2010 may well be marking the dawn of a new era for kitchen design, which has clearly transitioned from years of uncompromised, “more-is-better” luxury to reflect homeowner spending patterns and design preferences more in tune with the realities of today’s economy.

That premise should come as no surprise to seasoned industry professionals, who’ve long been aware that kitchen and bath design always changes with the tenor of the times. Nevertheless, it still bears noting as kitchen and bath specialists try to wrap their arms around a market that’s a far cry from what it was in the industry’s boom years – and, for many designers, far less profitable.

That, too, is certainly no surprise.

Clearly, the pendulum has swung. Consumers are more frugal than they’ve been in years. Confidence is shaky. Credit is tight. Budgets, and kitchen footprints, have been reduced. Values have been reset. Conspicuous consumption is no longer “cool.” Discretionary purchases are being re-examined and deferred. Design, style and product preferences have changed. So have client expectations. Homeowners are searching for designers who are creative, but equally mindful of budgets that have been pinched.

Kitchen/bath designers need to adapt to all of this.

That, in essence, is the underlying message of a newly launched series of one-day seminars being brought to key markets in 2010 by Kitchen & Bath Design News, the NKBA, and a bevy of corporate sponsors.

The program – entitled “Profiting by Design…in the New Economy,” and led by well-known design authority Ellen Cheever, CMKBD, ASID – pinpoints the most significant recession-bred changes in the collective consumer mindset. It also pinpoints ways that kitchen and bath designers can enhance profits by understanding what consumers are seeking and respond by designing “smarter.”

Among the tips Cheever offers are the following: