Introducing IN THE FOLD: A new quarterly magazine for Design Insider subscribers
Subscribe to the Design Insider weekly newsletter to access IN THE FOLD, our new quarterly magazine, a curated, subscriber-exclusive edit of the stories shaping commercial interiors.
We are surrounded by an extraordinary amount of content every day. Insight, inspiration, expertise, innovation. There is more available to us than ever before to enrich the way we live and work, and yet so much of it passes by in a moment.
Between meetings, deadlines, travel, family life, and everything else that fills our days, even the most worthwhile articles can be easily missed. Good content often has a surprisingly short shelf life.
IN THE FOLD has been created to change that.
Published quarterly, IN THE FOLD brings together a considered selection of Design Insider’s most valuable content, giving it space to breathe and a reason to be revisited. It is an opportunity to pause, read more deeply, and reconnect with the ideas shaping our commercial community. Each edition is a curated edit of standout projects, product launches, expert perspectives and industry conversations, carefully selected to reflect the breadth of the commercial interiors sector.
Subscribe to the Design Insider weekly newsletter to access IN THE FOLD
Who IN THE FOLD is for?
IN THE FOLD is designed for those who shape, specify and supply commercial interiors.
For designers looking for insight and inspiration beyond the immediate brief.
For suppliers seeking a clearer view of how products, materials and thinking are evolving.
For industry leaders who want to stay connected to the conversations driving change across sectors and geographies.
It is equally relevant to a UK-based specifier, a US hospitality operator, or an international manufacturer. The content reflects the global nature of the industry, while remaining grounded in real projects, real people and real experience.
A curated return to what matters
At its core, IN THE FOLD is about giving strong content a second life.
Each article has already earned its place within Design Insider, but here it is reintroduced with fresh context and intention. Read together, these pieces form a broader narrative, connecting ideas across workplace, hospitality, cruise, care, and education.
A subscriber-exclusive conversation: Bashar Wali
Alongside this curated content, each edition of IN THE FOLD will include something entirely new — a feature created exclusively for subscribers.
In this first edition, that feature is a conversation with Bashar Wali, published here for the first time.
Straight-talking, insightful and unapologetically direct, Bashar brings a perspective shaped by a career spent deeply immersed in hospitality. From launching his own company, This Assembly, to his views on leadership, culture and originality, his thinking cuts through the noise. At the centre of the conversation is a challenge to the industry:
“Stop copying. Start seducing.”
Bashar argues that too many hotels have lost their point of view, falling into patterns of imitation rather than creating something distinctive. For him, the role of hospitality is not to replicate what already exists, but to introduce people to something new, something felt.
He speaks candidly about:
- The erosion of originality in hotel design
- The danger of “copy and paste” thinking
- Why taste cannot be outsourced
- The importance of human connection over process and technology
- How culture, not concept, determines long-term success
His perspective is grounded in experience, from operations through to leadership, and driven by a deep understanding of what guests actually remember.
Subscribe to the Design Insider weekly newsletter to access IN THE FOLD
Design Insider
Design Insider is an online magazine and media outlet. We amplify the expertise of global commercial interior designers and suppliers by publishing the latest products, projects, and people from across the whole commercial sector, while also instigating the sector’s most important conversations. Design Insider is published and owned by Commercial Interiors UK.
IN THE FOLD builds on this foundation, offering a more considered way to engage with that content.