| CSI
Contract Specialties,
Inc.
your link to
workplace news
October
2009 | |
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"The power of accurate
observation is frequently called cynicism by those who
don't have it." -
George Bernard Shaw
(1856-1950)
(Click image to see
Hi5 Furniture - Magic
Collection) |
| in the
know |
Doing More With Less: Using the Down
Economy as a Design Brief
 No doubt, a bad economy sucks. A bad
economy is tough on a company's bottom line and even
tougher on those individuals that have to struggle to
make ends meet. But when it comes to the design
profession, I would argue otherwise. Not because the
industry is immune from a bad economy--far from it--but
because negative economic conditions are often a
catalyst for change. It also forces designers to create
with more care.
To change, companies need to take a
deeper look at their customers needs, empower their
people to act, and to think in new ways. They need to
invent, develop, and improve their offering in order to
survive. This type of change benefits the profession of
design, and it benefits the end product itself. Having
suffered layoffs, lower sales, and plummeting stock
value, some companies reach a point of desperation.
Management is awake, listening, and willing to try
something new. They're in a teachable moment, so if
there was ever a time to push for more innovation,
cultural relevance, sustainability, and meaning, this is
it. A designer's shot of innovation is just what many
companies need now more than ever before. When
corporations need CPR, revival comes in the form of
Creativity, Passion and
Reason.
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| news @ CSI |
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HBF Announces Reduced
lead time for HBF casegoods and conference
products
Last month, HBF announced a six (6)
week lead time for casegood and conference standard
product. The lead time begins upon receipt of a fully
specified order and credit approval.
HBF Casegood Product
Lines
For a "PDF"
brochure, click on the below series name of
interest
HBF Conference Table Product
lines
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| Textile
Talk |
Meet the Designer - Campion Platt
"Design inspired by the imagination and
realized through craft"
The designs of Campion Platt,
leading architect and interior designer, whose projects range
from residences and boutique hotels to a line of furniture and
textile collection, embody luxury, innovation and an
eco-friendly consciousness.
Campion
Platt Collection
Inspired by natural forms,
Campion Platt creates a new eco collection for HBF Textiles.
Campion re-interpreted the traditional ideas of weaving,
quilting, and stitching and set them against our visual
perceptions of landscape forms and the macro environment. The
six diverse woodland inspired patterns portray these
abstractions from everyday nature.
 Forest Light is a
tightly woven linen and hi-sheen polyester textural pattern
that has a soft hand and glistening sheen like that of a fresh
forest rain. Forest Light
provides a range of colors that extends throughout Campion's
collection with 11 crisp hues that define his signature color
palette for HBF Textiles. Mountain Tartan
incorporates organic cotton and bamboo rayon in six velvety
colors. With Mountain Tartan,
Platt worked from a historic tartan grid and updated the
design to create a clipped quilt of random intersecting
lines.
 Rock Ledge and Woodland Trace
both are comprised of post-consumer recycled polyester
that re-interprets the wondrous craggy mountain terrains and
the forest floor of fallen leaves and nettles. In Rock Ledge, the
accent stitching plays an active role in moving your eye
across this wonderfully sketched translation. Woodland Trace
also portrays a sketched quality with a subtle crepe
design in the background.
Rough Terrain is
derived from an asymmetrical check that portrays linear fields
when viewed from a higher vantage point. Available in six
sumptuous bamboo chenille combinations. Velvet Ground,
the signature piece from the collection, is a crushed bamboo
velvet that portrays the beauty of a moss covered landscape
with all its natural imperfections.
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| tips
& tools |
10 Office Faux Pas
 1. Don't! Be the Office
Downer
You don't want to be such a buzz kill that
people arrange their desks away from you.
That's what
Caroline Melville, owner of virtual administrative service
VirtuallySorted.com, had to do after hiring an accountant to
work with her small team.
In the mornings, when Melville
asked how he was doing, he would respond with a deadpan, "I am
not dead yet."
If the company booked a new client and the
office was celebrating their success, he would pipe in with,
"Ah, I don't know. I don't know. He might leave."
The
eternal optimist didn't stay long. He resigned when his wife
got a new job and needed to move.
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Bill Meyer
Contract
Specialties, Inc. (CSI)
phone: 904-220-0221 or
800-808-8274
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