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Friday Five with Felicia Ferrone

Designer Felicia Ferrone, founder of Fferrone Design, Ltd., has been busy. This native Chicago talent, who did several apprenticeships under architects and designers in Milan, curated a show at NeoCon earlier this month, Relationship by Design, which showcased work from 14 internationally known, Chicago-based design studios. This summer Boffi will present her Index mirror. That’s in addition to teaching design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and co-founding Shared-Practice.com, a resource, calendar, and networking site for the design community. So far, Ferrone is best known for her Revolution Collection of glassware, which has been inducted into The Art Institute of Chicago s Permanent Architecture and Design Collection and which received a Good Design Award, though we expect to see a lot more success. Her Friday Five gives us a glimpse into her inspirations and style.

1. Ring by Christopher Gentner
The perfect manifestation of beauty, protection and fragility.

2. Everyday Objects
Everyday objects are a constant point of inspiration for me. I love nothing more that things that catch my eye as I am biking or walking around a city.

3. Milan
Can’t live without it! The randomness found in the courtyards of Milan; the ivy growing over things softening the architecture, the asymmetrical, almost haphazard way things develop in the non-architecture architecture is what I love the most and find the most inspiring. When I walk into these courtyards and interior spaces of the Vecchio Milano (Old Milan) I envision how I might capture that quality and translate it into spaces here. A constant point of inspiration for me.

4. Dance
Having studied dance growing up, I learned how to strive for perfection and what it means to hone a craft. This directly informs my design work as it comes down to these often microscopic refinements of line and proportion, just like in all forms of dance. It’s the subtly that makes all the difference. Like design, dance is all about balance, proportion, tension, and emotion.

5. Shared-Practice.com
This site is a resource for the design community that helps designers find solutions to manufacturing and fabrication needs. It also lists all types of design events scheduled in major US cities. As one of the founders, I believe that we ultimately rely on each other for help. By sharing, we are more productive, effective, and fulfilled.

Photo 1 by Vincent Chaigne; photo 4 by Herbert Migdoll.

Marni Elyse Katz is a Contributing Editor at Design Milk. She lives in Boston where she contributes regularly to local publications and writes her own interior design blog, StyleCarrot.