Contemporary Designer Profile: Hunter-Barnes!

Your first visit to the website of interior design firm Hunter-Barnes provides you with a vital piece of information: these two talented lads are in-your-face good. With an online portfolio that has the biggest photos we’ve ever seen combined with what’s actually in the photos: rock start-quality interiors, you can see why we’re pretty enamored with today’s contemporary designers.

Bold. Playful. Sophisticated but not too serious. These are words and phrases that you can see right off the bat when viewing Hunter-Barnes’ portfolio. We’re seriously impressed with the slick interiors we are seeing. Their first project as a team, the Kate Somerville Skin Heath Experts commercial space, is a perfect example of their boldness. Not content to sneak into the profession of interior design, these guys burst onto the scene with a space that is luxurious, fresh, trendy, timeless and young. All white-rooms steeped in texture and pattern punctuated by feminine touches of color live harmoniously with rooms that play with a little more hue. Each space has its own identity that ties back brilliantly with the overall design.

After the Kate Somerville Skin Health Experts project, the team only got better and bolder. Expanding to more commercial spaces and residential spaces, no wall is safe when these guys are around. Excelling at creating drama in a space, these spaces affect ones senses mightily. Luxurious details speak to one’s sense of sophistication. Warm wood tones remind you that you are still on earth and not in heaven. And I'm sure you can also see, when looking at their projects, another reason why we love them: their great tastes in lamps! Take a look at their portfolio and focus on their choices for lamps and lighting; you'll see they are brilliant when it comes to knowing that a fabulous lamps makes a fabulous room.

Lest you think all their projects culminate with shiny black metallic walls, these boys are also experts at the subtle art of neutral palettes, and have worked on projects that gently combine lighter colors so deftly you hardly notice what’s being done. In these spaces, as with all their spaces, patterns, textures, textiles and other tools of the trade are mixed and matched to create custom spaces full of personality and potential.

So who are the two designers behind Hunter-Barnes? Adam Hunter spent 10 years starring in Broadway productions while attending the Parsons School for design. Spencer Barnes, who is also an internationally famous makeup artist, has been designing interiors since he was a teenager. In 2007 they combined their talents to become a full-service, extraordinary interior design duo. The world took notice fairly quickly of their talent, and they have a number of celebrity designers they cater to, like Neil Patrick Harris, Travis Barker, Jon Heder and Kate Somerville. They’ve even been named one of the rising stars of interior design in a local publication. Really, their fabulous interiors speak for themselves.

Swank Lighting is an amazing resource not just for the best vintage Murano glass lamps in the market today, but also a wonderful resource for interior design inspiration and a great place to get an education about past and present designers. Keep up-to-date with everything we do on our Facebook page and our twitter.

Contemporary Designer Profile: Thad Hayes

Thad Hayes’ biography located on his website starts off with four words: optimistic, essential, rigorous and refined. Lofty adjectives for just an interior designer, but after reviewing this designer’s work in his portfolio, one can see why these four words are his defining characteristics.

The first thing we notice is that all of Hayes’ interiors have a lot in common. He’s clearly one of those designers that while talented, has a distinct style that is hard to hold back from any project. This is not to say that his work trumps clients’ needs or wants, just that he has a specific look that he gravitates toward, usually because it’s drop dead gorgeous.

Some of the similarities we spotted: wide swaths of color as bold walls or art, a great grasp of time periods from old to modern and the ability to mix simplicity and details beautifully. We’ve got other words we’d assign to his interiors: classic, bold, sophisticated, elegant and exciting.

Hayes’ online bio will also tell you that relationships, both to clients and of his interiors to the architecture, are of the utmost importance to his work. He’s got a gift for proportions, that’s for sure. He knows how to wield masculine, over-sized accessories with just-right-sized furniture, all fitting perfectly in the architectural settings he’s given to start with.

Another delight we discovered when learning about Thad Hayes: he grew up and went to the same school as the writer of the post—Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He did study interior design at the Parsons School of Design though, and resides in New York where his practice is. He was honored as one of "The AD 100" and was named a "Dean of Design" by Architectural Digest Magazine.

Swank Lighting is an amazing resource not just for the best vintage Murano glass lamps in the market today, but also a wonderful resource for interior design inspiration and a great place to get an education about past and present designers. Keep up-to-date with everything we do on our Facebook page and our twitter.