Here at C-VILLE, we spend a lot of time thinking about design—how what we’re showing you on the page helps you receive the message. That’s most obvious in our weekly covers, where we have only a 9.25″x12.75″ space to relay to you, the reader, what we’re interested in this week. But we consider the design of each of our projects—from C-VILLE Weekly and Abode to Knife & Fork and C-VILLE Weddings, from our Best of C-VILLE party invitations to c-ville.com—as much as we consider the words.
And we’re no different than anyone in the design field. We’re all answering the same questions: How can we convey the idea in a way that helps shape the reader’s/diner’s/consumer’s understanding of it? And how can the design contribute to the community as a whole?
In this issue, we’ve spoken to design leaders excelling at those tasks locally in six different arenas—home design, marketing, weddings, food and drink, personal adornment and home goods—and asked them to tell us what it means to contribute to the user experience.
We also asked them to identify something they wish they’d created. And while everyone’s answers were compelling—from a coat rack to a whole city—we thought metalsmith Tavia Brown summed it up best: “I wish I could have designed one element of surprise among our environment. Maybe a quietly placed, delicately detailed garden gate. Or even the manhole covers we trudge over and barely notice, but whose design can sometimes be so intriguing. To have added a little touch of character to our city, that is what I wish.” Here, here.