We are all in on Yellow Pear and you will be too! Especially now that Sam Ushiro (@aww.sam), Industrial Designer and head of the creative lifestyle blog Aww Sam, has styled our Yellow Pear collaboration items in her retro-inspired Austin, Texas home.

Ushiro’s vintage-adorned home and our Yellow Pear items are a match made in groovy heaven.

She said “I’ve always been a huge fan of Apartment Therapy, and with my background in industrial design, I can also appreciate the form and function of all of Yamazaki’s pieces. I adore the collection because it brings my favorite color onto some of their best pieces, like their Bread box!”

Aww Sam began as a final project for Ushiro’s degree in industrial design from Parsons. She made a photobook of colorful donuts she had made and decorated, posting some of the final photos on her Instagram. Soon people began asking her for recipes and more detail on how she had created the confections. Eventually Ushiro expanded into non-donut content: home decor, baking, fashion and DIY.

Ultimately Ushiro was able to marry her love for vintage style to the content she creates. Her unique perspective and eye for design keeps her audience clambering for tips and tricks on filling every room of their homes, from the kitchen, to living room, to personal closet and more, with joyful colors and nostalgic design.

Her style and aesthetic both stem from her love of vintage and retro clothing and design, namely the 60’s and 70’s. She said, “Those decades provide so much material to draw inspiration from, because people were experimenting with all sorts of things, from fashion, to furniture to film, to interior design. I also love to draw inspiration from looking at things in a way that challenges my concept of them; like the way a surrealist painter might see an object and transform it into something unreal. Yellow is my favorite color for lots of reasons, but I think the simplest answer is the best: it brightens things up! Yellow for me just represents joy, and warmth and it can make a room feel like it’s popping with happiness just by being an accent in the space. I can’t help but feel happy when I wear yellow as well, it really can help lift my mood from a normal day to an exciting one.”

Although Yamazaki Home designs often stick to White and Black steel and Ash and Walnut accents, our most recent collaborations have dipped into the wild world of color. Our Apartment Therapy collaboration features five of our designs in Yellow Pear, a bright and cheerful hue.

If you, like us, tend toward neutrals, fear not! Luckily, Sam Ushiro is an expert at incorporating color into your life, home, and wardrobe.

With the special edition shelf-riser you can have your (Yellow Pear) cake and eat it too!

When we asked her for advice on incorporating color into our homes she said, “I think the best way to start incorporating color into your space is also the easiest, which is to start by adding something small but impactful in the color you want to incorporate. It can be as easy as adding something like the new yellow colorway of the Countertop Riser to your counter. It will bring that color into the space and also help draw the eye to it. You can also do something that I love, which is adding color by painting something, be it a drawer front, a handle, an accent wall or wooden parts of furniture. Or you could put an accent pillow, small rug or even a chair in the space. All of these things help bring the color into the room in a way that is more understated but can still have a visual impact!”