resource review: THE DESIGN FILES

THE DESIGN FILES

THE DESIGN FILES, founded in 2008 by Lucy Feagins, is one of my most recent blog finds. The site presents fresh and interesting content related to all things that fall under the category of Australian design - architecture, art, interiors, graphic design etc. The team of three (Feagins, her editorial assistant and photographer) post daily with every Wednesday being a featured Australian home and every Friday an interview with a local creative talent. The organization of the site is clean, simple and intuitive - a challenge considering the amount of content they put out each week. 

I became a bigger fan of the site when I read this "Biz Ladies"   interview with Feagins on Design Sponge (another great design blog). Feagins explains how she started the blog and how she allowed it to grow organically over the years. Calling her approach as just sort of 'leaning in to it', a phrase and strategy she learned from How To Go From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be by Jack Canfield Feagins explains that instead of getting stuck on figuring out the big picture she just moved in the general direction of where she wanted to go. 

Most recently, Feagins has started The Design Files' Open House in which Feagins and her team take over a real house and create a show home featuring local artists and designers. This year, two homes will be featured on in Sidney and one in Melbourne. 

less stuff, more happiness

Graham Hill is a designer, environmentalist, entrepreneur and founder of the popular website TreeHugger.com. More recently, Hill launched Life Edited - a website with the motto "design your life to include more money, health and happiness with less stuff, space and energy". His TED talk, "less stuff, more happiness" discusses this recent venture and the ideas behind it.

Beginning with some powerful statistics, Hill's short 6 minute talk goes on to make the case that less is indeed more. Advocating quality over quantity, Hill explains how less stuff leads to a smaller carbon footprint, more financial freedom and ultimately less stress and more happiness. The talk is super short so I highly recommend that everyone take the 6 minutes to listen. Enjoy!

resource review: domino

domino magazine

Domino is back! Launched just a few days ago, the new online format is part magazine part marketplace. Allowing readers to shop directly from their features, the magazine bypasses traditional and competitive forms of advertising. This strategy is viewed as new way of doing business for the magazine - one that will hopefully give the publication a second chance at life. For those of you not previously familiar with domino, it was a print magazine published by Conde Nast. Started in 2005, the magazine was published with wide praise until 2009 when it was shut down due to poor advertising revenues. Deborah Needleman was the founding editor in chief and ran the magazine for all four years of its circulation. She along with Sara Ruffin Costello and Dara Caponigro also published domino: The Book of Decorating - a must own book for all home decorating enthusiasts. Needleman, who left Conde Nast when they closed domino, now is the editor and chief of T: The New York TImes Style Magazine.

The "new" domino is now being run by Michelle Adams. Adams was the original co-founder of Lonny who parted ways with the online magazine in March of this year. The magazine will publish four issues a year - available online or in print by special order. In addition, they will be building a digital archive of past domino issues. With three ways to view each story (read story, view photos or shop the story) the format is user and pinterest friendly. However, when I tried to read the cover story of the current issue I got an error message so there still seems to be some kinks to work out. Needless to say, I am very excited about a new-ish design publication becoming available and will definitely be following along.