Mr Call is the first credentialed interior designer to publicly grade retail furniture. He spent twenty-five years specifying furniture for Fortune 500 executives, venture capital and private equity partners, and Academy Award winners. Now he approves the sofas Americans can actually buy.
Mr Call Designs is a private interior design practice made public. Mr Call earned a BFA in interior design from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle and moved to New York. He trained at Diamond Baratta Design under Bill Diamond and Tony Baratta, then at Shawn Henderson, before opening his own practice in 2010. Over fifteen years, the practice specified furniture for Fortune 500 executives, venture capital and private equity partners, and Academy Award winners. About one hundred projects. Just over forty-one million dollars of furniture specified. House Beautiful named the work Next Wave.
The education was not only the top of the market. Between 2008 and 2010, Mr Call was Creative Producer on HGTV’s The High-Low Project—twenty-three episodes about translating designer looks into budgets most viewers could actually spend. From 2013, the practice extended into academic institutions across the United States—more than thirteen thousand seven hundred beds across thirteen states. The top end taught what a room should feel like when no expense is spared. The bottom end taught what retail furniture actually does after four years of twenty-year-olds. Both ends, together, are rare in a single career. The combination is what the approvals contain.
At Diamond Baratta, as a junior on the architecture team, Mr Call designed the bathroom, living room, library, and kitchen millwork for a Manhattan townhouse later used as a filming location for The Devil Wears Prada.
Mr Call Designs publishes one class of content: the approval. Each review grades a retail sofa against The Call Standard—ten categories, scored one to ten, summed to a hundred-point composite. Pieces scoring ninety or above earn the mark—MR CALL APPROVED. Roughly fifteen percent of reviewed pieces qualify. Pieces below ninety do not publish as individual approvals. One mark, or silence.
Affiliate commissions work. The brands pay. The shopper pays nothing. Mr Call’s grade is set before any brand is contacted. No brand can pay to change a score. Brands that earn the mark can license it for their own marketing. The license renews annually and requires re-review. Brands can also commission pre-market assessments of unreleased products. If the product earns the mark when it ships, it publishes as an approval. If not, no public review runs.
Interior designers solve problems, beautifully. That is why the wealthy hire them. The average home has never been able to afford the expertise. Until now.
Story Angles
The Strategist has journalists. Wirecutter has lab testers. No publication in the furniture review space has had a credentialed interior designer. Mr Call is the first.
A designer with twenty-five years of private practice and over forty-one million dollars of specified product closed the retainer side of his firm and now publishes his advice for free. Affiliate commissions replace the hourly fee. The brands pay. The shopper pays nothing.
From Academy Award winners’ homes on Gramercy Park to more than thirteen thousand student housing beds across thirteen states. The top end teaches the ceiling. The bottom end teaches how retail frames hold up under four years of twenty-year-olds. The combination is rare in a single career.
Fifteen years ago, Mr Call was Creative Producer of The High-Low Project on HGTV. The show took designer looks and recreated them on a retail budget. Twenty-three episodes. Mr Call Designs is the same thesis, at scale.
Most review sites tier their endorsements. Mr Call does not. A sofa either earns MR CALL APPROVED or it does not appear on the site. About fifteen percent of reviewed pieces earn the mark. Scarcity is the point.
On the Record
Interior designers solve problems, beautifully. That is why the wealthy hire us. The average home has never been able to afford the expertise. Until now. On what a designer does
I am the first credentialed interior designer to publicly grade retail furniture. Other reviews come from journalists and lab testers. Mine come from twenty-five years inside the practice. On the positioning
Brands pay to display a mark they already earned. No brand pays for the mark itself. That line does not move. On the business
A six-hundred-dollar IKEA piece and a twelve-thousand-dollar sectional are graded against the same standard, calibrated to their prices. An affordable sofa can earn the mark. An expensive one can fail. On the Call Standard
The practice did not change its standards when it went public. It changed who pays the fee. On the shift to retail
The Facts
Approvals
Approvals are published at mrcalldesigns.com/mr-call-approved.
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