Search

Friday Five with Mark Cutler

Mark Cutler may be based in the City of Angels now, but his Australian roots still run deep. The renowned interior designer is not only principal of his own Mark Cutler Design, he’s the Chief Designer for nousDECOR, a web and iPhone app based, community-curated destination for decor ideas and resources. His design know-how has aided his continuously expanding, global portfolio of both residential and commercial projects, where he lends his skills to high profile celebrity homes and luxury hotels. Cutler’s work led to being named one of the Top 40 designs firms in the United States by the Robb Roport. Mostly likely you’ve spotted his work in the pages of Architectural Digest, Metropolitan Home, House Beautiful, California Homes, Traditional Homes, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times, to name a few. Let’s take a look to see what this acclaimed designer loves and how he makes it happen in this week’s Friday Five.

Photo by Hai Linh Truong, via Flickr

Photo by Hai Linh Truong, via Flickr

1. Australia
If you have to come from anywhere, I am sure glad it was here. It gave me an understanding of effortless style and a relaxed casual elegance that can be seen in my work every day.

A trompe l'oeil painted console by Christian Bérard, in the Jean-Michel Frank designed Guerlain Institute, Paris, 1939 via The Peak of Chic

A trompe l’oeil painted console by Christian Bérard, in the Jean-Michel Frank designed Guerlain Institute, Paris, 1939 via The Peak of Chic

2. The design of the Guerlain showroom done by Christian Berard
In my opinion, this is one of the most original rooms ever created. He found a way to honor tradition while simultaneously turning it on its head. I am happy to see that Fromental wallpaper has released a series in homage to this great design, and I can’t wait to use it.

F5-Mark-Cutler-3-Evernote

3. Evernote
It seems that I am always on the go, and constantly dreaming up new ideas or reading articles on the internet. This spectacular app transformed that chaos into a streamlined organized system that I can access as easily at my desk as I can on a beach in Thailand.

F5-Mark-Cutler-4-sky

4. My Bernese Mountain Dog, Sky
I try to tell my staff that the keys to great imagination are perpetual youth and unbridled curiosity, both of these the Berners have in spades and he is a constant inspiration to me to stop, look and listen.

F5-Mark-Cutler-5-book

5. Happiness is a Serious Problem by Dennis Prager
This is a book that transformed my life. It’s a quick read but will give you insights to last a lifetime. A Harvard Study just showed that happiness may very well be the key to career success; I would be happy to think so!

Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.