Design Public

Happy Thursday!

We’ve got a bit of a lull in the holiday season here, so I thought it would be fun to take some time to introduce our team to you. I mean, you read this blog — who are these guys? And why should I read what they have to say about design? (Truth is, you should not under any circumstances.)

Let’s take Jeff, our copywriter, for starters. I mean, have you ever wondered about our web copy? Read this example for the Gus Design Group Steel Magazine Racks:

As well as being interesting and handy, the Stainless Steel Magazine Rack from Gus Design Group gives you a new way to store your magazines–by rank! You can put the fun, fluffy magazines at the bottom and the significant, responsible ones at the top; you can work your way up the ladder from People and Entertainment Weekly to the very heights of dwell and The Economist. Or, you know, the other way around. People has reporting in it too.

No, you aren’t in a Williams-Sonoma catalog anymore. Don’t see it? How about the description for the Plume Pillow from Eleventwentyfive or the Play-a-Round Table from Offi?

I love our copy. It’s a bit off the wall and fun, but so are we so it fits. The author of our web copy is Jeff. He lives in LA, and his is our first staff profile. Read it over and then check out Jeff’s Holiday Wishlist here.

Jeff, where are you from? Where do you live now?

I’m from all over the place. I was born in Alaska, and lived there on and off for about 7 years. I’ve lived in California for the past 11 years now, in L.A. for the past 6 or so.

How’d you get interested in design?

Well, I’ve loved Fallingwater since the first time I ever saw a picture of it. I know it’s utterly impractical (and extraordinarily improbable), but I like to think of it as my future house. It’ll never happen, but it’s a dream. Then, about five and a half years ago, probably, I saw a Frank Lloyd Wright book in the bargain section at Barnes & Noble, and all the pictures I saw just felt *right.* Like, there was something in the designs–furniture, art glass, architecture, the works–that I recognized as something in me, even though I hadn’t seen any of those photos before.

What’s your favorite Design Public product and why?

I love the Blu Dot Chicago 8-Box Shelf. I’m a book person, so that’s a big plus in favor of the piece anyway, but I also think it’s just so very classy. I think it’s the rhythm that draws me to it most–the alternating positive and negative space, but it’s still all shelves! I love it. If I had a second pick, it’d be an Erich Ginder product, either the Ghost Antler Coat Rack or the Mansion Chandelier. They’re so bold and intelligent; to me, they obviously have some kind of programmatic background, there’s plainly some *reason* they look the way they do.

Umm . . . why do you work here?

I love the attitude at Design Public. I don’t like big corporations, and Design Public–the people who are Design Public–doesn’t act like one. Everyone’s really friendly and fun. It doesn’t seem as much like work as it does doing stuff I enjoy with friends–and then they thank me for it! It’s awesome. Also, I work here because Drew was desperate enough for a copywriter to hire me even though I didn’t have any professional writing experience.

Last but not least — so which are your favorite descriptions?

A lot of the stuff I did for Gus Design Group I like–the Pawn Stool especially, but also the Stainless Steel Magazine Rack and the Stainless Cube. Those were challenging, because the furniture, while extremely well-made and very attractive, is so minimal that it’s hard to talk about. So I went at them kind of sideways instead, not describing the items themselves, really, but making kind of a mood-portrait of them, or just riffing on the names. That was a lot of fun. The Pawn Stool is like the most finely distilled version of that strategy–and probably the outer limits of it, too, as I don’t imagine I’ll get to do anything that oblique again (it’s not a fantastic sales tactic, I think). I also like the Plume pillow description. It’s fun and more obviously engaged with the product, but it also tries to involve the customer. And I wrote it *before* I ever saw an episode of “Little Britain,” so there’s no Kenny Craig in it anywhere (I know!).

If you weren’t writing amazing product descriptions, what would you be doing?

If I weren’t writing for Design Public, I’d probably still be at crap temp jobs (do I ever have some stories…), trying to figure out how I could get out of them for some kind of permanent writing or editing job.

What do you do in your spare time?

I read a lot, I play in the local community college band, I write, I watch stuff from Netflix. And on the weekends I’m usually out with my fiance somewhere around town, often out taking pictures.

Who was your favorite member of the A-Team?

Face was the cutest, and was pretty smooth, but Murdock was insane (in both good and bad ways), and is therefore clearly more awesome.

View Jeff’s holiday wishlist here.