n Carlo Tanseco's Store Company, Inc. - at least in its newly opened branch at Cortes de las Palmas Alabang Town Center - mornings are what they used to be, a dawning on what seems to be a small-town world. Without frenzy, but nevertheless full of energy, the day begins to unfold with familiar things, such as a butterfly, albeit electronic, hovering over pot and pot of fresh mums. It's nice to start the day sipping freshly brewed coffee from an oversized cup while checking out the store's wide array of merchandise -everything for the home, the body, the heart, the mind and the soul.

Just as Carlo envisioned it, Store Company has everything for everyone: father, mother and child. No wonder, apart from everything else, the store in Alabang offers familiar scenes of family life: a little girl drawing on her breakfast table, pubescent boys exchanging views on a novelty item, a young couple holding hands over glasses of iced tea, a grandmother smelling the flowers.

Store is a store with everything
for everyone and for every room in the house.

A recipient of a number of KATHA awards for product design from the Center for International Trade, Expositions and Missions (CITEM), Carlo put Store together with a winning formula: Something familiar -with a twist.

"When a product design is too alien, the customer or the spectator has a harder time connecting to it," explains the 32-year old designer. "So I make sure that everything I do, no matter how pioneering or innovative, retains some kind of familiarity."

Moreover, Carlo has strong faith in what he calls a "total, holistic design," the very principle behind Store, which he runs with a little help from his mother Yoya and his sister Keena.

"I try to address all the senses with whatever I come up with," he says.