testament that we have shows airing 12 years ago, that people would never know that it was 12 years ago. Design is an investment in time and money and it’s my job to make it the best investment for them, to make it timeless. Sure, I’ll use Pantone’s color of the year, and inky blue, I’ll inject that in small accessories, it was orange a few years ago. But what’s inspiring me, what I see in my client base, and in my own life. Kids have changed the way I look at design. Now so much of what I focus on is how to have style and really live in that living room. Clients are asking to make the most of everything in their homes. Multi functional, multi purpose, clients are asking for that, whether its small spaces or trying to make the most out of spaces. I am moving away from more refined finishes. You will see softer metallic finishes in my fabric line, my wallpaper and furniture line. It’s halfway between silver and gold. We call it glint. It’s almost like the color of the Venetian plaster here. It gravitates instantly if you put a warmer metallic with it, it makes sense, it’s really forgiving, blending, softening, weathered, mixed in with contemporary shapes. I’ve been about that for a while now, I’m now seeing it come to the forefront, frankly because I have so many clients with dogs, kids, etc. who still want beauty that is livable and lasts.

Do you have any advice for someone starting out and developing a brand without getting boring? How do you develop it while being exciting?

CO – I think it’s that little touch of the unexpected. Even in the fabric line, you’ll see a traditional pattern that is super scaled with a metallic thread to give it a little sparkle. For example, if you’re pigeon holed as a coastal design firm or a certain look then it’s like, “Oh, this is what you would expect someone to do and this is where they’ve taken it, in whole new direction.” If you keep putting yourself out there in an unexpected way someone is going to notice and take you in a different direction. I think it’s really tough. I always thought I did my best work in the first book because all my thoughts and ideas went into it and it would be fantastic, that would be the look. We are on book five now, and I’m more excited about book five than book one because I still have that approach of what’s that unexpected element, that we can put into what the look is, what the brand is.

What was your first job out of college? (Sharon Copeland)

CO – I was in a four year university program in Toronto. It was a top design school and I was picked by a top commercial firm and worked with them for years. They used and abused me, overworked and underpaid me. It was the best background. I gradually went into residential design. The people whose stores and nightclubs I was doing lived in houses, so I would do stuff on the side. When I felt the confidence and business clout behind me I went out on my own. I like the fact that the work that you do, and I hate to sound all Oprah, affects how people live their lives, every single day of their lives, not just a shopping trip or an evening out. I kept doing residential work, and then one of my projects won a contest and got published. Very simple, you know, a nice mention in a magazine. A local show got wind of this project and wanted to tour it. As luck would have it the person who was going to do the tour that day fell ill and they asked me to put something together for it. I’m there in my work boots and tank top and I said ok, I didn’t want to miss this opportunity. It was horrible. But probably so horrible they thought it was hysterical. They asked me to do a few other segments, not getting paid, showing our work. I showed renovations and design stuff and showed the whole process. People really loved seeing the process from beginning to end. So I did that for seven years, and did not get paid a cent. But what better advertising? It couldn’t have been better.

How do you handle clients’ attachments to items that don’t fit into the design scheme, or clients that shop separately during the design process?

CO – If there’s a way, I try to convince them with design principles. Whether they’ve acquired something, or this is the hardest part, working in something they love, and that is really tough, “I don’t think a beer bottle collection is a good focal point on the mantelpiece.” So if I can show them using design principles, like, scale isn’t working here, or color, or pattern, but I always say at the end of the day, if I can’t convince them that it’s not working, they have to live there and I don’t. You have to explain why it doesn’t work and then let it go. I get it, it’s them and their lives and experiences. It’s a service industry, so it’s my job to make that work.

