Our "Process" queen Virginia Gardiner currently lives in London, where she is finishing up a master's degree in industrial design engineering. "It has been fun but also tiring," she reports. "I spend a lot of time in the workshop with glue and other stuff on my hands and have recently been casting lots of shapes in horse poo from the horses that trot around Buckingham Palace. But we have to make stuff with a market, so I'm working on a new waterless toilet.

westelm.com Since it launched in Brooklyn, NY in 2002, west elm has been helping customers express their personal style at home. Our mission is three-fold: 1) we offer CHOICE in our products and services, helping customers create a home that tells their story, 2) we build COMMUNITY with customers, collaborators and associates, connecting like-minded strangers through inspiration, conversation, events and activities, and 3) we focus on CONSCIOUSNESS and honest business practices in everything we do, from handcrafted and local products to supply chain transparency + sustainability.

There are familiar types of creativity, to be sure. But it’s not always about being artful. Or expressive. It’s not about being born with certain gifts, or validated by others. Rather, creativity is the ability to transcend existing ideas, rules, patterns, or relationships, and to bring about something new and meaningful. Industry West is about supporting and mobilizing people who strive to be creative, whether it’s at work or at home. The whole world needs to achieve its creative potential. So we are the tipping point. We will push creativity into the mainstream where it belongs. That’s what keeps the fire in our belly at Industry West. The non-stop thrill of being creative, sharing creative, and supporting creativity in others. It’s why we like to gorge on new ideas. Why we have wanderlust, and friends all over the world. Why we’re willing to bet big on rising talent. And why our furniture feels strong enough to withstand the nonstop activity associated with creative people, doing creative things in big, creative ways. We are Industry West: Create. Share. Repeat.

Charlotte West is a design writer who recently returned to the United States after six years abroad in Stockholm, Sweden. She writes for a number of publications in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and Sweden. Her work has appeared in Icon, Step, Varoom, Budget Travel and Men's Journal. She is also an editor at large for Elemente magazine in Canada. Charlotte lives in Seattle with two Norwegian forest cats.

WHY HYGGE? In their daily conversations, Christiana and Aimee often found themselves discussing ways to live more simply. Both believe in being more appreciative of small joys and living in the moment. As fate would have it, they stumbled upon the Danish word hygge just as they began to discuss a way to share this concept with others. They love the way that it simply yet profoundly captured what they were trying to achieve in their own lives. While hygge manifests itself differently for each person, it is ultimately about living better. By collaborating with artists and discovering new ways of joyful living, Christiana and Aimee hope that Hygge & West will inspire you to create more hygge in your own life.

We are an architecture and design agency that creates ideas, objects and spaces to change the way you experience the world.

Account Director @ Bareface Modern Advertising Agency

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