Interior Design
Jay is one of those people that was born with a strong eye for design – artistic & creative out of the gate. Part of this gift, to him, is understanding the balance of a space, how it is used, how it should function, and how best to fill it and make it visually pleasing. Partially because of his education at The Graduate School of Design at PENN but more in grasping his clients’ sense of style does creating interiors succeed. Jay’s evolving role in interior design doesn’t come as much from formal training as it does listening to his clients (one key skill that he learned in law school), reading a room, solving a problem and letting good design take charge. The logic of Jay’s designs come from his knowledge of history & travel, understanding different styles, and using his clients’ personal & professional likes into design anchors. Because he had a successful landscape & garden design business prior to establishing PALLADIO and because of the different sized jobs he has had over the past 25 years, Jay is very comfortable working with clients, doing site evaluations, identifying challenges & problems, understanding timelines & budgets, massaging logistics and thinking for his clients. The PALLADIO brand – or Jay’s brand – is the brand or style of the client.
Whether a single corner of a room, a restaurant, a residential setting, corporate headquarters, a museum or a house at the beach, Jay’s approach to making interior spaces better and more personal is candid & direct, professional, full of style but all about the client… and doing what he has done well for 25 years at PALLADIO – making people smile and getting them to have the same love of space that he does.
Art Planning & Production
A division of PALLADIO that created itself soon after custom framing flourished is art consulting & art production. As a natural complement to Jay’s great success with custom frame design, it was inevitable that PALLADIO clients started seeking his advice – not only to decide where finished pieces should hang but what could be added or created as companion artwork. Consequently, since 2003, Jay has been creating full art plans in both the residential & institutional arenas, making the most of interior space and creating artwork out of things that his clients would have never expected. Quite successfully, Jay combines existing collections with new artwork and, where possible, repurposed & reimagined pieces.
To create an art plan, Jay does an initial site evaluation to get a sense of space & style and takes inventory of the walls and important artwork. Through conversation & research, Jay identifies his clients’ needs, likes, dislikes, & budget and creates the scope of the project. Each space then comes to life with the proper distribution & use of art in its many forms to subtly celebrate family, love of place, a company’s brand or an artistic genre.
As PALLADIO has evolved since 2001, so too has its role in image restoration, graphic design, photography & the creation of digital backgrounds & artwork that have taken Jay’s art plans to a higher & more sophisticated level. Especially in the commercial arena, Jay’s clever combination of style, photography & digital graphics have allowed him to produce artwork that is stunning, meaningful and “on-brand” for every client.
Custom Framing
As Jay Davidson Susanin proudly enters his 25th year at PALLADIO, his success and excellent reputation are defined with what he creates in his custom framing & design business. Because of his background in design, history, travel, interior architecture, Jay has an extraordinary ability to bring every project to life with style & visual results that are both stunning and on-point. All of Jay’s design projects involve a clear understanding of each piece’s intrinsic character, the environment in which it shall hang and its owner’s sense of style. It has become the hallmark of Jay’s work to create the unexpected, to design masterpieces and to create smiles. Additionally, because of his background in historic preservation, all work produced at PALLADIO is done with museum quality standards, materials and conservation procedures.
Paired with what he has accomplished in the world of digital art production and the use of great fabrics, textures and artifacts, the true stars of Jay’s work are the moldings & materials of Larson Juhl, the gilded frames of Rhonda Feinman, and the collections of Jonah Frameworks, Fotiou and Roma. Even though his approach to frame design is straight forward, period-appropriate and classic, Jay has a unique gift where, using the tools of his trade as puzzle pieces, creates one-of-a-kind pieces that celebrate personal style and redefines custom framing & design.