Design Appetit in the Spotlight

When talking to people inside Design Appetit, the annual fundraising event for Focus on Home, the phrase “under the radar” keeps popping up. Imagine an event so large it occupies a convention hall; features more than 40 chefs and dozens of designers and architects, along with 20 custom-built vignettes designed around the idea of a dinner table as a meeting place; and relies on a huge team of volunteers. Launched in 2016 by Joli Sanders, Design Appetit was created to support the mission of Focus on Home, the nonprofit she founded in October 2014. As far as anyone involved knows, no other city has an event like this, where creative professionals come together at three discrete events in two days to benefit a non-profit that helps the newly housed turn their space into a home. 

It’s fair to wonder how something that size flies under any radar. There is a partial explanation as to why it’s relatively unknown to the general public: For many years, the only two ways to participate as a guest were a luncheon and the gala, the latter of which features a table per vignette—usually about 20 total—sold as a whole, so no individual tickets were available. 

Two years ago, Sanders added a cocktail party the night before that is open to the public. Last year, she added a chef’s tasting with a few of the city’s best young chefs, as well as a community table at the gala. That allows up to 100 people to purchase a single ticket to taste the food of one of the gala chefs, whose number includes our most decorated and famous chefs, like Jeff Chanchaleune, Kevin Lee, Eric Smith and Kurt Fleischfresser. 

“In the beginning, we targeted the larger design firms,” Sanders says, “because that was the professional world I’d just left. The goal was to create a big event that matched our personality as an organization: Design and food were central, and not just a tablescape, but a whole space.”

The space allocated has always been 20 feet by 20 feet, which has allowed for amazing creativity over the years … perhaps to a fault. The year Guernsey built a whole ship, Sanders realized the trajectory of the event was not sustainable, and if she wanted to attract smaller firms and solo designers, she’d need to scale down the vignettes, not in size but in scope and complexity. That change led to an influx of talented designers and architects, artists and assorted creative types—manufacturing and supply included—who wanted to be involved. 

As the event hit its 10-year milestone this year, Sanders decided it was time for another change, one that would propel Design Appetit forward with a new look, increased focus on the core brand and versatile components that worked with the existing brand in a timeless yet distinct way. To facilitate the change, she turned to Erin Cooper and Cooper House. 

Erin and Tim Cooper had partnered with Chef Gabriel Lewis in 2025 to create a vignette and dinner at the gala for the first time. They had been aware of the event from the beginning, but had never participated professionally. Erin Cooper says, “There was a huge learning experience for us because we are artists and designers, with some experiential design background, but not to the level that some of these teams have. We are definitely interior design and architecture enthusiasts, and we have a passion for branding and hospitality.” 

Cooper House’s role went from participant and informal recruiter of other designers to the firm tasked with designing the new look and feel for Design Appetit. Cooper described her understanding of the project, as she tends to do, from an above-the-ground perspective first. 

“The overall goals were that people needed to know more about Design Appetit and the impact that it has,” she says. “In order for that to be true, it can’t be branded new and different every single year, because then all of the associations that people might have with Design Appetit are scraped away and need to be refreshed every year. That doesn’t allow the brand to build on itself over time. It also doesn’t communicate the prestige of the team’s collaboration. This should be something that puts our community on the map—the things I’ve seen people pull off that are under-documented and unrecognized just felt to me like a huge missed opportunity for people to see Oklahoma City culture in a new way.”

Design Appetit is a cultural event. There is no other food event like it. There is also no other design event like it. In business, though, often the focus is on ROI as the primary metric. Cooper sees another angle that needs to be emphasized, and not because the event offers nothing tangible to participants. “I really do think that the benefit of getting involved is that it helps Focus on Home,” she said. “I think that’s obviously the reason why a lot of people are joining. I don’t want to undersell that, but I think part of the story that has been undersold in the past is what a unique opportunity it is for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.” 

One of the new participants for this year’s event is Cynjn Johnson, who, with the unrelated Ryan Johnson, owns OKC Kitchen and Bath. He’s excited about their first year in the event, and as someone who is new to the industry, he sees it as a chance to meet the stars of design and architecture. “It reminds me of a cooking show, but not just because of the chefs,” he said, “You have all these creative people in the same room with their own take on a theme, and then you also have the benefit of knowing it’s for a good cause. It’s just wild how we can pull creativity in various forms from so many avenues in the world.” 

The 2026 edition of Design Appetit is scheduled for Oct. 21-22 in the OKC Convention Center. For tickets or more information, visit focusonhome.org.