100 tips in 100 days? Yep, we’ll share a trade secret each day for the next hundred days. Some from pros you’ll recognize and some from designers who are may be under your radar, but are doing fabulous work and making money! We’ll cover a broad range of topics- business, marketing, design, innovation, trends-all that are crucial to your success in 2009.  Here we go…

“Over decoration and being too “ matchy-matchy” can cause a room to look like a showroom. Remember that rooms are meant to be used and should be relaxing. Using antique textiles in a room takes the edge off the newness of everything and gives the room a softer more evolved look. Virginia Di Sciascio, Laura Fisher and E Bay are good sources if you know what you are looking for.”  Bunny Williams

A fabulous mix of furnishings that make a truly personal statement

Plopp stool for Hay- two steel plates welded together and expanded under pressure

Architect Oscar Zieta has developed an incredible new technology (FIDU) that was used to create a series of inflated sheet steel furniture.. The pieces look more like balloon art than furniture, but in fact can take the weight of human.   One of those pieces- Plopp- is being marketed thru HAY. “We completely transformed the way material is processed. In architecture there is a great need for the facility of designing free forms – take blob architecture, for example. The engineers who have the job of constructing these organic forms designed by architects are always looking for the technology which will make this possible and which will give a completely new meaning to the term ’standard”,” says Zieta.

Check out Architonic’s interview with Zieta.

 See more images of his work in the Inspiration and Innovation sidebar.