Dana Tomic Hughes is an award-winning interior designer and founder of Yellowtrace – an influential online design publication that champions good design through carefully curated, cutting-edge, and highly researched content in the areas of Interiors, Architecture, Art, Travel & Design Culture. Started in 2010 as a passion project, Yellowtrace quickly gained powerful momentum and gathered a loyal following amongst the design community and those passionate about design in it’s many forms.

As a respected designer, design authority and design writer, Dana is a sought after speaker, consultant, sessional lecturer, and design judge for a number of awards in Australia and overseas. She has been described as one of the most important influencers in the design online world and a global tastemaker by esteemed international print publications Elle Décor Italia and Danish RUM Interiør Design. She was also profiled bv Time Out as one of Sydney’s Top 40 people under 40.

Dana’s passion for design sees her regularly travelling the world to attend premier design events in the relentless pursuit of the best of the best, enabling her to stay at the forefront of the design world globally.

Together with her life and business partner, Dana is director of Studio Yellowtrace – design consultancy specialising in Communication, Strategy, Creative Direction and Special Projects.

Dana arrived to Sydney with her family at age?17 with limited English, after departing her home town and birth-place, Bosanski Brod in Yugoslavia due to the Civil war. After graduating with Honours in Interior Architecture from University of New South Wales, Dana worked at a number of leading Architecture and Interior Design studios, deciding to quit her career to focus on Yellowtrace full time in June 2011.

While she is super serious about design, Dana never takes herself – nor design – too seriously. Says Dana of her involvement with Object Subject, the inaugural national design writing conference being held as part of DESIGN Canberra:

‘It’s an exciting time for design in Australia. Our exposure and awareness of local and international practice is resulting in an unprecedented thirst for knowledge and appetite for design.

I am thrilled to be a part of such an important event that promotes writing as a way of reflecting on and understanding design, ultimately leading to a healthier future for our industry.

I am looking forward to sharing my knowledge and experience relating to: creating engagement; cultivating trust; and building an ongoing relationship with a design audience that’s becoming increasingly more fickle in a digital space that’s forever changing.’

Follow Dana on Twitter (@damatomic; @yellowtrace) and on Instagram (@dana.tomic.hughes; @yellowtrace)