An Accessible Design Blog Goes Analog: Meet Rue

Are your saved posts on Instagram becoming a disorganized jumble with overlapping categories like, “interior design” and “bathroom remodel?” Are you finding saved posts for that area rug you wanted to revisit floating amongst the general population of your posts because you saved it at 2 am in your half-sleep? Is your Pinterest starting to slop all over the place because there’s just so much content and no vetting system aside from your own judgment? Am I projecting?

If you, like me, feel like you need a little guidance and direction (and organization) turn to Rue Magazine. Rue began more than a decade ago, when a handful of San Francisco-based design bloggers joined forces to create a digital magazine that offered an accessible and approachable take on interior design. After years of straining our eyes and necks staring at screens, bringing a hardcopy version of Rue into the marketplace felt like an inevitable evolution. Throughout the pandemic, as our collective obsession with our homes has grown, Rue’s readership has expanded as well. Though its online companion endures, the quarterly publication (which is available on newsstands all over the place) allows you to limit your screen time without pausing your hunt for design inspiration.

Rue is lead by our friend and client, Kelli Lamb, in partnership with eco-living and sustainability expert Danny Seo, the editor-in-chief of Naturally. Rue takes an ethical approach to a design mag by using its platform to help amplify the voices of the designers they feature. Oftentimes when we, the consumer, search endlessly on social media for design ideas, we end up with a share of a share (of a share) that credits neither the actual designer nor the photographer nor anyone else involved in the product that caught our eye. Rue is working against this slippery slope to give credit where credit is due, and to give the consumer direct access to the designers with whom they connect.