bekah's journal.

interview results

i found out last night that i wasn't picked for that HGTV show. but what's really cool...is that i found out WHY. i know it sounds stupid, but i'm pretty proud of myself for NOT getting it. heh...

basically, they were looking for someone who was very naive and eccentric (kinda funny combo now that i type it out, but it makes perfect sense). i think that i blew it (not realizing it) when they asked me the question, "what makes a good designer?" so i answered with a short synopsis of my philosophy on what a good designer looks like. i could ramble on and on about this topic, but i'll spare you ;-)

anyway, i was happy to know that my philosophies are very different from mainstream ideals.

i am proud of this, not because i want to be different, but because the mainstream design world sickens me in some aspects. here are the problems i see with it:

-designers design for designers, not their clients.

while you were HIRED by the client for your education and experience, you were not hired to convince them that your STYLE is the only acceptable style. heck, i could never live in a completely modern interior...but if that's what my client wants....i go for it. i understand that much of this field is the ability to market yourself and your services...and being able to convince your client to try new things at times. but i hate to see where clients clearly state, "i hate purple," and the entire room turns purple when the project is finished.

while we may look through magazines and see a beautiful european modern kitchen and sigh, a client is most likely looking at advertisements for the most trendy cabinets in fashionable colors.
we may cringe as we understand that these advertisements are simply messing with your head trying to sell a product that may, or may not, be an appropriate application for the project. if it isn't going to work, or isn't the best solution for the problem, i think this a point where you definitley try to convince them that you are right. but if not, is it really so bad to make your client happy?

--designers often compromise their design for the highest profit

i'm sorry, but if i'm putting 4 intense years into school, i'm going to make some darn good money if i can. on the other hand, if i love what i do, i'm not going to be greedy about my work.

there are several ways that designers charge their clients for a project. the most predominant is an hourly fee with product markup. see, there are finishes and materials only available to the trade. this leaves you a good markup percentage that you can choose to take advantage of or not. in all reality, there aren't actual "retail prices" for these products. that is left up to the designer. but showrooms are very tricky with their pricing in order to hide the actual price from clients. good for designers, bad for clients.

if you are to charge this way, you are leaving a lot of room for temptation...it could be easy to specify products that aren't necessarily the best fit for the project simply for the extra profit you could gain by choosing this one over another.

it's a huge compromise that is done a lot.

ok, i'm tired of rambling and overwhelmed with work..

--b

posted by bekah @ 2:32 PM