Can you talk about the fabric collection and the process behind creating it? (Leslie Fine)

CO –The Kravet family is an amazing family first and foremost. That business relationship is important. You put so much time and energy and effort of yourself into it. It’s a business, not a hobby for me. The collection inspiration, like a good portion of lines that I do, comes from nature. There are nature inspired motifs, but done in a modern fresh way. It’s a philosophy whether I’m designing a sofa, lighting or pattern work, I really do look to the past to traditional patterns like damasks and florals, and I pare it down to its bare essence. You will get a hint of pattern but nothing elaborate or ornate. It’s very clean and simplified, a real mix of organic pattern with structured pattern. It has a lot of contrast and contrast is a big element in the design work that I do. I am so passionate about lighting, I love the way light hits a surface. Whether it‘s a wallpaper I’m designing or fabric, you will see an element of glimmer or sheen, something unexpected. I think it gives it a modern edge. Lighting, which I harp on in our show, can take $3.00 drapes and make them look like $10,000. I love the special effect lighting has, especially on fabric. I don’t want to make an avant-garde statement, I don’t have that kind of ego. It’s a business, every year I see. I thought spa blue would disappear, but with the proliferation of wood everywhere, you need those cool tones with wood floors. So ok, we are going to reinvent spa, into teal, into grey blue. But blue is still there. It’s almost like I have my own focus group for what I am designing. I want to create things that I like and clients like, so I want to make it easy to present and sell to clients! Like I said, it’s a business, not just a passion.

How do you balance creativity and good business savvy? (Leslie Fine)

CO – I’m upfront on the business side of it, I don’t handle the money, because it’s not my forte. Years ago I did many little projects for a client and worked my way up. They got a lot of bang for their buck, and then they became more and more successful. Now they have more money. They said, “we always hired you because we respect that you were careful with our money when we didn’t have a lot.” We are now on their fourth house. To me that’s the business side of it. The day to day invoicing when I was a one person show was the hardest part of the business. I have someone else who deals with that side of it. I think it’s important to be removed from that, it’s easier for the client to deal with someone else. But I am frank and honest about where we should be spending the money, and to me that is good business. That’s why the clients come, and running the books, someone else takes care of that. And the PR side of it, which I know is important, that all really came from just getting a project out there. I have been talking to the same design editors for years, particularly in the papers and they are so overworked. I did an interview last week and the design editor is now working on design, cars, and religion! My point is, there’s nothing that these people would like more than a nice package delivered on their desk of a great little project. I used to just do TV, now I’m doing TV, I’m streaming broadband, Facebook, because of this proliferation, we are all doing a million and one things, throw in a shrinking economy, I try to make someone’s job easier. There’s the day to day book keeping business, there’s business of bringing the biggest bang for the clients buck and the promotion side of it.

How much time do you have with the client [on the show]?

CO – Exactly the same amount of time that you guys probably do. We shoot the show ten months out of the year. I meet with clients well in advance of what you see. The day that we start shooting we’ve already done the design work. It’s always the same sort of thing. “Hi, I’m Candice, what do you need, what are your problems, how much you got?” All of that, budget etc., is out of the way by the time we start rolling. Everything, I kid you not, is exactly how it is in the real world, except, the minute I leave, after I have gathered everything out of them, they don’t see me until the end, so the client has nothing to do with it! A lot of times, this is the hard thing about them not being involved, we call “Hi, um well, we need a little bit more money, and I can’t tell you what it’s for.” That’s the tough part of the job. Think of it, we are in peoples homes, at that point we’ve already filmed a little bit and they are realizing it’s really intrusive and they are probably a little fed up, by the time I ask them for more money. There are pros and cons. So much is done in advance so we can be proficient, or we would never get out of peoples homes. I tell them from the beginning this will be a horrible process with a beautiful result.

What do you think the legacy of HGTV will be? Will it ultimately have hurt or helped the industry overall? (Shelly Rosenberg)

