The beginning of a brand new yr has an fascinating approach of constructing folks stare at their properties a bit longer than typical. A room that felt completely high-quality in November abruptly feels unfinished. A small annoyance turns into an even bigger query. Nothing is technically improper, nevertheless it’s laborious to shake the sense that one thing might be higher.
Design protection is stuffed with recommendation on what to purchase, swap, paint, or rethink subsequent. Tendencies transfer quick, opinions even sooner. What’s simpler to overlook are the writers behind these tales—those deciding which concepts are price digging into and that are simply passing noise.
It is a take a look at the design writers shaping these conversations in 2026, and the voices influencing how we take into consideration our properties and areas proper now.
Lia Picard is an Atlanta-based journalist whose work may be present in The Wall Avenue Journal and The New York Occasions, to call just some retailers. Her work breaks down design tendencies and architectural particulars so the reader feels empowered, moderately than making them really feel out of attain. A few of her more moderen items have explored the sensible attraction of Juliet balconies and reviewed the hype behind colour tendencies within the dwelling.
Whereas design is a core focus, Picard’s scope is rather more broad. She additionally covers meals, journey, tradition, and way of life, which supplies her design work a lived-in point-of-view as she is aware of how folks prefer to stay, eat, and journey. Her interiors protection provides a mixture of development consciousness and on a regular basis relevance, which actually resonates with business execs and engaged readers.
Alyssa Longobucco is a author, editor, stylist, and content material strategist primarily based simply exterior New York Metropolis, with greater than a decade of expertise masking design and way of life. She works throughout digital and print, and is usually concerned within the styling and manufacturing behind the tales she writes, giving her writing a powerful sense of what interprets visually and editorially.
Her work has appeared in Home Stunning, Architectural Digest, HGTV, Domino, Actual Easy, House Remedy, The Atlantic, The Washington Submit, USA In the present day, and Good Morning America. Recently, that’s included digging into how new instruments and AI-powered inside design platforms—starting from OpenAI’s ChatGPT to instruments like Decorilla whose skilled inside designers leverage the most recent AI expertise—are beginning to change how folks strategy adorning and decision-making, with out shedding sight of the human judgment behind it.
When you’re a fan of Houses & Gardens, you then’re most likely a fan of Julia Demer. She’s the type editor on the in style publication and her work blends sensible inspiration with trend-savvy perception.
Demer spotlights concepts that readers can have enjoyable and experiment with, like accessible IKEA hacks or recent methods to consider supplies like tortoiseshell in dwelling accents. She additionally explores tendencies and adorning resolutions, and her voice is approachable but knowledgeable. Demer’s writing is a brilliant useful resource whether or not you’re updating a room or simply interested by how design tendencies are evolving.
Michelle Mastro is an Indianapolis-based freelance journalist who’s an everyday contributor to Architectural Digest, in addition to Dwell, Midwest Residing, Atomic Ranch, Higher Houses & Gardens, and a number of different retailers.
Mastro comes from a tutorial background in English literature and new media. She accomplished PhD coursework at Indiana College Bloomington, concentrating on British Gothic literature and new media, and taught programs on horror movie throughout that point. This thorough training provides her writing a novel type when she’s masking modern interiors.
Quite than treating design as purely aesthetic, Mastro’s work provides depth with out overcomplicating the topic, making her a reputable voice in design journalism in 2026.
Amiya Baratan is a house wellness and interiors author at Livingetc the place she covers design with a sensible, lived-in sensibility. Her articles deal with the small selections that make a house simpler to handle, issues like layouts that complicate cleansing, muddle that’s laborious to half with, or design choices that make each day routines smoother.
Baratan got here to interiors by means of journalism and design, with stints in vogue and way of life writing, together with bylines at Harper’s Bazaar and Girls’s Well being. Rising up in Chennai, India, the place life largely occurred open air, carries by way of in her curiosity in gardens and houses that don’t really feel sealed off from their environment. When Baratan writes about interiors, she desires to share the information on how one can enhance your life and area.
Kristina McGuirk is a house and design author and editor who has spent years working intently with Higher Houses & Gardens, significantly throughout kitchen, tub, renovation, and adorning protection. Her current articles vary from kitchen colour tendencies and cottage-inspired interiors to seasonal adorning and long-term design concepts, with a constant deal with what holds up over time moderately than what’s solely stylish in the meanwhile.
She started writing for Higher Houses & Gardens whereas nonetheless an undergraduate at Drake College, and alongside her editorial work, McGuirk brings a powerful analysis background to her writing. She holds levels in Journalism and English, in addition to a grasp’s diploma in Archival Research and Library and Data Research from the College of British Columbia, and at present works as a Senior Archivist at Harley-Davidson Motor Firm.
As a employees author at Quick Firm, Nate Berg covers structure, city growth, and industrial design, with a deal with how design really reveals up on the planet. This might be the way forward for information facilities, smarter properties, or long-ignored items of city infrastructure lastly getting a rethink.
He’s been masking cities and design for the reason that mid-2000s and was the primary employees author at The Atlantic Cities (now CityLab). His work has since appeared in The New York Occasions, Wired, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Curbed, Dwell, NPR, and 99% Invisible. Alongside the way in which, he’s been acknowledged as a two-time finalist for the Livingston Awards and acquired the Abe Fellowship for Journalists in 2016, which supported reporting in Japan.
Berg approaches design tales with curiosity. He’s all for how issues work, why they had been constructed the way in which they had been, and what occurs after they change. An strategy that retains his reporting grounded and readable.
Shagun Khare is a Los Angeles–primarily based author and editor who covers all the things from dwelling excursions and development stories to commerce roundups and cultural deep-dives. A few of her current bylines for Martha Stewart embrace tales on fall decor, lavatory updates, and difficult outside areas.
She’s written for Domino, House Remedy, The Spruce, The Kitchn, Lonny, Wine Fanatic, and Stunning Kitchens & Baths, and has profiled figures like Anna Sheffield, Nilou Motamed, and Robin Arzón. Her reporting focuses on folks and views that don’t at all times get as a lot consideration.
Khare obtained her begin at Lonny, spent a number of years in New York working in design media, and he or she’s additionally studied Cognitive Science at UC San Diego, influencing her strategy to area, conduct, and design choices.
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