Necon & Design Days 2026 Recap

The Resources Behind the Rooms

There's a difference between a designer who shops for your home and a designer who has a place in the industry that supplies it. We think that difference is one of the most valuable things we bring to a project. It’s worth explaining, because it's largely invisible from the outside.

The Merchandise Mart in Chicago is the center of gravity for our world: floor after floor of to-the-trade showrooms, the lines and makers most people never see, and the relationships that turn a beautiful idea into a real, sourced, installable room. We're not visitors there; it is more a home away from home. We have trade access to those showrooms, we're in the building throughout the year, and we've built long-standing relationships with the reps and vendors we source from. That access is part of how we design and it's a big part of what you're getting when you work with us.

So when NeoCon and Design Days roll around each June, with NeoCon at the Mart, and Design Days over in Fulton Market, it isn't a special trip for us. We're glad to show up for it, because it's where the industry gathers, where the new work debuts, and where the connections that serve our clients get renewed. Here's a look at what that participation actually looks like, and why it matters for the homes we design.

And yes — NeoCon is technically a commercial design show, so you might wonder why a residential-focused studio shows up. A few reasons: we do take on commercial projects; the innovation that debuts here in materials, finishes, and technology reaches residential design next; and truthfully, the best ideas don't care which side of the line they started on.

Access is a quiet advantage

Most of what makes a room work comes from resources you can't find on a retail site. The to-the-trade world, the quality, the customization, and the makers behind the pieces is gated for a reason, and having genuine standing inside it means we're specifying from a deeper, better-vetted pool than what's publicly available. NeoCon is when that whole world puts its newest work on the floor at once.

This year we spent our days exactly the way we spend our relationship with the Mart the rest of the year: checking in with the resources we trust, meeting the lines we don't know yet, and reading where the industry is genuinely headed. The difference is that in June, it all happens in just a couple of days and there is A LOT of ground to cover. Between NeoCon's hundreds of showrooms stacked across the Mart's multiple floors and Design Days spread throughout the Fulton Market district, it's two shows, two neighborhoods, and more ground than any one team can fully cover in just a few days. We choose wisely, and here are some of our highlights.

Showing up for the industry and bringing it back to you

A few moments from the show that say something about where design is going:

A NeoCon keynote from Nick Foster, a futurist and former Head of Design at Google X, argued that the most useful thing a designer can do isn't predict the future but ask sharper questions about it. That maps exactly onto how we work: the right question for your home is rarely "what's trending," but "how do you actually want to live here in a few years?"

Over at Design Days, the energy was younger and more experimental. JSI built a showroom full of interactive moments, including an aura reading that sorted you into a color "energy." FUn and lightweight on the surface, but a real idea underneath, color is emotional before it's decorative, and the shade you gravitate toward says something about how you want a room to feel. As an example, for the “Green Aura” a wall declared "nature is the new nightclub," a way of naming what we've watched build for a while: texture, biophilic design, and the natural world are where people want to spend their attention.

At Haworth, whose bold DesignLab x Paved States install was a standout, we did the unglamorous, essential work of sitting in everything. Sit-testing is how a spec sheet becomes a recommendation we'll actually stand behind. And at Brown Jordan, we walked the newest outdoor collections, where the takeaway was one we keep preaching: the line between inside and outside is dissolving, and your patio deserves the same intention as any room with a roof.

The NeoCon Showhouse was a reminder that restraint isn't the only path to a beautiful room, moody, layered, fully-committed spaces that worked because every choice was deliberate, not just because they were full.

The relationships behind the rooms

The parties, the coffee bars, the activations, Bosch's kitchen demo and snack station, Material Bank's polka-dotted car giveaway, the work pods for a mid-show reset, the best latte of the trip from Jordan Porter, are easy to wave off as fun extras. But this is how an industry stays connected. Every rep we catch up with, every new maker we meet, every line we get our hands on becomes part of the resource network we draw from when we're designing your home. The relationships are the point. NeoCon is just where a year's worth of them get tended at once.

What this means for you

When you hire us, you're not hiring access to a retail catalog. You're hiring a designer with genuine standing in the industry that makes the things ; trade access to the showrooms, a year-round presence at the Mart, and relationships with the people and lines behind the work. NeoCon is the visible version of something that's true every month of the year, and we're happy to participate because it directly serves the work we bring home to you.

That's the conversation we love having, so if you're curious what that kind of access could mean for your space, let's talk.

— The KED Interiors team