The Fabulous World of The Grand Budapest Hotel

The husband and I recently watched The Grand Budapest Hotel. Have you seen it yet? For me the interest lay not in the plot, but in the absolutely fabulous visual design. The plot was interesting, but nothing remarkable ... it is about a conceirge who, with the help of one of his employees, works to prove his innocence when he is wrongly framed for murder. Pretty simple really. 

The Grand Budapest Hotel is set primarily in the 1930s and is bookended by portions in the 1960s and 1980s - a double flashback. Each time period has its own colour palatte, but since most of the movie is in the 1930s that is what made the biggest impact on me. 

Wes Anderson, the director and writer of The Grand Budapest Hotel, is known for his meticulous attention to detail in his films (reportedly he even specified the hook the stolen painting was to hang from). Anderson's use of unique composition and distinctive colour choices make you feel like you have entered a self-contained world. A world that is similar to ours, but different - more controlled, more intense, and quirkier.

I was drawn into The Grand Budapest Hotel's world and was completely intrigued by the visual design. It felt somehow familiar. At first I couldn't put my finger on what made it seem so familiar and then I realized that watching The Grand Budapest Hotel felt like I was stepping into some of my favourite blogs. The forced symmetry, the rich saturated colours, the pastels, the monochromatic look, and the moody lighting are all things that anyone familiar with blog photography would recognize.  

Let's have a look.

RIGID CENTERING AND SYMMETRY:
Most of The Grand Budapest Hotel is shot so you are looking straight at, straight down, or straight up at something. Everything is carefully centred in the middle of the frame - everything from people to buildings to pastries. The style of architecture is classic and symmetrical. It kind of does this symmetrical-loving girl's heart good to see everything lined up and organized like that. Symmetry gives the film a formality (although it is awkwardly formal at times because of the quirky characters and their antics). The rigid symmetry and centering also looks artificial and even a bit child-like which helps reinforce the appearance of this being another world. The symmetry also serves to make you aware of the composition which in turn serves to make you feel like you are looking at another world.

If you have read blogs for any length of time, you will be familiar with the same composition style. Centering the subject and tight symmetrical or semi-symmetrical composition are favourite tools that many bloggers use to take interesting and modern-looking photos of rooms, crafts, travel shots, people, or almost anything really.

Oh Happy Day

SF Girl by Bay

This Heart of Mine

Bright Bazaar

STRONG HORIZONTALS:
One of the other composition techniques Wes Anderson employs is the use of strong horizontal lines. I found this most evident in distance shots, like the one of Gustave and Zero running through the snow in the upper right in the collage below. Of course, horizontal lines happen naturally when you shoot your pictures at a 90 degree angle, but it is emphasized by having people or vehicles move straight across the scene and often at a distance so they appear almost as silhouettes.

(source)

Prior to reading blogs, I had never seen family and wedding photographs taken with the subjects standing stiffly side-by-side facing the camera. Now I see this style frequently and have grown to love its quirky composition. One of my favourite variations of this composition style is the photo below of Gabrielle Blair's family (author of Design Mom). The same strong horizontal lines can also be seen in pictures of food, craft items, or travel photos.

Design Mom

Martha Stewart

Design Mom

The House that Lars Built

Brooklyn Limestone

RICH SATURATED COLOURS:
Wes Anderson is also known for the distinctive colour palettes that he creates for each of his films. In The Grand Budapest Hotel he used cheerful reds and pinks and purples in the hotel scenes. The exterior of the hotel was painted a range of intense pinks, the interior had red walls in the concierge and elevator, blush pink walls in the lobby, red patterned carpets throughout, and the staff wore royal purple uniforms. It is a strong and distinctive colour choice, but it also makes the movie.

I see lots of saturated colours on blogs, although not usually as intense as in The Grand Budapest Hotel. Saturated colours appear more in craft projects, flowers, food, and even fashion photographs, than in interior decorating. Most people decorate with more livable neutral colours, although there are a few bright and beautiful rooms out there in blogland.

Young House Love

Real Simple

Decor Sponge

Decor8

Bright Bazaar

House and Home

PLENTY OF PASTELS:
Many of the scenes in The Grand Budapest Hotel, especially ones that involve Agatha and the bake shop have lots of pink, yellow, and blue pastel colours. 

Pastel colours are a favouite in blogland. Pastels are very livable so are used for pretty much everything from food to fashion to flowers to decor.  The tone of pastels can vary though, from more serious greyed pastels to bright and happy pure-toned pastels.

Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart via Home Depot

Style at Home

Real Simple

West Elm

THE MONOCHROMATIC LOOK:
All the outdoor shots were snowy and overcast creating a monochromatic muted feel to them. The shots even appeared to be black-and-white at times.

The monochromatic look is popular in blogland. It is a calm look, often used in interiors and fashion.

Bright Bazaar

Bright Bazaar

Design Mom

Martha Stewart

Sunday-Suppers

MOODY LIGHTING:
The lighting in The Grand Budapest Hotel ranges from bright and intense to dark and moody. I found the dark lighting especially interesting. The background in these shots was dark with the light focused on the character's faces giving them the look of an old master painting.

