Interior Designers: We are who we are

An Interior Designer is so misunderstood. Even when I speak to people from different industries who’ve known me for years, I realise they don’t understand what an Interior Designer actually does when I speak in depth on a subject.

The power of experience is enhanced when I stop and reflect, chat to colleagues, associates, mentors and students to share ideas and thought leadership. I find it facilitates the process of innovation and pure creativity. Sometimes I achieve more when I stop, take that moment to simply think before I continue. Collated and processed thoughts then untangle into something quite powerful.

Luxury resonates with different images to different people. A couple of years ago I defined it for me as time to read a book or time to have a bath rather than a shower – the inference is that these two experiences are both so simple but they defined that what I unwittingly defined as luxury was in fact what I used to call ‘spare time’.

MKV Design – Burgenstock Hotel

I now find that I achieve more when I do less, and I do less much more.

My productivity has increased, the selection process of how I acquire knowledge has also changed. Newspapers seem to really be yesterday’s news when I think of the first point of focus for research and review current affairs. I tend to now source through APPS.

And there’s the next challenge. There is simply just too much information out there, we really need to find a filter on how to stop being pushed so much information that is neither truthful, corroborated, validated or requested. I thought when GDPR came into force the problem would be resolved – but those marketing departments have just started sending out emails and picking up the phone once again.

I have either lost my interest or the interest has not been inspiring enough from many of the trade shows and offers for sourcing that, as a designer, I find match the ratio of my time against the outcome. I like a mix of both budget options and super luxury products as I like to design to fit the brief and then cost engineer to fit the budget. In this way, a designer can bring value to any project at any price-point. A designer is a person to save a client money – its been misunderstood and incorrectly sold as Chelsea housewives have spent their money on tv shows for entertainment over the past thirty years, so we must now re-educate a nation on exactly what we do for our design fee.

SBID have been campaigning on client non-payment as it is a subject prevalent in the profession, but never mentioned. When the SBID announced the seminar at the annual Meet the Buyer event, it turned out to be the most requested seminar in ten years! We had applications from Canada and far away places in the Caribbean. We have now started the debate across the sea in the USA where the new SBID President is holding the banner.