Press: Reddington Designs in Print

As America sharpens its eye for design, bold images find a home in unexpected environments

America’s sense of design is coming of age.

There was a time when good design was as intimidating as a French menu or a modern art gallery, but Americans have now stretched the limits of what they find aesthetically acceptable not only in their homes, but in public spaces, as well.

“There is a much greater awareness of design, which was first seen in California and that we’re now seeing in the midwest,” said William Olafsen of Olafsen Schreiber Design. “The public is able to appreciate unusual design concepts whereas five years ago they wouldn’t have been able to relate to them at all. Now people see these designs as very interesting phenomena.”

Those interesting phenomena can mean anything from a school lunchroom dressed up to look like a Parisian sidewalk café or a coin laundry that has the soothing effect of an aquarium. The most pedestrian space or product can be a feast for the eyes.

Riverpoint Coin Laundry

When interior designer Carol Vanderlaan told people she was doing a coin laundry, they’d inevitably saw, “What’s wrong, is business bad?” Vanderlaan’s reply was that she had a full schedule, thank you, and she found the project intriguing. “Why,” she asked herself, “would someone like to come to your Laundromat rather than the one down the street? They all look alike, dull and boring with outdated colors.”

So when she was commissioned to design the Riverpoint Coin Laundry at 1750 W. Fullerton Ave., she set out to create visual excitement. She picked an undersea theme because, she said, “You come to a laundromat to use water and the image of the ocean is clean, refreshing and relaxing.” The theme dictated an obvious color scheme of deep greens and blues. Vanderlaan said she also added touches of yellow “just for kicks.” “With that color scheme, the stainless steel machines don’t look so cold and intimidating.”

Along the upper walls of the laundromat, artist Judith Malone painted two 70-by-6-foot murals of fish that are 5 feet long with yellow and pink accents swimming in deep sea-green water. “The depth of the field and the fish are realistic, but the idea is a nautical fantasy, so you’ll find Iowa corn growing at the bottom of the sea and objects that look like M&M’s,” she said.

Real tropical fish swim in the 125 gallon aquarium that sits in the center of the folding table. “You don’t need to use your mind too much to fold clothes,” said Vanderlaan, “so this gives you something to pass the time.”

For years many Americans were comfortable only with the conformity of functional, nondescript commercial settings. Many everyday activities are still carried out in mundane places that at best are innocuous, at worst inaesthetic eyesores. Fast food restaurants, for the most part, are impersonal clones as though churned out on a conveyor belt. Schoolchildren eat in lunchrooms as colorless and tasteless as institutional food. The only visual excitement in the faded decor of a coin laundry may be the sight of sheets on spin-cycle. And waiting rooms, decorated with dusty plastic plants, are often havens of brown vinyl. These kinds of spaces are the equivalent of polyester: functional perhaps, but devoid of style.