Finding a Design Heartbeat
Typically, designers can be a temperamental breed of person. While we’ve never identified ourselves as such, we can empathize. It is work that is filled with myriad details, complexities and unknowns. It’s easy to just drift into a “recipe” or trend just so you can catch your breath. That’s probably why so many designers get to be the way they are, not all, but some.
We, stopped, just long enough to catch our breath, and asked ourselves why we were doing this all in the first place? We feel like we’re different, our clients turn into our friends, and they tell us that we’re unique, but what is any of that? It didn’t have a name, something seemed hazy and undefined. As designers, we’re seeking solutions to anything that seems unclear. We like to make feelings tangible, so we began exploring.
“A designer has the invitation to create profound spaces that will be remembered for their impact on people.” – Graham Reynolds, Composer
A home that has no identity is just a house.
Home is a loaded idea these days. Whenever, in history, it graduated beyond just a menial shelter, it quickly became a place for self-expression. And logically, it has to. It has to be a dwelling that is suited to the daily rhythms of your very unique life. The freedom to customize it has unlocked an unlimited hallway of potential, which means our homes can become not only functionally optimized, but also aesthetically tuned to who we are as individuals. And this, we found is exactly what our clients are looking for. They want to construct a symphony of practical design solving and aesthetic enhancement. They want to walk into their home and feel completely at home, they want to feel that every detail speaks to them uniquely and personally.
If it doesn’t, it’s just another house.
For some, then, the personal stakes are very high! One of our clients exclaimed, “We have built so many houses and moved so many times, I want to just get this right so we can stay here. I want this to be our last house!” But how do you make sure? This is a very clear desire, but with all those details and complex issues described earlier, how can an individual begin to sift through such a massive quantity of options?
Finding a balance point
Well, we absolutely love listening and the relationship-building process. Cary put it well when she said, “I could never imagine trying to design a space for someone I don’t know.” So we all, at one time or another, get to know everyone. Is this practical and scalable? No. But we’re not building spaces for people who want “practical” and “scaleable”. These aren’t spec homes. We work with those who have a vision for one-of-a-kind, and so we have slowed our process down to work with people who, like us, want to go about this all in a different and more personal way. We just talk, we listen, we take notes, we observe. We do whatever we think we need to do to feel like we know someone, and we mean really know them. It’s not about just grabbing a person’s Pinterest board and choosing one of the best 500 kitchens that they’ve pinned. Rather it’s about looking there to catch “themes” that we can overlay with observations about a person’s real life. You may think you want a marble mudroom, but if your husband’s a rancher, in Texas, it’ll turn red before your eyes from all the clay and grit on his boots. But we only know to bring this up if we’ve spend enough time looking around your life and listening to you dream.
Defining Purpose
We know how to go about a design process (taking time to really know people), but that still didn’t answer the question of our purpose? Why keep doing design in a methodical, hands-on way? Why focus so much on building spaces that are more home than house? Why not just grab a trend and recycle it from client to client? Well, really, it was simple.
We exist to design spaces that reflect who you are.
That’s why we do it! It’s no longer fun just to make something pretty, we want something beautiful and deeply meaningful. We want to turn around, at the end of installation and say, “that is absolutely them!” A high compliment from a client isn’t “this looks great” but rather, “This looks like me, and it’s fantastic!” Then we know we’re doing the kind of work that brings us that deeper satisfaction. It’s where our work brings the most value to us as designers, and ultimately to all of our clients. They turn into friends through the process because we become a part of each other’s lives, deeply connecting as we share ideas and questions. Our team is inspired by this. We take on the bigger challenges only because we care so much about the end-result being on-point with the people we’re serving. Otherwise, what would keep us paying attention to the details?
What has happened?
Since coming to this epiphany, we’ve seen a few things happen.
We enjoy our work even more than we did! We have some words to guide us, to motivate us and keep our spirits up with the challenges arise. There’s something satisfying about knowing yourself better.
Our client-base has shifted to people who really desire something that uniquely reflects who they are. People who love the vision for a home that is entirely unique and desperately need a partner to learn their world and help them bring it to fruition in reality.
We’ve become more confident. When we build our systems and rely on our process, we don’t second guess how much time we spend knowing people. We don’t scrimp on the timelessness or quality of a design, and we don’t hit the “easy” button and drift to something trendy. We look for what will best agree with the practical and aesthetic needs of the client, and then we protect that ideal.
You’re never too far down the road to mature. As designers, we’ve been around for a long time, but isn’t that the spirit of great design? To dig deeper and to find what hasn’t been defined? To understand what seems impossible to put borders around? We’re so satisfied with this journey, we know we have more to learn, more people to know, more spaces to design, more reflections of people to capture. What an adventure!