One of the goals of our blog “HileItes” is to give people a way to get to know Hile Design staffers in a different way—less business, more personal. So how better to gain insight into each of us than to understand our musical tastes:

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Many retail companies envy the almost cult-like passion that Ikea’s customers direct toward the Swedish manufacturer of designer home goods. But the company wasn’t prepared for the worldwide backlash it experienced recently when it switched typefaces in its venerated catalog for the first time in 50 years, from Futura to Verdana.

For those type neophytes who don’t know their Helvetica from their Times Roman, Futura has been one of the grand masters of sans serif typefaces since it was first released in the 1920s. It’s prized for its clean geometry and simple elegance. Plus, it boasts an extensive family of associated fonts: Futura Light, Book, Medium, Heavy, Bold, Extra Bold, Condensed, Oblique, Light Oblique—and on and on. Read the rest of this entry »

Is Dave Hile a compulsive hoarder or an inspired advertising guru? Only time will tell.

Do you collect things? My cousin collects anything related to penguins. The mother of a friend of mine collects owl bric-a-brac. Her house is packed with owl ceramics, art prints, aprons, snow globes, door knockers, figurines, pillows and anything else that could possibly get an owl image on it. I always wondered what the appeal was, and I found people who obsessively collected themed whatnots to be slightly bizarre (except, of course, my cousin who might someday read this blog). How far is the leap from being a collector to becoming one of those eccentric people who live in darkened houses, who never throw out their newspapers dating back to the 1960s?

Like I said, that’s what I thought. Until I became one of them!

I collect modern clocks. It started about four years ago. One day I felt like we needed a clock for our office. A nice big one so all the designers could keep an eye on their deadlines. But of course being a lover of all things modern I couldn’t just buy a regular clock. So I turned to the internet and began researching designer wall clocks—most of the ones that appealed to me were made in Italy, Holland, England, Finland or some other European country. I ended up buying the Contrattempo model by Rexite, an Italian product design firm. It was big and easy to read and really well designed with a cool red pendulum in place of where the numeral “6″ should be. Then a few weeks later I saw another really cool clock from an English company named Joseph Joseph. I figured the office could use another clock. I mean, there are all kinds of walls and corners in our office so another clock wouldn’t hurt, right? A week later on impulse I bought two more Joseph Joseph clocks. Four years later our office has eighty clocks. Oh, and the son of my (penguin) cousin bought me a clock on his last business trip to England. Yup, the circle is complete.

I take a lot of flack from my staff. Their jokes include not being able to tell the time from the clocks because of their modern, unique designs. Other jokes revolve around my being compulsive and my “hoarding problem.” I make our production designer, Lindsey, reset all the clocks twice a year because of the time change in our region of the country. It takes her an hour and a half to update them.

But I have developed a unique defense for my collection. It goes something like this, and I’ve actually used it with clients:

“See all these clocks?” (Client makes a 360 of the room.)

“All these clocks are created for the same purpose. Right?” (Client nods affirmatively.)

“But each one takes a wholly different approach with totally unique results. Some are clever and some are functional and some are funny and this one over here doesn’t even have any hands at all.” (At this point I show them the MOMA Timesphere clock that uses a little red ball that travels around the clock face in lieu of mundane and archaic hands. The client chuckles and increases their head bobbing.)

“It’s just like your advertising. What we have to do is find out what’s most unique about your company and the services you provide your customers. There are many creative options we can apply to your corporate branding, just like there are many different ways to create a timepiece.” (The head bobbing is at maximum capacity.)

Sure, I made this spiel up after I got all the clocks, but it actually is a good analogy. Each clock design is inspired in its own way and presents a completely different “attitude.”

I have to go now. The clocks are telling me I’ve got a meeting to attend. At least I think they are.

I am a normal, red-blooded American male. I like contact sports, fishing, dissing politicians, and fast cars. Heck, I went skydiving once (almost). But I have a secret so dark, so disturbing, that for years I hid it within the confines of my own home. My secret? I care about our curtains!

Oh, I’ve tried not to care. Actually for a period of nearly 15 years, earlier in my life I stifled (as Archie Bunker used to scream at his wife, Edith) the urge to care. But it inevitably came right back out. And it’s lonely. At times I’ve screamed within the inner sanctum of my brain, “STOP caring about the curtains! For the love of all that’s sane, STOP caring!” but it doesn’t help. What’s worse, I have a major jones for modern furniture. If I get near furniture designed by people with names like Arad, Castiglioni, Eames, Jacobsen, Nelson and Noguchi, I begin to get lightheaded. And the list goes on and on! Don’t even get me started on Panton, Prove, Rashid and Saarinen. What’s worse is my major fixation with Phillippe Stark!  It’s a costly monkey on my back. Just go to Design Within Reach’s website and check out their pricing. (Thank goodness, there are less expensive knockoffs.)

My problem came to a head a decade ago when my wife and I bought a new home. Early on we went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to buy drapes for the house. I was trying to act as though the patterned drapes we picked out together were fine. Yeah, that’s it… j-u-s-t  f-i-n-e. But once they were up in our home it became crystal clear to my inner designer that those patterns had to go! Couldn’t my wife see that the patterns screwed up the whole flow of the room? She protested. After that I can’t remember much except near the end of the incident, when she said that men weren’t suppose to care about “those kinds of things.” Ouch.

Hi, I’m Dave and I am an interior designer. There, I’ve said it. And you know what? I feel better. Yes, I care whether our curtains are patterned or not, and I am not going to hide in my house behind my (thankfully nonpatterned) curtains any longer! Do you hear me, world?

OK, let’s get this out in the open. I like McDonald’s “McCafe” specialty coffees. Since my affinity for McCafes has become known, staff here at Hile have responded in a variety of ways, most of them uncharitable, including accusing me of being unsophisticated in my coffee tastes, or conversely, accusing me of thinking I’m “too good” for the regular brew most everyone else imbibes a couple of times a day. One staffer thinks it’s amusing to add the prefix “Mc” in front of regular words when talking to me, for example, “Monica, are you doing anything “McFun” this weekend? Very McFunny.

McDonald’s is trying to combat consumers’ preconceived ideas about their coffee by running television ads urging consumers to avoid “snobby” coffee shops and take advantage of McDonald’s. One such ad shows two guys sitting in a stereotypical coffee shop, classical music playing in the background. “We don’t have to call movies ‘films’ anymore,” says one guy when his friend tells him that McDonald’s has cappuccinos. “And we can talk about football.” “I like football,” says his friend, while peeling off his black “artsy” turtleneck. “I like sitting and watching football.” Read the rest of this entry »