Born in North Carolina but spending half her life in DC and NYC, Cassie Adams was inspired by a wide range of interests from design and travel to science and architecture from an early age. She graduated from Duke University with a Visual Arts Degree and studied abroad at the SACI College of Art + Design in Florence before working at an art gallery in NYC. While working at the gallery, she founded Cassie Adams Designs, a graphic design company specializing in custom stationery and invitations. In this venture, she uncovered a two-dimensional medium for exploring colors and patterns that she had come to love since childhood. Find out more about Cassie’s art in this week’s Maker Monday.
Andrew Joseph: Style (or design) icon?
Cassie Adams: The first designer I fell in love with was Tricia Guild of Designers Guild. It was the summer before I went to college and my mom’s House Beautiful arrived with this awesome duvet on the cover and I said, “I don’t care whatever else I have in my dorm room, but please, please can I have this?!?” Back then the sources for all the articles were printed in the back and I tracked it down somewhere in New York. I still have it. A couple of summers later I was interning for an interior designer and finally got a chance to experience the riot of color and pattern that is the world of Designers Guild and I never looked back. I have a number of her books and her imagery is so inspiring. I love the way she explores color combining the soft free flowing forms of the natural world with the linear spaces and shapes surrounding them.
AJ: Favorite App?
CA: To be honest, I don’t use a lot of apps, but I could not live without my Spotify. I love having access to all kinds of music especially when I am in the studio. Depending on my mood or the pieces I am working on, I might want something poppy one minute and something chill the next. And it has been really fun introducing music to my kids this way – they have their own playlists and get to make requests in the car and recently we have started many a morning with a dance party – it doesn’t get much better than that!
AJ: How would you define your work in three words?
CA: Colorful. Happy. Movement.
AJ: Are you a good cook? If so, what’s your specialty?
CA: I love cooking. As a mom of two tiny humans, I don’t have as much time (or perhaps energy is more apropos) as I used to when I would plan and make elaborate meals for my husband and I on a weeknight. However, I still love pulling together some simple favorites like pan seared blackened salmon with sautéed French green beans and opening some delicious bubbles to go along with it.
AJ: How would you describe your personal style?
CA: Relaxed, colorful, a little feminine. For everyday, I love a simple tee and jeans and typically bring in color with my shoes, but almost all my party dresses have always been (and still are) bright, colorful patterns in lots of different styles paired with my favorite pair of pale gold heels or sandals. This reminds me of how I decorate, using solids and neutrals as the base and bringing in colorful artwork and textile patterns to pull everything together with lots of bright, happy colors.
AJ: How do you define beauty?
CA: Something that brings happiness and joy, opening your eyes and making you smile.
About the Maker | Eager to advance her design knowledge, Cassie Adams left a job at an art gallery and began working for a small interior design firm. After honing her skills as a senior designer, she decided it was time to integrate interior design into her company’s offerings. To further her education, she attended Parsons for an Associates Degree in Interior Design where she revisited painting and discovered a passion for collage. She even transformed her stationery designs into textile prints. While completing her studies, she worked to build her brand, taking on interior design clients both in the New York area and her home state of North Carolina. However, Cassie knew that her art was what made her happy. With encouragement from her family, she focused on her gift for creating and embraced her calling as an artist. Possessing a flair for weaving the traditional with the unexpected, Cassie has created a unique style that’s classic with a modern sensibility. She believes passion, confidence, imagination, and the ability to listen define the distinction between being a good designer and a great one and uses those principles to guide her. With her husband and two small children by her side, Cassie continues to cultivate her brand, helping clients achieve what she calls “the happy perfect.”
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