Sunday, February 12, 2012

Welcome

Hello world. Welcome to the IFDA•NY blog!

This blog is about what’s in the hearts and minds of IFDA•NY members, sponsors, guest bloggers and experts in the furnishings and design industries.  Interesting, out-of-the-box thinking and content is welcome.

As a certified interior designer, I am familiar with the power of design to shape lives.  Design, in products and services, is all around us.  From basic building blocks to the Manhattan skyline, we live in a designed world.  From waking ‘till sleep, and even in our dreams, the stuff of our lives was first born as an idea and then developed into a design somewhere, at some point in time.  And what begins as an idea generally requires a whole team and process for that idea to materialize into a product or service.

IFDA members are executives and companies professionally engaged in the design, production, distribution, promotion, communication or education in the furnishings and design and/or related industries.  Simply put, we are the building-blocks of the furnishings and design industries.

IFDA began as an idea in the minds of our founder, Claire Coleman, and five women in New York City in 1947.  They designed a forum around the purpose of exchanging ideas and information in the furnishings field that eventually evolved into IFDA.   From then until now, how many countless lives have been shaped by what they, and generations since, have built!

2012 is IFDA’s 65th anniversary and we have an exciting year in the works!  Last month we had a fantastic presentation at the Javits, Color: From Theory to Selection event with Benjamin Moore and House Beautiful.  This month, we will have a talk with Vicente Wolf and Swann Auction Galleries’ Director of Photographs, Daile Kaplan.  For information about this and other upcoming events visit: http://www.ifda.com/new-york-chapter

Also please mark your calendars for one of the most glamorous evenings in the furnishings and design industries this year, IFDA•NY’s Circle of Excellence Awards on May 8th at the Union League Club.  This year’s honorees are:  THE BARDGRADUATE CENTER; CHARLOTTE MOSS, LLC; KRAVET INC.; THE HEARST DESIGN GROUP (ELLE DECOR, HOUSE BEAUTIFUL & VERANDA); with MASTERS OF CEREMONIES, SIMON DOONAN & JONATHAN ADLER.

I’d like to thank our blog-master, Jessica Tolliver, public relations and communications consultant, and IFDA•NY’s 2012 VP of Publications, for committing to spearhead this exciting new project for IFDA•NY.  I know she will do an amazing job.  Please contact Jessica or the IFDA office if you'd like to contribute as a guest blogger.

Lastly, thanks to our Gold Sponsors 3MAmerican Hardwood Information CenterFortyOne Madison, HunterDouglas, New York Design Center; and our Silver Sponsors Benjamin Moore & Co., Resource Furniture.  We greatly appreciate your support.  


See you soon,

President IFDA•NY 2012



3 comments:

  1. how exciting to be the very first comment on this blog, which I know will be a successful venture for IFDA -- with the many talented designers and artists as members we can't go wrong with inspiration to tap into and offer up in prose. Well wishes, Tamara

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  2. It's a brilliant idea (Hi Tamara!) and one that will foster an even bigger commitment and sense of community among the design community at large. When I move back into the city maybe later this year I will surely be attending more meetings. The IFDA always has keen insight into what needs to be discussed NOW and this new blog will add a great new dimension to issues of design. I would recommend that you activate the "name/url" selection that one can use to comment with. I have no options but to comment via google which has an outdated/test page that I don't want to use. This way many can simply put their name and url to comment with.

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  3. Posting this on behalf of Suzanne Sokolov (twitter.com/suzannesokolov):

    Well said, Claudia. IFDA continues to be a strong organization by celebrating its foundation as well as sticking with the tried and true core values, while simultaneously moving with the times. Good luck with the blog and tweeting.

    Suzanne Sokolov

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