Maker Monday: An aspire Exclusive Interview With California Design Living

Launched in 2023, California Design Living (CDL) is a rug brand founded on the belief that the objects we live with should have meaning beyond function. Rooted in an 84-year weaving legacy spanning four generations, CDL is shaped by a tradition where craftsmanship was never rushed, and quality was never negotiated. Each rug is crafted one at a time with close attention to material, proportion, and texture, with customization central to the process. Shape, color, scale, and construction are treated as starting points rather than fixed decisions, allowing each piece to respond to its environment while remaining true to the brand’s design language. Traditional techniques are respected but reinterpreted through a modern lens, ensuring craftsmanship feels relevant rather than nostalgic. Sustainability is approached as a complete ecosystem, extending beyond materials to long-term, meaningful work across the entire supply chain. While collaborating closely with designers, architects, and clients worldwide, CDL remains deeply personal, guided by listening, patience, and clarity. The goal is never to dominate a space, but to quietly anchor it with work that feels calm, considered, and enduring. Hear more about California Design Living from Ayub Ansari, the C.C.O of CDL in today’s Maker Monday.

Pyramid Fall

Andrew Joseph: What is your favorite place to find inspiration?
Ayub Ansari: My favorite places to find inspiration are old cities. Places where layers of time coexist naturally.

AJ: Can you describe your design philosophy in three words?
AA: Intentional. Timeless. Handcrafted.

AJ: What was the last book you read and how did it inspire you?
AA: The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. It explores Adlerian psychology, which asserts that people are not controlled by past experiences but by the meaning they assign to them.

It inspired me to live more authentically, and to stop living according to others’ expectations. It has also made me realize that fulfillment comes from feeling useful, and doing meaningful work without seeking external validation.

AJ: What’s the weirdest thing a client has ever asked you?
AA: We were making rugs for a private estate, and they asked if we could make holes in a few of the rugs in the party space so dance poles could pass through them. Sadly, we were not invited to those parties.

AJ: What is the most challenging project you’ve worked on and how did you overcome it?
AA: It’s hard to pick just one, but a recent example was creating a 20-foot-5-inch octagon-shaped rug. Standard handmade looms rarely exceed 12–15 feet in width, so no existing loom could accommodate this size. When a rug is long, it is still manageable because, as it is woven, it comes off the loom and can be rolled. For this particular piece, we had to build a custom space with a 22-foot loom just to make this one rug.

The challenge didn’t end once the rug came off the loom. Due to its scale, the rug required additional resources every time it needed to be moved, even within the factory, to ensure it was fully supported and never damaged at any stage. Each piece then goes through many additional steps, including finishing, washing, stretching, cleaning, and final inspection before being packed. While we have regular air shipments for rugs up to 16 feet in width, this piece required special arrangements to get it safely to our client. We embrace these challenges, and providing end-to-end solutions for such projects is what truly makes us one of a kind.

Seamless Apricot

AJ: Best advice you’d give your teenage self?
AA: Never give up. You may overestimate what you can achieve in a year, but you massively underestimate what you can achieve in five or ten years.

AJ: What is your favorite aspect of your job?
AA: Traveling the world, meeting people from diverse backgrounds, and experiencing different cultures and cuisines.

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