Hello fellow design lovers, I’m Sean Yashar. Welcome to THE CULTURE CREATIVE PAPERS, where I will be sharing ideas for the future of the interior design industry.
Before we dive into this writing project, this article offers some background and what to expect from me on Substack. It starts where it starts, in the 80’s…
My childhood in Design: A Prologue of Sorts
I have been observing, thinking, working, speaking, and on occasion writing about the design zeitgeist for a long time. Beyond my credentials: as the founder of The Culture Creative, and my tenure as a brand strategist in the design industry for almost two decades, my love of design culture goes deeper than professional.
It all begins with a unique childhood in 80s Los Angeles. As the child of Persian-Jewish immigrant parents, I spent most days after school at my family’s furniture showroom. My earliest design memories take place at Moda Italia, an over-the-top showroom at the peak of Memphis-ish Post Modernism (think “Ruthless People” aesthetic).
Afternoons were spent with my parent’s fabulously flamboyant salesperson Devin (pronounced “D’Von”), visits from interior designers and their clients, furniture makers and brand reps. These were the first adults I knew outside of family and teachers, and they intrigued me with their love of design and perspectives on the design industry. As an aesthetically sensitive pre-gay in a conservative, middle eastern family, I felt more at home in the showroom than at home. Playing with finish samples in the materials library were my toys. I picked up design lingo and taught my elementary school friends words like armoire and macassar during recess. I helped my father with ideas for ads he ran in magazines. This is where I first caught the design bug, both as an art form and as a business.
I begin with a window into my childhood because it lit the spark, and holds influence on why I started my brand consultancy. That said, my origin story didn’t turn out to be a straight line from my parent’s furniture business into my career today, rather, my professional journey is an amalgam of seemingly disparate life experiences that course-corrected back to my first love: interior design. When it’s additive, I’ll find ways to share how I came to be an expert1 in the business of design. I have stories to tell! For now, let’s skip a few decades to the part where I decide to start this writing project, to share my thoughts with you here.
My Notes App Runneth Over
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I could build a thought-platform for an underserved community of design enthusiasts (just like me). A place for those of us who enjoy not just the physical touch of design, but also design culture as a thinking and feeling sense. I’m stepping out with the encouragement of friends, colleagues, and clients who have expressed interest in a publication of this kind over the years.
The intention behind this journal is to share observations, insights, forecasts, opinions, solutions and information for all things design culture. My mission is to share new ideas from my professional work as a strategist, with a lifelong curiosity for the zeitgeist of design and decorative arts.
This writing project is an invitation to a private place in my mind (formerly known as my notes app) made public. From deep thoughts to hot takes, without hierarchies, I explore design culture and the future of the interior design industry. This is a place to hold likeminded design enthusiasts, to find community around uncovering and understanding emerging social shifts and cultural movements, with the goal of encouraging informed participation in the continuum of an ever-evolving design dialogue.
Whether you are a design professional or design enthusiast, I’m hopeful my writing will serve as a resource, and that ideas shared here will be of value to you.
Content is not Culture
We live in an age where we consume massive amounts of content while still not feeling full. There is an epidemic of empty calorie content mispackaged as something of substance. In the design niche of social media, we suffer from a dominance of charlatans influencers pulling game with smoke and mirrors, fake news pumped through by powerful PR, and rigged algorithms prioritizing sponsored posts. It’s all too much to stomach sometimes.
It’s time to recognize that most social media platforms have devolved into an experience similar to flipping channels on a remote while staring blankly at a TV screen. Aren’t influencers essentially this generation’s take on QVC hosts? Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Tik-Tok are no longer places that inspire design excellence.
My goal is not to fight this category of saccharine design content, but rather use it as a catalyst of realization that we as a community need more thoughtful dialogue. For every influencer who posts another designer’s work without the ethical aptitude to credit, for every meme account roasting an interior design project they may not actually understand, this journal acts as a counterbalance.
My contribution here is to offer oxygen into the epidemic of shallow, derivative design content that is meme-ifying the arts out of decorative arts dialogue.
The Culture Creative
To understand the spirit of the writing I will be sharing, it may be helpful to understand my point of view as a professional thinker in the design industry.
My work crosses restrictive boundaries between the disciplines of design and commerce. The intention is not to dissolve distinctions, but to explore how each might inform the other.
I believe the single greatest tool for developing new ideas is the compass of one’s curiosity. Forecasting is not pseudo science or magic, it’s curiosity’s reward. It’s being in the flow of ether, it’s knowing how to surf the zeitgeist. My successes have all been the result of an insatiable interest for understanding humanity, for how we want to live. Interior design is choreography for the performance of life. Being curious about people and the culture we co-create together is the foundation of my purview.
Since 2010, I’ve had the great pleasure of running my brand consultancy. At the intersection of design, culture, and commerce, The Culture Creative is an end-to-end brand strategy company for design originals. We use creative thinking for business, and business thinking for creative, to accelerate the design world forward.
My company has never been concerned with being a ‘company’; it exists as a vessel for my passion to contribute to design culture, and a calling to nurture design talent. The Culture Creative shows by example that innovation lives in a space between the foreign and familiar. I believe in the importance of pursuing design dialogue based on history and research, combined with trust for one’s primal instinct and intuition. In other words, knowing the rules and knowing when to break them.
I honor decorative arts history, while understanding that the design industry is not being pushed from the past, it’s being pulled from the future.
Whether we’re developing an emerging designer or evolving a seasoned brand, The Culture Creative serves as a creative thought partner—exploring the unknown, proposing questions, generating new ideas, and connecting the dots.
Rules of Engagement
I’m not for everyone, but everyone is welcome.
‘If no one hates it, no one loves it.” Words I live by, paraphrased from my role model Tibor Kalman.
There’s no hierarchy for my posts. Deep thoughts and parboiled ideas have equal merit.
Quality over quantity: There’s no set schedule for posting. I only write when I’m inspired. When I’m convinced in the value of sharing.
Discourse can be elegant. I’m here to provoke thought. I’m not here to make noise. I have a zero tolerance policy on trolling, but I welcome criticism.
Authority is not answering the question, it is proposing a new question.
I’m not teaching, I have conviction to share with those who may benefit from my insights on design culture, and in turn, I welcome learning from you, too.
I revel in the unknown. My writing attempts to offer solutions to problems that don’t yet exist. Some call this forecasting.
My childhood nickname was ‘Mr. Information’, and thankfully I never lost him.
This project is from the cutting room floor of The Culture Creative. All ideas shared are the IP of The Culture Creative Inc., unless otherwise stated. For usage rights, please remember to cite.
Burying the Lead
You still there? Long story short, if you hate small talk and love design talk, if Jean-Michel Frank is your Kurt Cobain, you may enjoy dropping by for a visit to THE CULTURE CREATIVE PAPERS: Design + Decorative Arts dialogue from The Culture Creative.
Thinking for Living,
Sean
Email: info@theculturecreative.com
Website: theculturecreative.com
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Expert /ˈekˌspərt/ A person who is a perpetual student in a particular field or area of study.