CO – Fantastic question. I’m going into my 12th season now of doing design television. I’ve seen a lot of changes over the years on HGTV. I think on the upside, HGTV and the proliferation of design magazines has really helped make people so much more design savvy. There is this real interest in design. People travel, watch HGTV, they’ve got their magazine clippings. They show up and they know what they like. They want you to help facilitate and edit. When I first started on HGTV, it was a big DIY era. There wasn’t a lot of real design being shown. We hit that network and quickly went to number 1. It had little to do with me, people wanted to see good design. They wanted to see the process, and I understood this more and more over the years. This was the first to show real design. What I find is the downside, I mean I’m an interior designer, I totally get it. You cannot do a room in 23 minutes. We try to show as much as we can of the process. In 23 minutes I have to show what the client needs, a little of the process, we have to entertain a little bit. It does come across as instantaneous. I’m sorry for that but that’s all the time I’ve got. We never compromise on showing the elements and the principles, soft sell or hard sell, of good design. We don’t talk about budgets, which everyone talks about and wants to know about. Some of our shows now have been on the air for 12 years, we are in 160 different markets, so to us it wasn’t relevant. You know when I have a big budget and you know when I have a small one. Even when we are talking budgets, I find the most impactful design have been the smaller budget shows. We really do try to get the biggest bang for our design buck. So whether you have $10 or $10,000, it can be a can of paint, or granite counter tops, what is the decision making process and principles behind it. I think that’s what people will take away from HGTV. It was an interesting process, and HGTV was surprised by how well received it was. I think the legacy is that our show, 12 years later, people are still watching.

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Picture Provided by CEDIA

What a grand coffered ceiling!

Picture Provided by Design Tec

Arch approach with stained beams really makes this space special!

Design By Chicago Interior Designers

Picture Provided by HGTV

A beautiful way to add design to a small space.  I love the use of yellow to break up the two patterns in the space!

Picture Provided by homedit.com

Picture Provided by Indulgy.com

The pop of chartreuse green carried from the pillows and bedding up to the ceiling was such a perfect way to call that color out.

Picture Provided by HGTV

For a midcentury look, this designer brought this cheerful yellow pop up to the ceilings while accentuating the white beams!

Designed by Troy Beasley

Yes this is indeed luxury living with this cove-vaulted brick ceiling.

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Always remember the 60-30-10 color rule!  If you haven’t heard of this before it’s where you are dividing your color scheme into percentages.  The 60 percentage needs to be allocated to the main/dominant design color, 30 percent is a secondary color in a room and 10 percent is the accent color.  So what does this really entail?

For example as DeAnna Radaji suggested to the ”60-30-10 rule,”  60 percent of a bathroom or kitchen, typically the walls, should be one color of a color scheme. The color of the cabinetry and/or furniture accounts for the 30-percent figure. And accents and accessories such as plants, artwork and linens make up the remaining 10 percent.

Picture Provided by HGTV

Don’t always feel like you need to rely on color trends as HGTV states.  Have fun with the color on the walls and select furniture that can withstand the test of time.

Picture Provided by HGTV

Don’t think pink is just for girls and blues are just for boys.  Bring the colors that are commonly thought of as for a specific gender into some main living areas of your home.

Picture Provided by HGTV

Space Created by Designer Samantha Pynn, Fuchsia, Black and White

Lighting, lighting, lighting!  The natural sunlight and the aesthetic lighting that is in the room will affect how a color is interpreted. Always make sure you put a small sample on your walls so you are able to see how it looks at all hours of the day.

Picture Provided by HGTV

Don’t overload your palette!  Too many colors together can create a design overload of colors.  Always remember the 60-30-10 rule and follow color schemes that are monochromatic and complimentary.

Picture Provided by HGTV

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Design Clients invest good money to get their homes and businesses to have a good look, function well for their lifestyles and, overall, change the way they live and work in those environments.  Though we pride ourselves on not be dawdlers, the process can sometimes drag out, especially when you have items that come in damaged or there are some unexpected  backorders.  This presents time delays and frustrations for both ourselves and our clients.  But what has amazed me is how understanding and kind our clients are even when I feel they should want to pull somebody’s hair out, maybe even mine.  Recently this has been more flagrant.  We’ve installed wallpaper that the pattern would not go on straight, we’ve had lamp shades galore come in with blemishes, and may I add, (these have been from five different lamp sources), backorders on custom furniture and credenza’s we were never told about only to find out at time of delivery, “oops we are still another four weeks out”.

It may seem like this is no big deal in the big scheme of things, and we remind ourselves weekly: this isn’t life or death; but, to good people going through the process and enduring electrical, paint, wallpaper, flooring, construction, lighting, plumbing and then the final day of install, it can become intrusive and frustrating. So that leads me to the final part of my thoughts.

