Marybeth Shaw is no stranger to Wolf-Gordon, nor to shaking up the company’s status quo. As creative director of the wallcoverings giant, between 1997 and 2003 Shaw reinvigorated the manufacturer’s identity and oversaw design of new collections. As a chief creative officer since 2011, she is shepherding the fresh vision she hatched during her first term, as well as all-new avenues like contract textiles.

In between stints, Shaw was principal and creative director of the multidisciplinary studio Shaw-Jelveh Design, with clients ranging from the Ms. Foundation for Women to Cambridge Architectural Mesh. Her background is equally diverse: degrees in government, city planning, and archi-tecture from Smith College, MIT, and Ecole d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville; work experience at Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Kuhn, Richard Meier & Partners, Formica, and the Architectural League of New York. Shaw’s enthusiasm for the whole world of design makes itself clear in this conversation about Wolf-Gordon—not only in her multi-pronged vision of the brand, but also in the friendliness and passion underpinning it.

Why does the A&D community seek you out for your products and services?

While a diverse product line, materially and stylistically, is in keeping with Wolf-Gordon’s DNA, since 2000 we have committed ourselves to developing designs that are provocative, inspiring, and of our time; we have also deliberately avoided historic reissues. The once-daring collections we’ve developed have become contemporary classics, and we’ve had the privilege of introducing independent voices to the American market, such as Petra Blaisse and Grethe Sorensen.

Of your product inventory, what wallcoverings and textiles are your longest-running bestsellers?

Neutral colorways of small textural prints and embosses are the ongoing bestsellers in wallcovering. From our special design collections, Laurinda Spear’s Bamboo pattern has been a popular pattern since 2001! We have only been selling upholstery textiles since 2012, but clean, transitional geometrics are selling well.

Let’s discuss the addition of contract textiles. What did moving into that category entail, and how has the market-place responded to the expansion?

Moving into upholstery and drapery was a huge endeavor for Wolf-Gordon. We needed to get up to speed on the special features of textiles, performance characteristics, testing, finishes, etc. We also had to educate our sales-force and gradually convince our customers that they could trust us to design and deliver top-quality commercial upholstery and drapery.

architizer.com /blog/spec-perspective-wolf-gordon-goes-off-the-wall/ David Sokol

Spec Perspective: Wolf-Gordon Goes Off the Wall

Designing textiles is such a pleasure: stronger pattern, texture, and color are very satisfying to work with, and provide variety in the design studio. Ultimately, I believe developing both wallcovering and textiles, now, has made us stronger in both categories. Once the program got underway, our customers responded to our expanded offering very positively; it’s an important area of growth for us.

What inspired the launch of Wink, and of the acoustical drapery textiles Carmen, Formoza, and Marmara? Both suggest deep knowledge of new trends in workspace design, and intensive material research in general. We are constantly on the lookout for materials and finishes that work well with our product mix, while allowing us to grow. The first clear dry-erase coating offered for commercial interiors, Wink also permitted us to be at the forefront of flexible, highly functional workspace design. We seized the opportunity!

The acoustical drapery sheers represent a partnership with Vescom, based in the Netherlands. It’s a fantastic relationship for both companies. Vescom conduct research and development on commercial textiles through its several mills in Europe, and the acoustical sheers came out of that research with designer Annette Douglas. As Vescom’s distributor in the United States, we were privileged to introduce these high-performing drapery textiles to the US market.

What trends are you keeping an eye on now?

We are following: nature/technology, transparency and human health in relationship to sustainability and green building, responses to social media, time out from tech, global and tribal design, craft and high tech, and distortion, among others.

How do you choose outside designers to partner with you?

I look for really special voices that will differentiate Wolf-Gordon from our competition. They need to be a bit, or a lot, edgy; their design needs to be coming from some-where deep and to not be purely decorative; and I need to really like potential collaborators as people. This also goes for our graphic designers Hjalti Karlsson and Jan Wilker of karlssonwilker.

We spend many months and sometimes a few years develop- ing collections that push the envelope and contribute to the great design continuum. Working with great people and putting out fresh products is so rewarding.

Wolf-Gordon is synonymous with fantastic NeoCon installations, as well as a tremendous support of DIFFA. Why are these outlets so important to the company?

The ground-floor escalator in The Merchandise Mart is the civic heart of the building, and for the third year running during Neocon, we have sponsored the space above it. These celebrations of structure, color, and pattern are a design-build collaboration between karlssonwilker and the Guild of Brooklyn, and they welcome visitors to this most important commercial design industry show.

The sculptures also serve as a focus for our year-long advertising campaigns, beginning as “sketches” early in the year; our fall ads show close-up photos of various parts of the sculpture.

DIFFA is the primary beneficiary of our charitable contribu-tions. In 1993, in response to the AIDS pandemic that hit our design community so severely, Rick Wolf devised a Gift of Hope program that allocates a percentage of product sales to DIFFA when customers use a G number on the item’s label.

We are very proud of our ongoing relation-ship with DIFFA and the fact that, over the past 20 years, Wolf- Gordon has donated over $1.4 million to the organization, making us its largest all-time donor.