Dunn-Edwards Portraits: For California Woman, Youth Steeped in Design Becomes Colorful Career

For Amy Fotheringham, growing up in California was an atypical experience. While enveloped by the state’s sunshine and seashells, she was engrossed in wood and wallpaper. As a child, Fotheringham trained alongside her mother, Juanita Fotheringham, a renowned interior designer who founded Spectrum Space Design, Inc. in 1992. This Orange County, California-based business provides planning, construction documents, design, permit processing, and construction supervision for tenant improvements. Project Designer Manager Amy Fotheringham said that it was an exciting and educational experience. “I grew up in a household with a mother who was an interior designer, so it has always been around me,” the 27-year-old acknowledged.

The benefit allowed Fotheringham to learn the field from the ground up and enhanced her interest in interior design. It also propelled her college track. “Before I could even walk, my mother had me going on jobsite visits,” she laughed. “I was going to the building department and seeing how my mother selected colors and products.” As her interest in the field grew in high school, her mother gave her more responsibility. “She would say, ‘pick out paint colors for this project,’ or ‘pick out some desk chairs for this project,’” she said. “Sometimes, she would let me pick out artwork. Her simple actions let me fall in love with this field. I knew that it was something I wanted to pursue on my own.”

While studying at the Interior Designers Institute (IDI) in Newport Beach, California, Fotheringham worked at Spectrum Space Design as a design assistant. “During school, I was working for my mother’s business, which gave me a little bit of a taste for the industry,” she said. “But IDI was where I fell in love with restaurants, hotels and casinos, and the potential they hold for design. And that is really where my career has gone.”

After receiving her degree, Fotheringham realized that expanding and refining her skills would only increase the value of her contributions to the industry. She worked as a project coordinator at Kenneth Ussenko Design in Santa Ana before joining California-based William Hezmalhalch Architects as an architectural color designer. That job boosted her knowledge about incorporating color into a design space. It also gave her valuable hands-on experience. “We would be choosing paints and color schemes, and selecting materials for the exteriors of master-planned communities,” she explained. “But we would also pay attention to all the paint companies and color trends. We would see their color of the year and then explore how they might look in the world we were creating. We would ask ourselves what colors were on trend and then make predictions.” The experience, she said, “was wonderful.”

“Visually, I am very creative,” she noted. “I don’t consider myself an artist, but I enjoy anything pleasing to the eye or pleasing aesthetically for a space. Creatively, that’s what I like to work with. That is what I appreciated so much.”

This insight strengthened her color and design trend forecasting ability. She returned to Spectrum Space Design last year to assist with design work for a significant restaurant project. The mother-and-daughter duo’s first two restaurant collaborations opened in October and December of 2022 in Southern California: Kai Lounge, a modern Japanese bistro in Huntington Beach, and Molé, an authentic Mexican restaurant in Palm Desert. Wild Thyme Restaurant Group, a food and beverage company based out of Orange County, operates both restaurants.

When considering the layout of a project, Fotheringham says she starts with a theme. She highlighted the firm’s work with Kai Lounge as an example. Taking inspiration from Asian culture and injecting a contemporary twist, the design incorporated brilliant pink and red accents to contrast sandy neutrals. A faux cherry blossom tree further complemented the space. “We do a lot with faux floral designs, so we used florals throughout,” she explained about one of the firm’s signature design styles. “We were hard at work at that all summer.”

Fotheringham admits that Dunn-Edwards is Spectrum Space Design’s preferred paint brand. “Dunn-Edwards is very consistent, from their color chips to the samples to the can of paint you end up getting at the very end,” she noted. “We love the quality and the consistency of the product. We’ve used many of their paints throughout the years.”

Fotheringham’s favorite color is a rich, blackened green-blue named Lunar Eclipse (DE5776), which is inspired by the beauty of outer-space . “It is a color we used in our Kai Lounge project,” she said. “I also painted my home that color.”

Like anyone in her profession, Fotheringham has faced challenges. She recalled initially being concerned about establishing her professional identity apart from her mother’s prominent shadow. But those concerns quickly dissipated. “My mother always welcomes my input,” she explained. “Thankfully, we have the type of relationship where I can tell her if I do not like a certain idea. She is a real inspiration to me,” she said. “I love that I work alongside my mom every day and learn from her many years in the business. Now that we are working together, we often have the same brain at times. I will be in a different location thinking about a project, and she will suggest the same color I am considering for the project.”

Focusing on her future in the industry, Fotheringham said she does not have a solid plan “beyond being open to wherever life takes me. I have an amazing opportunity here,” she said. “If I decide to further my mom’s business when she retires, that would be a big undertaking. It would be something worth pursuing. I also definitely see myself wanting to work in the restaurant industry because hospitality is one of my favorite areas and project types to work on. We have had exclusive partnerships and continue to explore opportunities to work with additional restaurant groups. I would love to work more on different types of restaurants and restaurant concepts.” Her dreams also include designing a hotel one day. “Hospitality is definitely where my heart lies,” she acknowledged, adding that building functional spaces for people is her passion.

Reflecting on her journey, Fotheringham said she would advise design students to “stand your ground and speak confidently.” She urged, “Believe in yourself. Be prepared. Be that person who is the source of knowledge and information. You gain respect from others when you go into a space and know what you are talking about.”