Vast, empty spaces are many designers’ dream places to work. They use their interior design capabilities to cover the walls with beautiful prints, fill the room with colorful furniture and illuminate the area with mood-setting lights. 

To achieve the perfect space that they imagine, they need the suppliers, contractors, architects, photographers and designers to come together and help build their visions. The Boston Design Center, a hub for all local people of the craft, is the place to be in the Boston design world, and its Fall Market was an event not to be missed, attendees said. 

This year’s event, hosted Oct. 8 and 9, focused on the theme of “Design Identities.” It dove into the celebration of finding a community within the larger world of design. The event allowed designers to walk through product showrooms, talk to designers and representatives, mingle with others in the industry and listen to expert panelists while enjoying food from sponsored local companies. 

“We’re trying to make sure that we are touching things that are … important to people in the design community here, but then expanding it to more than just interiors and architecture,” said Melita Issa, vice president for creative and marketing at Jamestown, the firm that owns the Boston Design Center. The market also ties elements such as the fashion, sustainability and photography of the design process.

At the event, there were multiple panels discussing different elements of design and sustainability. Julian Jalbert, a design studio leader of the Knickerbocker Group, spoke about his projects in sustainable housing, specifically in creating prefabricated homes. These homes are built offsite and moved onto the property to be assembled. 

“There are many benefits to prefabricating homes … reducing waste, faster time deliveries and building a controlled environment helps with the … health of the building,” Jalbert said.

The Fall Market also brings attention to the design center’s showrooms and it allows designers to mingle with one another. The Boston Design Center is home to two floors of design showrooms, where product companies showcase their designs to interior designers year round. 

“For the showrooms, this is how they meet new clients,” Issa said. 

Some of the companies focus on specific products, like Quadrille, a hand screen printing company that focuses exclusively on wallpapers. The company customizes the fabrics, switching the colors of a design based on the buyer’s needs. 

“People like us because we print everything in the USA, and we have all of these custom capabilities, and we have a pretty quick turnaround,” said Quadrille showroom manager Valerie Henry. 

Other companies, like The Martin Group, focus on finding smaller design companies to represent. 

“It’s a little bit of knowing the products that we already have, and it’s a little bit of knowing what there is a need for in the market,” said Whitney Martin, a sales representative at The Martin Group. 

One of the newer companies the company has partnered with is Arte, a wallpaper company housed in Belgium. “They’re trying to get more of a foothold in the United States market because they have beautiful, avant-garde wallpapers, but they also have more standard [products],” Martin said. 

Attendees of the event are designers of many fields looking to expand their knowledge of the resources available to them. 

“We always like to go to events like this to meet other people in the same trade and to hear news from the experts,” said Olga Skrodzka, who owns MA Home Improvement, a construction company. Skrodzka said that it is helpful for her to interact with others in the same industry, forming new connections with other designers and design companies she could work with in the future. 

Debbe Daley also attended the event. Daley owns an interior design company, and she is the president of the Interior Design Society’s New England chapter. “I always attend the Fall Market just to hear a lot of the speakers, get some education and see what’s new,” she said. 

Designers in fashion, interior, architecture, photography and other fields found a place to integrate their crafts at the event.  

“[We are] trying to show that sometimes things are about more than just interiors — other elements get brought into the design process [too],” Issa said.