Our clients are just nice people.  Sure there can be frustrations, but in all honesty they are understanding and cooperative and always grateful.  I mean GRATEFUL.  We have received flowers, hand-written notes, gift baskets, fine wine, dinners at their home and numerous emails to thank us.  Many of our clients have provided full spreads of food and drink on the days of installs, always worrying we have everything we need and going out of their way to provide us with well-nourished and fun installs.  They even worry about what music is playing and making sure everyone is out of the home or working in a different office at the time, so we can do our job effectively and have the ‘big reveal’ at the end of the day.   At the completion of our projects, we are reminded by them that we truly did change the way they work and live, which is always our greatest goal.  So going back to the beginning where bad-manners can be a popular action towards others in our culture, we see little of it.  Thank you BDG Clients…..we are truly blessed!

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We ran across these beautiful girl teen bedrooms by Pm4 and wanted to share these one of a kind rooms with you.  The use of the classic pieces into a contemporary  manner and updated color schemes truly make each of these rooms one-of-a-kind and unique in interior design.  Which room do you think your young teen girl would prefer?

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What an easy way to dress up a simple place setting with this silver sprayed pine cone and scrapbook paper name tag.  I love the simplicity of this setting!

Katrina Giles made an Icy Blue, Black and Silver statement by adding Blue and White up against Black shimmer place-mats.  What a classy and wintry feel!

I love the combination of wood with porcelain and then crystal for the goblet.  The luxury of your guests being able to use different plates and bowls for each course, is a nice touch!

What a way to make your White and Silver design pop with this sheet music place mats.

If you are wanting to bring the outdoors in, this centerpiece was a great way to do it with these decorative vines, balls, feathers and garlands.

This sky high centerpiece definitely catches your eye.  This designer used varying cake plates while stacking them to create  this tall statement piece!

Designer Dianneh stacked three different types of plate together to bring interest to this setting.  The holly plates with the frasier fir, pine cone and large bell completed the design beautifully!

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HGTV recently showed some inventive spaces that had inordinate uses of some of Pantone’s Fall color palette.  I always love new interior design ideas.  There are definitely some hot hues from this Falls Pantone color picks and with that comes some new and fresh ideas to spruce up your interior design space.

Designed by Brian Flynn

This  clean and calm Titanium design color gives off the look of a customized built-in when it is in fact simple bookshelves from IKEA with custom-made gray paint.

Sherwin Williams

This pop with Raspberry against these Navy walls makes such a stunning statement!  This is what I love about this years pantones design color this year.  It’s more about fun and less about the typical.

Designed by Patrick Flynn

Have an old piece of furniture that has seen it’s better days?  This piece was picked up from a flee market, re-finished and painted.  As simple as that, you have brought in a great pop of color all with-in a budget friendly price.

Designed by Janet Loughrey

Looking for that curb appeal?  This fiery red will be sure to liven up your home.  The design use of the black trim around the door really allows the fiery red to pop!

Designed by Tobi Fairley

Talk about livening up white built-ins?  This bright Chartreuse color is probably one of my favorite interior design Pantone colors this year!  The use of the white books allows this paint stand for itself!

Designed by Brain Flynn

Grape Royale and Bittersweet in a Chevron Pattern is such a striking design combination.  Designer Brian Flynn used an old dresser and  simply used painter tape to make his chevron pattern.  Such a wow statement piece!

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Which one do you see yourself using in your homes interior design?

Designed by Designer James Rixner

Pantone’s French Roast works beautifully with creams and lighter hues to bring out it’s richness.

Above are some great pairings with Honey Gold.  I love the subtle incorporation of Aqua with these colors.  We will begin to see more and more the disappearance of Aqua’s and Browns.

I love the simple pop of Pink Flambe that they brought it on the seat covers!

And here it is the 2012 Pantone Color of the year…Tangerine Tango!  This design pairing with the Olympian Blue is Amazing!  Well Done!

Via Abigail Ahern

 This Ultramarine Wall with the Rose Smoke is beautiful!

Via MDG

You can surely have some fun with Bright Chartreuse.  It is a fun fresh look that looks magnificent with the Olympian Blue!

Via Elle Decor

Rhapsody has an array of pairing you can put with this color.  Colors such as Grays, Greens and Blue will make this color new all over again.

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