2014 has been a pretty amazing year! last winter, i quite spontaneously withdrew my meager life savings, whisked my daughter out of school & ran away to live some of our dreams. it wasn’t surprising to most of our friends, as we do have a good dose of wanderlust and travel whenever possible, but i am always craving more. so after 11 years as sole proprietor of mango design company & single mother to hannah, my reward was a sabbatical. from the greek sabbatikos, we took an incredible opportunity to live the slow life, to explore our creativity & to amp up our inspiration!!
photo: me in paris! (not so sunny)
‘nomadic mangos’ blog posts are about to begin. i had imagined posting these while we were travelling however one goal of getting away was also to get away from the computer. i did however shoot & edit a bajillion photographs. so as the rainy days of vancouver kick in, it’s invigorating to re-explore our 6 joyous months of soaking up some sunshine & sweet design in europe & morocco. stay tuned for a mango eye view of london, wales, paris, lisbon, portimao, seville, marrakech, zagora, essauoira, fez, casablanca and our beautiful home base of paros, greece.
back in vancouver, i’m ready to spread some design love. my challenge is to pull the inherent richness of centuries old design into relatively newbie vancouver and to convey the art of simplicity & living slow into all of mango’s projects. also up for the challenge is my lovely and talented assistant and junior designer, nichole skladan. she has returned to mango design company after completing her diploma of interior design at bcit. i’m so happy to have her mad skills and enthusiasm back in my little studio!
photo left: nichole, hannah. right: tanya, hannah
september found us cruising local showrooms and the ids west tradeshow, seeking fresh products & re-establishing our connections. the fun of field-tripping is the sweet products, design elements, art installations & architectural wonders we encounter. vancouver’s overall ‘play-it-safe’ attitude towards design can sometimes leave a designer feeling a little lacklustre. to keep ourselves stoked and show you what’s possible, we’re creating a blog spot called called ‘a little spark’. we’ll take a spark of inspiration from a cool product, an expressive piece of art, an interesting building or a dynamic personality and kickstart a design from it.
in the words of the wonderful robin williams “you’re only given a little spark of madness. you mustn’t lose it.” ok mister, we’re trying!
category // sweet life | comments | posted by mangodesignco@gmail.com
