A new wave of decorating style has become very popular in the United States today. Oriental designs and decorating are gaining more and more favor. Oriental designs and lettering can be seen on a wide range of products today and many products that are modern and functional are made to look as if they have an ancient Oriental basis. Consumers can use oriental stencils to make any of their furniture or other items look as if they came from the East. Oriental rugs, of course have been in vogue for many, many years; their beautiful designs weaved into durable carpets has been a mainstay of the well decorated house for centuries.



There are many ways to recreate Oriental designs, and one of the most popular is to incorporate the Chinese alphabet into the design. The letters in the Chinese alphabet are called Conji. Though we call it an alphabet, it is not comprised of letters as most western alphabets are, but rather a series of ideograms. An ideogram is a symbol that represents a word, image or concept. The use of ideograms in the Chinese alphabet has allowed the speakers of the many dialects of the Chinese language to communicate with one another. Conji are very beautiful and therefore have been used in many different kinds of decorating and design. Westerners do not necessarily know what they mean, they just like the way they look. Many people like the look of Conji on a tattoo, but for this reason, you have to be careful about which one you use. Since tattoo artists do not understand what the Conji means, you may be putting something on your body that is not what you intend to say. Be careful what you allow a tattoo artist to write on you if you do not know what it means.

Oriental designs are frequently incorporated into embroidery designs. The grace and lines of oriental design holds a special appeal and can make a simple looking embroidery very exotic. You may also see oriental designs on dishes, furniture and many other household items. Many homes are graced with toile wallpaper with a lovely oriental design, even if the main motif is French or Italian. Some beautiful Asian designs can be seen in Korean blankets which serve at perfectly practical role of a blanket in that they are heavy, soft and warm, but they also serve an artistic purpose since they have beautiful eastern inspired designs of animals and forests or other natural scenes.

If you want to guarantee that you have oriental design, you can buy authentic oriental products instead of imitations made here and then decorated to look oriental. If you live in an area that has a large Asian population, such as San Francisco, you will be able to find many items that are made in Asia and exported here. Otherwise, you may have to shop around a little. The United States is a big importer of goods from Asia, so there are plenty of items with oriental design around, if you look in the right places for them.