Dalton—Phenix Flooring (Phenix) recently hosted its inaugural designer event, Insight Design Council, April 15-17. Held at the Omni Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C., nine selected designers spent three days with the Phenix product development, marketing and leadership teams discussing home, product and consumer trends, listening to industry experts and providing perspective and feedback on in-progress Phenix product designs.
“At Phenix, we pride ourselves on being design-focused and are consistently looking for ways to push the limits of traditional perspectives on residential flooring,” said Jason Surratt, senior vice president of product and design, Phenix. “Creating an opportunity to hear firsthand homeowner challenges and desires in each region, as well as connect with flooring and interiors designers at local retailers provided us with invaluable insight to make our product development efforts even stronger.”
To facilitate the conversation around interior design trends and homeowner preferences, each designer presented a trend board that reflected the most popular colors, patterns and styles of flooring, textiles and other interior details in their regions. After robust conversation, each attendee reviewed and gave feedback on various patterns, colors, textures and styles the Phenix product development team is currently testing ahead of the 2020 season.
The final day concluded the event with guest speaker Maxine Lauer, founder of Sphere Trending. As Sphere Trending’s top innovator and designer, she presented an in-depth analysis of 2019 home design trends. In addition to the professional development, attendees also toured the Biltmore Estate to gain inspiration from one of America’s most celebrated works of historical interior design.
“This was by far the best design council that I have attended,” said Demi Rice from Southwestern Floors. “The involvement we had looking at the new styles and colors, the genuine questions that you all asked of us, made us feel a part of the experience. We all came away with a wealth of knowledge, from each of our regions and the trending information from Maxine was superb.”