What do interior designers do? Start with design.

 “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”  

— Steve Jobs

Lately we’ve been thinking about our design process and what goes into each stage of development. We work on projects big and small, residential and commercial -- and while each solution is unique, we have found that we approach all design problems in a very systematic way.

Our work can be divided into three overarching phases: Design, Production, and Execution. Below, we will attempt to break down the first of these large groupings into smaller tasks to convey the day-to-day reality of what it is we do.

PHASE 1: DESIGN

When we meet strangers at a dinner party and they inevitably respond, “Oh how FUN!” after learning we work as interior designers, they tend to exclusively consider the Design aspect of our work. And who could blame them? There’s magic in design, and it is fun! In our studio, we break the design phase down into three parts: Discovery, Conceptualization, and Development.

DISCOVERY

Discovery is akin to investigative journalism. We interview our clients to determine project goals and assess feasibility. We collect inventories, observe behavior, ask questions, and analyze inspiration imagery. At the end of this phase, we have a much better sense for who our clients are and what they want. Once we have a well-developed program in hand — a comprehensive list of functional requirements and spatial attributes — we forge ahead into conceptualization.

CONCEPTUALIZATION

If we were writing a story, conceptualization might be analogous with tone-setting. Now that we understand The Problem we are solving for, we get to work establishing the overarching mood, feeling, and voice. Throughout the design process there are decision-making crossroads and our concept serves as a touchstone as we advance the work. We pull precedent projects, reference materials, and images, and develop a brief narrative that captures our design intentions in a few short sentences.

DEVELOPMENT

Design development is where we take our conceptual ideas and study their application in your specific space using drawings, models, and finish material palettes. This is the crafting of your project’s narrative arc – the establishment of rhythm, the sequencing of events, the application of color, material, and light. In design development, we really start to get a feel for what it’s like to be inside your spaces. This is where the bulk of our design work resides, and by the end of this phase we should have client buy-in on all layouts, details, materials, and furnishings.

After the design phase comes PRODUCTION. In our next post we will dive into what documentation and procurement look like, and why they are so important to the ultimate success of our projects.