Climbing the corporate ladder as an accountant at companies like Viacom and Johnson & Johnson offered Beth Diana Smith an impressive budget to outfit her home with pieces she found in design magazines. The process ignited her passion for interiors so much so that it took on a life of its own.
She went back to school, earning an MBA from Seton Hall University, as well as a degree from the New York School of Interior Design, and launched her New Jersey-based residential design firm in 2009. For the self-declared maximalist, inspiration comes from something as small as the pattern on a bowl of ramen to a wider scope, like elements of Black culture in general. “My brain can now spin a billion different things from seeing something once,” she says. “Once I realized I was creative, which had initially shocked me, that just started to happen.”
S. Harris’ Orejen collection, designed in partnership with BADG
Now, with more than a decade of experience, Smith is entering the product world. She is one of the Black Artist + Designers Guild’s (BADG) founding members tapped by S. Harris to create a line of textiles. “It’s very much my personality: If I like it, I’m going to support it,” she says. Dubbed Orejen, her collection is inspired by the nomadic artists of Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and East Africa, specifically the traditional techniques of braiding, woodworking, and beading.
Smith, meanwhile, is open to additional product design or even hospitality interiors. But she is firm in the notion of staying true to herself and her vision. “Unless you’re going to let me paint the ceiling purple, I’m not the best designer for the project,” she says. “I would want [to design] a space that could unapologetically be whatever it wanted to be.”
This article originally appeared in HD’s May 2021 issue.
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