While brainstorming the look for the fire-themed Opening Night gala, we knew we had to reference fire without getting too literal. We hit upon the idea of using the by-product of fire to create the event title and although we couldn’t get an invitation made out of smoke to work, what came out of that idea was, we think, even better.

With a direction in mind, I took the implements of destruction (a borrowed pink Bic lighter, a pad of white plain paper and a hose in case of emergency) and headed outside so as to not burn down our lovely new office.

Things that were learned during this experiment:

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• While you think alcohol would be flammable, it turns out that painting with 8 year old rubbing alcohol and trying to light it on fire only leads to a wet, blotchy piece of paper.

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• Despite our name, nobody at Studio Fuse carries a lighter. Our friendly neighborhood spa, Cote d’Azur, on the other hand, needs something to light all those aromatherapy candles and were happy to help us set things on fire.

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• Blowing gently helps the embers singe the paper better. Blowing a little harder makes for a full on conflagration.

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• Having access to an outdoor water source is good. Wearing close-toed shoes is better.

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The results turned into an excellent starting point for an idea that we’re really proud of. The final version is still smoldering on our server, but we’ll be sure to update once the final invitation is hot off the presses. @jes_fuse

Note: Forgive us for the puns… but sometimes you’re just on fire.

As soon as Jennifer sent me plans of the new space she had found—a modern garage attached to a Victorian cottage—I jumped at the chance to offer some design suggestions. And being an inveterate do-it-yourselfer, I offered to help build out some of the elements that would be expensive for her contractor to build.

The space was composed of a large former garage opening to an alley, and an attached shop space with high, open structure and skylights. It was perfect for the needs of Jennifer’s firm. The garage, with a new frosted glass garage door was perfect to house her staff, kitchen and restroom. The work room, with garage door opened on nice days could open up to a paved area off the back alley. The shop, with a broad glass storefront and doors overlooking a shaded motor court was ideal for reception, a conference room and Jennifer’s office.

It was a collaborative effort all the way and we had only two weeks to finish the work that was not part of the general contractor’s package. I did most of the carpentry and Jennifer and James did the painting and helped with the installation. The existing glass and metal workstations needed panels to give them privacy. We fashioned dividers out of natural chipboard, added a massive work and storage counter out of prefinished hollow core doors. We created outdoor planter boxes off the staff work area with tall frames that will hold theatrical scrims to screen the alley. We created a work wall/desk for Jennifer’s office out of hollow core doors and salvaged shelving from the previous space—one tricked-out detail being the monitor turntable that faces Jennifer’s work space and rotates to display images in the adjacent conference room. But the primary design element was the “logo wall” that is visible from outside through the glass storefront and forms the backdrop to the reception space and divides it from the conference room and Jennifer’s office. The design, nine feet high by twelve feet long, was also a collaborative effort and features wood 1×4 slats set on a diagonal to form a screen that floats above the floor. The diagonal motif showcases a three foot diameter logo and mimics the diagonal used throughout the firm’s collateral. The wall itself is like a giant version of a calling card. The Plexiglas and wood veneer logo will be laser-cut and fabricated by a sign maker, but the perfectly round housing had to be part of the hand-fabricated wall.

Conception of the idea seemed a natural, but execution was another thing. Because of its size it had to be assembled in three by nine foot sections on a huge makeshift work platform outside. Luckily the weather cooperated and just covering the work overnight with a tarp was all the protection necessary. Once one panel had all its diagonal boards attached to a frame, it was moved aside so the next panel could be started and all the slats aligned on both panels with precise spacers. This nightmarish scenario worked great on paper, but was much more challenging to build with nothing but a table saw, miter-box and hand tools (a millwork shop with computerized cutting and controls could have cranked it out, but at a huge cost, and no such option was available). We were on a slim budget and materials alone were a couple of thousand dollars. Once all four panels were completed (two of them with half-circle cut-outs for the logo), they were carried inside and connected, one-at-a-time, to the open ceiling structure and to each other. With so little time and resources, the logo wall, weighing several hundred pounds, was almost miraculously hoisted in place and fit perfectly with no more than a few hernias suffered by Jennifer, James and 66-year old Dad!

And the installation was completed on the last day of the second week! Finishing touches were added by Jennifer over the next few weeks. Studio Fuse now enjoys a work environment that embodies not only the creativity of its work, but the merging of graphic and architectural elements to showcase their unique brand.

After my long career, doing mostly high-end corporate interiors, with big budgets and armies of laborers, this was not just another project. It was a labor of love for one special daughter, who collaborated to make it the problem that needed to be solved.—Richard

(Thanks, Dad! @jennfuse)

*Jennifer’s dad is an award-winning architect who designed literally millions of square feet of corporate interiors for clients around the world. However, he always loved working with his hands. (Jennifer learned this early on when, as an infant, she lived with nothing but a wall of plastic sheeting between her crib and the outside world while her dad renovated the house). He retired four years ago and has renovated three more homes since then, mostly with his own labor. Design and the will to build are truly engrained in the family DNA!

Take a Right at the End of the Page

If you haven’t yet noticed, the layout is a bit different than most blogs; the site scrolls horizontally. Not only that, it scrolls incrementally. You can use your mouse or keyboard—or if on a touch device, your finger—to navigate left and right, one page at a time. Moreover, the site is responsive to screen size, adjusting the layout accordingly, all the way down to mobile screens. Magical? Yes. Magic? No.

Saving Trees, Losing Hair

We’d love to take credit for the code that makes it all work, but in actuality, neither our blog nor our recently rebooted main site would be anything without the open-source Treesaver platform. As designers who spend the majority of our time designing for print—including publications such as FORM—we were immediately taken with the promise Treesaver offered. In short, it seemed to be the perfect bridge between print and web. Indeed, the end result as created by Scott Kellum and the folks at Nomad is impressive, but getting there isn’t as easy as it looks. Bags were added to eyes, hairs were torn from heads in our implementing Treesaver. True, it was partially our personal learning curve. But also true, is that Treesaver is currently only on version 0.93-beta—so there is a lot in flux, and a lot yet to be resolved (there is no way to guarantee images will stay in the order you place them, for example). That said, it is a remarkable framework even its current form.

A Gimmick is Something a Marketer Does for Money

It would seem that some corners of the designer blogosphere feel that side-scrolling, multi-column publications are a gimmick—that they’re simply an appeal to the familiarity of print conventions. Though some horizontal sites are indeed a tedious novelty, we feel that Treesaver creates an effective digital analogue to page-turning—or perhaps, the unfolding of an accordion-style pamphlet. Unlike vertical scrolling, with the disorientation that occurs as one tries to follow the last line of text to the top of the screen, Treesaver gives the eye a consistent starting point, helping the reader move through the article. Further, multiple columns also improve the reading experience, as it is easier on the eyes to follow text in small chunks, as opposed to the wide lines of a typical single-column page. Indeed, one or two columns is not a matter of taste. We hope you’ll agree and will join us again on our horizontal, multi-column journey, even as we are still forging its path. In future posts, we’ll be covering design and the arts, as well as the goings-on of our own studio. Until then, feel free to comment or tweet @scottfuse. —Scott