Hospitality Design: What I've Learned

This episode originally aired on December 25th, 2018.
Brad Wilson started his career working with his mom to open a series of bakeries throughout Chicago. It was a natural step to go into hotels, helping to launch brands such as W and the gamechanging Ace Hotels. His pragmatic approach to hospitality has evolved into a deep love and understanding for the industry. "I'm sort of a junkie" for it, he says. "I crave it."

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Thank you for listening! For more of our great interviews, find us at hospitalitydesign.com.

Paula Scher's career is as wide ranging as it is inspirational. The former art student, who pivoted to graphic design, is also a children’s book author; she’s designed album covers for artists like John Prine; she launched her own magazine, Together, with Terry Koppel; and she became the first female partner at New York-based multidisciplinary firm Pentagram. Among her many clients, her indelible work has transformed the Public Theater in New York, where she learned many lessons over the course of the almost 30 year relationship. Though she has sometimes felt like a misfit, she sees that as another way of rebelling against the belief of what she’s supposed to be. From the beginning, she says, “I have tried to defy expectations.”

Thank you for listening! For more of our great interviews, find us at hospitalitydesign.com.

Cofounder of his namesake development company, Keith Menin has spent his career building an eclectic portfolio in his native Miami with such notable openings as the Sanctuary South Beach, which he conceived when he was only 23 years old. Included in those buzzy projects is the redo of the Shelborne South Beach Hotel, and soon, the 51-story Natiivo Miami. The residential-hospitality-lifestyle hybrid is a nod to the evolving industry, as well as to Menin’s ability to create exciting spaces that respond to how people live, work, and play today.

Thank you for listening! For more of our great interviews, find us at hospitalitydesign.com.

Antionette Carroll, president and CEO of Creative Reaction Lab, founded her St. Louis-based nonprofit after the Ferguson uprisings in 2014. She describes herself as a social entrepreneur; equity designer; and diversity, equity and inclusion specialist, and her mission is more important now than ever. Carroll is building a movement dedicated to highlighting youth-centered Black and Latinx voices in an effort to create actual systemic change. Here, she shares her inspiring journey from doing living room craft hours with her grandmother as a child to losing her 13-year-old brother to gun violence, which led her to conceive Creative Reaction Lab, a creative problem-solving process that gives communities the tools they need to dismantle systemic oppression and create a future of equity for all.

Thank you for listening! For more of our great interviews, find us at hospitalitydesign.com.

London born and raised designer Tara Bernerd’s sprawling career spans leaving school at age 16, a stint at Vogue magazine, and invaluable industry experience at London firm YOO before setting off to build her own firm. She credits her greatest inspirations and mentors as journalist Jane Mulvagh, design legends John Hitchcox and Philippe Starck, as well as her father, who she says taught her her greatest lesson to date. In our conversation, she details her work with Equinox Hotels, her favorite travel destinations, and dealing with COVID-19.

Thank you for listening! For more of our great interviews, find us at hospitalitydesign.com.