Celebration Weekend

Sunset's Celebration Weekend: A Recap

It's Kyle, the design arm of New Minimalism, here to share a peek into Sunset Magazine's Celebration Weekend 2016!  

After holding Celebration Weekend for 18 years at their old Menlo Park HQ (read about how we helped them declutter in preparation from their move here), this was an inaugural event at Cornerstone Sonoma, where Sunset has relocated their official test gardens. 

It was so gratifying to have the opportunity to design a booth that would visually capture what we are all about.  After an initial concept was created, we borrowed everything from our own living rooms (and the living rooms of willing friends and family...thank you!) so that we didn't have to buy anything new.  Can you believe it?  The only thing we bought were the lemons and limes for our water cooler.  

Along with our official booth, we were asked to be one out of five (!) speakers presenting our ideas at the Home Stage.   We put our brains together to determine the best talking points for the Sunset crowd, and then we had our graphic designer, Elizabeth West design some beautiful handouts to accompany each point (watercolor background and redesigned logo by Flight Design).   

 

We spent hours writing and then practicing our speech, and were so excited (nervous) when it finally came time to present.  Our attentive audience really made the entire experience -- asking questions, engaging with our philosophies -- it was so rewarding!  The editor of the Home section, Joanna, even said that we were the Home Stage's most-talked about and well-attended presentation for the whole weekend...what an honor!

Pictured above, are Cary and her mom, who flew out from Chicago to attend!  

All in all, we had such a wonderful time at this event.  The hours of preparation and hard work was more than worth it.  We love Sunset and everything it stands for, and can't wait for more events like this in the future!  Check out Sunset Magazine's event page for future events.

New Minimalism + Sunset Magazine

Hello dearest readers,

Kyle, here to share an exciting announcement with you!

New Minimalism has had the pleasure of working with Sunset Magazine in a variety of ways over the past year.  We realize that while we have Instagram'd these events, we never fully explained them to you, our faithful readers.  So here is a little background:

Last fall, we were hired by Sunset Magazine's Creative Director to declutter her home office and art space at her family's adorable bungalow in the East Bay.

A peek at our decluttering project with Sunset's Creative Director

A peek at our decluttering project with Sunset's Creative Director

Soon after, the team at Sunset was gearing up to relocate from their infamous, pastoral Menlo Park headquarters to a new, urban office in Oakland's vibrant Jack London Square.  Their offices in Menlo Park were spacious (think Mid-century modern California campus, surrounded by lush gardens, and towering Redwood trees); most of the employees had private offices with extensive built-in bookcases.  Naturally, over the 60 years that Sunset inhabited the space, items had, well, accumulated.  The future move to an open-concept, shared workspace in Oakland was daunting, to say the least.  

Enter New Minimalism!  During our 3 hour workshop with the editorial staff, we first visioned the future space together and then explained our 5 most-relevant philosophies as applied to Sunset's current situation.  The workshop went amazingly!  The Sunset team was so engaged, thoughtful and inquisitive (I mean, really, a bunch of first-class journalists are the best students anyone could ask for).

After the workshop, Sunset wrote a series of blog posts on the subject!  We were so honored that the content resonated and that Sunset was assimilating our ideas.  If you missed those posts, you can view them here:

Sunset's Great Clutter Challenge

10 Tips for Clutter Control

Overcoming Attachments

And finally, we were mentioned in the print, in the December 2015 issue!  Cary captured it perfectly on Instagram when she wrote,

"This little blurb represents a huge dream come true! Discovering Sunset was one of my favorite things about moving to San Francisco in 2008. It's been my favorite periodical, my ultimate guide, my top source for all dream images and phrases... To see our business mentioned on its pages is just magical."

THE BIG NEWS

Which leads me to the present day news that is oh, so exciting...

New Minimalism has been invited to speak at Sunset's annual Celebration Weekend on May 14th & 15th!  

Celebration Weekend is a HUGE event with hundreds of vendors, influential speakers and tastemakers.  The goal of the event is to essentially bring the magazine to life.  What's even more special is that this year marks the debut of Sunset's new Test Gardens in Sonoma, CA!  Historically, the event has been held at the Menlo Park campus.  And since relocating to Oakland, Sunset has opened their new Test Gardens and Test Kitchen in Sonoma.  It will be exciting and new for everyone!

Cary and I will be speaking at 12:15pm on Saturday and Sunday, at the Home Stage.  Our topic: 5 Tools to Create an Inspiring, Minimal Home.  You can view the entire Presentation Schedule here.  

If you live in the Bay Area, and would like to join, you can buy tickets here.  (Some of the tickets are already sold out, so don't delay!  Here is a link describing the different ticket packages.)

GIVEAWAY

And our final announcement - we want to share the love with you guys, and are giving away a complimentary pair of General Admission tickets for Saturday, May 14 to one lucky reader (General Admission tickets for Saturday are already sold out online).  

How to enter?  Simply comment below on this post, describing why you would like to attend!  We will announce the lucky winner on Friday, April 22.  GOOD LUCK ! ! !