As they mark five years of business, Jef Anderson and Noel Eberline, owners of Yearbook, the Forest Park shop and design studio, answered a few questions for the Oak Leaves last month.
Q: How would you describe Yearbook? How do you manage both the shop and the interior design business, and how do they work in conjunction?
A: Yearbook is a combined retail store and design studio, which specializes in interior design, graphic design and branding. The store is comprised of vintage objects and furnishings, as well as unique, new products and several private label items and original Yearbook designs. The store is a perfect representation of the studio’s design aesthetic.
Q: What’s surprised you in these past five years? What’s ahead in the next five?
A: What has surprised us the most is watching the way the business has grown. The design studio has grown tremendously with both interior and graphic design, and branding projects and websites. In the next five years, we see the studio and the store growing further, and we hope to begin a wholesale line of Yearbook original products as well.
Q: You recently redesigned Ernest Hemingway’s old room at his boyhood home on Kenilworth Avenue. What was that like?
A: The main challenge was to create a special and unique space that would function as a contemporary guest room, which would include nuances from Hemingway’s life. Our approach was to capture the feeling of a modern boutique hotel with details derived from Ernest’s life.
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Q: You also did the interior design for Kinslahger Brewing Company in Oak Park. What type of look were you going for?
A: The goal of the Kinslahger Taproom design was to create a classic, yet modern interpretation of a speakeasy. … We wanted to create something that stood alone as its own idea of a speakeasy, without trying to imitate anything too familiar or too theme-based. We went with a palette of charcoals and ivory to create a contemporary backdrop with nuances of an original speakeasy.
Shout Out is a weekly feature in which we get to know and introduce our readers to their fellow community members and local visitors throughout suburban Chicago. Check out more online at ChicagoTribune.com/ShoutOut.
Caitlin Mullen is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.