Born and raised in New York City, Alex Lerian grew up around endless movement, which not only heightened his spatial awareness but also shaped his aesthetic appreciation. “I began to notice that I was constantly observing light, materials, and environments,” he says. “Design became more of a lens through which I experienced everything.”
Throughout his career, Lerian’s roles as account executive and project manager have made him a thoughtful mentor. He encourages others to intentionally observe without the pressure to produce, and instead, take time to reset their mental and visual palettes. He believes that embracing the creative void will eventually lead to greater clarity.
As the general manager of Ege Carpets Americas, Lerian keeps track of his ideas with a basic pen and paper. Pages are usually filled with small doodles or loose sketches, a method that’s both playful and imperfect. Drawings double as visual makers for Lerian, which help him to reconnect with a thought quickly.
Music plays a key role in Lerian’s shift from work to leisure mode, because rhythm gives him distance from the day and generates a different atmosphere. He enjoys all genres, but lately he has been listening to Japanese funk and jazz artists, especially trombonist Hiroshi Suzuki.
Lerian is a collector of rare vintage cameras, and is also an analog photographer who is intent on honing his craft. “Shooting film demands presence, limited frames, no previews, and no instant validation. You must trust your eye and commit,” he notes. “I am drawn to the calm of living in the viewfinder and the ritual of processing each roll.”
Today, Alex Lerian joins us for Friday Five!
Photo: Alex Lerian
1. Art & Design Books
My collection of art and design books is something I return to constantly. I have a ritual of opening one book each weekend to flip through during the week, a quiet way to reset my visual thinking. This week’s pick is Building Blocks by Messana O’Rorke, a firm whose work reflects a deep respect for material, proportion, and architectural clarity. Their restrained, thoughtful detailed approach reinforces my belief that design should be both intentional and enduring. Revisiting books like this always sparks new creative connections and keeps my perspective evolving.
Photo: Alex Lerian
2. Burritos La Palma
Burritos La Palma is a ritual whenever I’m in Los Angeles. I’m always interested in finding inspiration through all five of the senses, and food is one of the most primal forms of communication. A single bite can instantly transport you to a memory, a place, or a feeling. There’s something inspiring about food that does one thing exceptionally well, a simple, focused, and uncompromising recall to reality. That clarity feels like a creative lesson in itself.
Photo: Alex Lerian
3. Museum Travel
Traveling with the intention of visiting a new museum feeds my need for exploration and discovery. The journey itself becomes part of the experience, with the art representing a kind of treasure at the end. Museums give me an immediate sense of a city’s cultural rhythm and creative history. Whether returning to some favorites or discovering something new abroad, I’m always observing how space, light, and curation shape the experience and influence on how I think about atmosphere and intention in design.
Photo: Alex Lerian
4. Live Music
Live music is one of the few experiences that fully pulls me into the present. There’s a profound impact in sharing a communal experience through both sound and visuals, especially in an outdoor venue where environment becomes part of the performance. That collective energy between artist, audience, and setting is immersive in a way that can’t be replicated digitally. It’s a reminder that creative experiences are often most powerful when they’re shared.
Photo: Ege Carpets
5. Materials
I’m endlessly inspired by materials and the act of engaging with them through touch. Feeling texture, understanding weight and mass, and experimenting with how different materials interact reveals possibilities that can’t be understood visually alone. Whether it’s wool, metal, wood, or stone, materials carry their own language and memory. Exploring them hands-on deepens my appreciation for craftsmanship and informs how I think about spaces and objects meant to last.
Works by Ege Carpets with Alex Lerian:
BRAFA 2026
For BRAFA 2026, the floor becomes a curational surface, a layered tapestry of eras that anchors art and history in a single continuous field.
Rone Residences
At Rone Residences, in collaboration with Rottet Studio, the carpet establishes a quiet foundation of understanded luxury, elegant, architectural and integral to the living experience.
Delta SLC
At Delta’s Sky Club in Salt Lake City, in collaboration with HOK, the central lounge transforms into a landscape in motion, an abstracted terrain that brings the calm and scale of Utah’s natural beauty into the environment.
Renwick Stairwell Carpet
Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum
At the Renwick Gallery, the staircase is redefined by a continuous bold red gesture, creating a ribbon of modern design that sweeps visitors upward through artist Janet Echelman’s environment.
Google Dublin
At Google Dublin, with Camenzind Evolution, the floor operates as both a system and narrative. High performance modular tiles giving way to expressive, culturally coded patterns that shape the workplace with a series of distinct atmospheres.
Cannes Film Festival
Featured at Chopard’s Love Party, in collaboration with Aquafil, the carpet becomes part of an infinite design flow, saturated with color, crafted from regenerated ECONYL, and seamlessly embedded in the language of fashion.
Seattle Public Library
In the Seattle Public Library, within OMA’s architectural framework, the carpet introduces a layer of nature with photographic botanicals that soften the architecture and ground the space in a quiet, organic rhythm.
Photography courtesy of Age Carpets unless otherwise noted.
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