Woman Writing a Letter by Gerrit ter Borch (source)

Portrait of a Man Holding Gloves, Rembrandt (source)

While dark and moody lighting is found in blogland, it seems to be used selectively. I see lots of moody table settings, food photography, flower arrangements, and even sometimes in photographs of people. What I don't see as much are dark and moody homes - for the most part light and bright is where it's at when it comes to decorating.

Style at Home

Real Simple

Making it Lovely

Martha Stewart

Although many of the blogs I admire remind me of Wes Anderson's design style, I have to give a shout out to Will Taylor, the blogger behind Bright Bazaar, because his blog is the one that most distinctly fits this style. I love Will's photography and composition and when I read Bright Bazaar I get something of the same feel as The Grand Budapest Hotel.

If you want to get a taste of what I'm talking about, here's the trailer to The Grand Budapest Hotel.  The movie is a feast for the eyes and especially if you are a blogger. 

I would love to know what other bloggers think? Did you feel like you had fallen down the rabbit hole of the blog world too when you watched The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Swedish Blogs

Oh Scandinavia, what's not to love? The landscape looks like Canada, but with cuter houses. Last spring my daughter Kate visited Scandinavia when she was doing her study abroad term in the UK (that's her photo above of Copenhagen). She fell in love with Scandinavian style. I have always loved Scandinavian interiors and Kate introduced me to their streetstyle. 

Scandinavian design is famous for its simplicity and use of natural elements. Their interiors tend toward light neutrals. In particular, you see lots of white with a subtle use of colour in their homes. The clothing also tends toward neutrals, but usually more the darker colours. They also embrace function both in interior design and fashion - flats and Chelsea boots prevail rather than sky-high heels and minimalist, well-curated, organized collections on open shelves rather than cluttered sideboards. It is a look I love (although not necessarily one I can master - especially the organized, curated, minimalist part).

Kate asked if I knew any good Scandinavian lifestyle and decor blogs so she can continue to be inspired by their style. I have been doing a little digging for her (I mean what's a mother to do) and have come up with some, but I was wondering if anyone else had other Scandi blogs they could recommend. 

These are the ones I found that appealed to me - some traditional and some more modern; some home decor and some lifestyle (click on the name of the blog to check out the blogs themselves):

My Scandinavian Home - written by a British woman living and raising a family in Sweden. I love her style and her choices of homes that she features. 

My Scandinavian Home

Live Like You - written by Jill Sorensen, a Swedish decorator who now lives in California, but returns to Sweden every summer and is decorating a home in the country.

Jill Sorensen

Vibeke Design - a Norwegian blog (written in Norwegian) which focuses on more traditional Scandinavian decor including her own home in the country.

Vibeke Design

Flying House - a blog written by an American mom of three living in Denmark (although they are in presently in the US for six months).

Flying House

Design Attractor - written by a graphic designer from the Czech Republic who loves all things modern Scandinavian.  He features home after beautiful minimalist Scandinavian home.

Design Attractor

Love Nordic - written by a British woman who loves all things Nordic (do you see a theme here of some of the best Scandi blogs written by people who don't live in Scandinavia).  This blog leans toward modern interiors and features Scandinavian industrial design.

Love Nordic

Marsipan og Smilefjes - a Norwegian blog, written in Norwegian, which features more simple modern country design with lots of natural elements mixed in.

Marsipan og Smilefjes

Emmas Designblogg - her byline says it is Scandinavia's oldest and most read design blog. So there you have it. She writes in English which is helpful to me as my Swedish is nonexistent and she is the author of the bestselling book Northern Delights about Scandinavian design. She favours minimalist modern designs. 

Elisabeth Heier - a Norwegian blogger, writing in Norwegian, with some English at the end of each post and lots of photos of her beautiful modern white home.

Elisabeth Heier

Decordots - a blog written by a woman from Estonia who loves all things Scandinavian.  She has a good design sense and features beautiful homes.

Decordots

Nordic Bliss - A Norwegian woman living in the UK (now there's a twist) and writes about Scandinavian design.

via Nordic Bliss

Scandinavian Retreat - a design blog written by a Norwegian blogger who writes about how they transformed their seaside cabin and are now building a home near Oslo.  That's her gorgeous cabin in the photo below. She also features other Scandinavian homes and design.

Scandinavian Retreat

Stylizimo - a blog from Norway (just guessing by the tiny Norwegian flag on the header) with tons of inspiring home design articles.

Stylizimo

And finally, I wanted to show you another photo taken by Kate in Copenhagen. While it isn't a Scandinavian interior, it is a good example of their ingenious design sense in an outdoor space. It is a wall with hinged boards that are black on one side and coloured on the other. People can come by and open select boards to create interesting designs on the wall.  So creative and so fun, right?

Please feel free to add any suggestions of great Scandinavian blogs in the comments. There are never enough blogs on my favourite's list.