Born and raised in New York, Alex Lerian he grew up around endless movement, which not only increased his spatial awareness but also shaped his aesthetic appreciation. “I started 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 an account executive and project manager have made him a thoughtful mentor. It encourages others to observe purposefully without the pressure to produce and instead take time to refresh their mental and visual palettes. He believes that embracing the creative void will ultimately lead to greater clarity.
As its general manager Ege carpets In America, Lerian keeps track of his ideas with a basic pen and paper. The pages are usually filled with small doodles or loose sketches, a method that is both playful and imperfect. Drawings act as visual builders for Lerian, helping him quickly reconnect with a thought.
Music plays a key role in Lerian’s shift from work to leisure, because its rhythm gives him distance from the day and creates a different atmosphere. He likes all genres, but lately he’s 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 wants to improve his craft. “Shooting the film requires presence, limited frames, no previews and no immediate validation. You have to trust your eye and commit,” he notes. “I’m drawn to the serenity of life in the viewfinder and the ritual of processing each roll.”
Today, Alex Lerian is with us for Friday five!
Photo: Alex Lerian
1. Art & Design Books
My collection of art and design books is something I keep coming back to. I have a ritual of opening a book every weekend to flip through during the week, a quiet way to reset my visual thinking. This week’s selection is Building Blocks by Messana O’Rorke, a company whose work reflects a deep respect for material, proportion and architectural clarity. Their restrained, thoughtful detailed approach reinforces my belief that design should be intentional and lasting. 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 rite of passage every time I’m in Los Angeles. I’m always interested in finding inspiration from all five senses, and food is one of the most primal forms of communication. A single bite can instantly transport you to a memory, place or feeling. There is something inspiring about food that does one thing exceptionally well, a simple, focused and uncompromising call to reality. This clarity is a creative lesson in itself.
Photo: Alex Lerian
3. Museum trip
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 always notice how space, light and curation shape the experience and influence how I think about atmosphere and intention in design.
Photo: Alex Lerian
4. Live Music
Live music is one of the few experiences that pulls me fully into the present. There is a profound impact in sharing a communal experience through both sound and image, especially in an outdoor space where the environment becomes part of the performance. This collective energy between artist, audience and stage is immersive in a way that cannot be reproduced digitally. It’s a reminder that creative experiences are often most powerful when shared.
Photo: Ege Carpets
5. Materials
I am endlessly inspired by materials and the act of engaging with them through touch. Sensing texture, understanding weight and mass, and experimenting with how different materials interact reveals possibilities that cannot be understood visually alone. Whether it is wool, metal, wood or stone, materials have their own language and memory. Exploring them deepens my appreciation of craftsmanship and informs how I think about spaces and objects meant to last.
Ege Carpets projects with Alex Lerian:
BRAFA 2026
For BRAFA 2026, the floor becomes an processing surface, a multi-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 creates a quiet foundation of understandable luxury, elegance, architecture and an integral part of the living experience.
Delta SLC
At Delta’s Sky Club in Salt Lake City, in collaboration with HOK, the main lounge is transformed into a landscape in motion, an abstract terrain that brings the serenity 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 draws visitors upwards through artist Janet Echelman’s environment.
Google Dublin
At Google Dublin, with Camenzind Evolution, the floor functions as both a system and a narrative. High-performance modular tiles give way to expressive, culturally encoded patterns that shape the workspace with a range of distinct atmospheres.
Cannes Film Festival
Shown at Chopard’s Love Party, in collaboration with Aquafil, the carpet becomes part of an infinite design flow, saturated in color, made of regenerated ECONYL and integrated seamlessly into the language of fashion.
Seattle Public Library
At the Seattle Public Library, within OMA’s architectural context, the carpet introduces a layer of nature with photographic botanicals that soften the architecture and ground the space in a quiet, organic rhythm.
Photo courtesy of Age Carpets unless otherwise noted.
