The Interior Designer's Guide to Pricing, Estimating, and Budgeting (Second Edition) Review

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The Interior Designer's Guide to Pricing, Estimating, and Budgeting (Second Edition) ReviewOne of the hardest things to learn about interior design, or any other service industry is that the only thing you have to sell is your time. To do this in a profitable manner, you need two sets of skills.
The first is the one you know about. You've got to find customers, you've got to do the job they want done and you've go to make them happy. This is probably the job you've trained yourself to do through experience, through training, and through the basic aptitude that you had to get into that business in the first place.
The second job is harder. You've got to realize that you are a business manager. You need accounting (to keep your business partner the IRS happy). You need to develop a busines plan, budgeting, etc. You need to know how to prepare and send out bills and how to handle the money when it comes in. And the most critical of all, telling the customer what your effort is going to cost him.
In this book Mr. Williams gives an excellent introduction on how to do these critical things. He also includes enough war stories from his past to give you the understanding of how he learned these things.
I really enjoyed his page one story of starting his own company: sold his car so as to eliminate the payments, crammed his office into his bedroom, paid off all credit cards, in general reduced his expenses to a minimum. When I started I did almost exactly the same: I had a very tiny kind of dumpy house in not too good a neighborhood - but no payments. I had an ancient vehicle - but no payments. Like with him, I was profitable the first month, but you had best not bet on it.
Mr. Williams has been there, done that, walked the walk. His book makes excellent sense.The Interior Designer's Guide to Pricing, Estimating, and Budgeting (Second Edition) OverviewThis second edition is updated throughout and includes additional material on time management and numerous interviews with leading designers. Empowered by the step-by-step guidance in this book, interior designers will be able to establish prices and budgets that make their clients happy and their businesses profitable. Written by a designer and veteran expert on pricing, estimating, and budgeting systems, the book provides practical guidelines on how to value the cost of designing commercial or residential interiors, from the designer's creative input to the pricing of decorating products and procedures. The book shows how to determine a profitable and fair hourly rate, balance the client's budget with his or her wishes and needs, negotiate prices with suppliers and contractors, write realistic estimates and clear proposals, manage budgets for projects of all sizes and types, and position the firm's brand in relation to its practices. Interviews with experienced interior designers, case studies, and sidebars highlight professional pitfalls and how to master them, from daily crisis management and self-organization to finding the perfect office manager. This superbly thorough guide offers pricing, estimating, and budgeting advice that is a necessity for every designer and firm pushing to bolster the bottom line.

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Tony Duquette Review

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Tony Duquette ReviewMost frequently, references to and photographs of the work of Tony Duquette, the multi-talented artist, designer, and decorator who passed away in 1999, have appeared in books and articles focusing on fantasy and the baroque in the applied arts. In addition, because his work was overwhelmingly concentrated on the West Coast, many Americans curious about Duquette have found it difficult to access information regarding this legendary figure. Until now, that is, for authors Wendy Goodman and Hutton Wilkinson and publisher Abrams have just issued one of the most beautiful and engaging design books ever. This generously-sized book (364 pages in length) is full of spectacular photographs, reproduced documents, and personal remembrances that combine to inspire, fascinate, and invite the reader to return to both the text and visuals again and again.
"Tony Duquette" is organized into eight chapters. The first four flow chronologically, covering his childhood and youth; the early social and professional connections that paved the path to prominence; the role of the beautiful Elizabeth "Beegle" Duquette as wife, muse, and collaborator; and the year (1950-1951) that the couple spent in Paris. The second quartet of chapters focuses on Duquette's work. First comes a look at his contributions to film and the stage and then his interior designs for others. Chapter Seven, the most visually spectacular in the book and perhaps most recognizable, showcases the exotic living environments that Duquette created for himself and Elizabeth. These sites, three in southern California and one in San Francicso, showcase his signature love of a highly layered look that drew inspiration from foreign cultures and employed spectacular antiques and many faux finishes. Where the acreage was available, Duquette's residences also included multiple "dream houses" which most resemble a fantasist's interpretation of Balinese temples. Chapter Eight, titled "The Do-it-Yourself de Medici," looks at Duquette as artisan, working with both mundane and precious materials to create fabulous jewels, accessories, and pieces of furniture, among other things.
Quite possibly Duquette's love of the exotic, of over-the-top decorating, and of formal entertaining will appeal to just a fraction of design aficionados and seem irrelevant in a modern world that moves at a faster pace, has a more fluid social structure, and has abandoned many of the social niceties so important to Duquette. Still, I am betting that a sense of wonder and fantasy is hard-wired into most of us, as our enthusiastic reaction to fantastical Christmas window displays, theatrical sets, and movie special effects suggests. And if this is not enough to draw you to this beautiful book, then glimpses of the three main environments in which Duquette operated--old Hollywood, San Francisco, and a Paris just recovering from the ravages of World War II-- should alone justify picking it up. Do I have any reservations about "Tony Duquette"? Just one. The text whetted my taste for more details and insights, and I would have loved to have seen a historian join the authors' team to expand in particular the contextual descriptions of the mid-20th century social and artistic scene in both America and France.Tony Duquette OverviewAmerican artist and design legend Tony Duquette (1914–1999) was known for his over-the-top style in interiors, jewelry, costumes, and set design. His clients included Elizabeth Arden, the Duchess of Windsor, and Herb Albert. The multi-talented Duquette designed sets for MGM musicals with Arthur Freed and Vincente Minnelli, and designed Tony Award–winning costumes for the original Broadway production of "Camelot." Duquette was the first American to exhibit a one-man show at the Louvre in Paris. Tony Duquette is a lavishly illustrated book with many lost and never-before published photographs from the Duquette archives, including portraits and pictures taken by Man Ray, John Engstead, Fredrich Dapriche, Andre Ostier, George Platt Lynnes, as well as original sketches, designs, and texts by Duquette himself. With commentary, interviews, stories, and contributions from Liza Minnelli, Arlene Dahl, Steven Meisel, Bruce Weber, and others.

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Designs on Film: A Century of Hollywood Art Direction Review

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Designs on Film: A Century of Hollywood Art Direction ReviewThe product copy above does not do justice to this splendid and sumptuous doorstopper on Hollywood art direction. The photographs are the payoff here, literally hundreds of production stills detailing on-the-set constructions and activity. My eye tells me that I have not seen most of these photos before in other Hollywood books. I think the book would serve better if it cut off after the 1970s and included more on the silent era and 1930s when the concept of art direction in film was nurtured and flourished. The 80s are focused on special effects and much of the new millennium material look like nothing more than Town & Country layouts. Nonetheless, the bulk of the book will take the Golden Era Hollywood fan to another place and time in American history, creative and socially.Designs on Film: A Century of Hollywood Art Direction Overview
Who can forget the over-the-top, white-on-white, high-gloss interiors through which Fred Astaire danced in Top Hat? The modernist high-rise architecture, inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, in the adaptation of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead? The lavish, opulent drawing rooms of Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence? Through the use of film design-called both art direction and production design in the film industry-movies can transport us to new worlds of luxury, highlight the ornament of the everyday, offer a vision of the future, or evoke the realities of a distant era. In Designs on Film, journalist and interior designer Cathy Whitlock illuminates the often undercelebrated role of the production designer in the creation of the most memorable moments in film history. Through a lush collection of rare archival photographs, Whitlock narrates the evolving story of art direction over the course of a century-from the massive Roman architecture of Ben-Hur to the infamous Dakota apartment in Rosemary's Baby to the digital CGI wonders of Avatar's Pandora.

Drawing on insights from the most prominent Hollywood production designers and the historical knowledge of the venerable Art Directors Guild, Whitlock delves into the detailed process of how sets are imagined, drawn, built, and decorated. Designs on Film is the must-have look book for film lovers, movie buffs, and anyone looking to draw interior design inspiration from the constructions and confections of Hollywood. Whitlock lifts the curtain on movie magic and celebrates the many ways in which art direction and set design allow us to lose ourselves in the diverse worlds showcased on the big screen.


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