Letter from the Editor

Cindy Allen -- Interior Design, 3/1/2004 12:00:00 AM

After months of brainstorming and working in overdrive, we're almost ready to send our 1,000th issue to the printer. Only this note remains uncomposed, and I must admit that I'm utterly savoring every one of these few, final lines. I have chosen to write them longhand, with my fountain pen on a yellow legal pad. It's a small token of my bond with the editors and publishers who preceded me here—and who have bequeathed to me this magnificent estate.

This is the time, when contemplating one walloping thousand, that it really does feel as though our magazine has been around forever. And it has—since 1932, when the world was just validating the notion of design as a profession. Through the years since then, many great people have given their best to the industry. Trends have come and gone and come back again, while these pages overflowed with too many fabulous projects to count. Yes, we've been exceptional, and perhaps we still are. "Exceptional" in the sense of our elegantly simple motto, Design First.

With that maxim very much in mind, I have decided to clear the dance floor of this issue. Gone are our customary departments, columns, and routines. Not without glee, I replace them with a freewheeling, high-spirited cover-to-cover celebration of what we like best: design, designers, and everything and everyone in between. All the rest is just noise. Let's party!