Archive for category Interior Design Business
Ask Vicente: Starting an Interior Design business
Posted by Vicente in Ask Vicente, Interior Design Business on March 9, 2010
Name: Jessica Schiedel
City: New Hamburg
State: Ontario
Country: Canada
Comment:
Hello Mr. Wolf,
I was wondering if you could give me some advice. A friend and I have started our own design consultation company (two months ago). We encounter two problems: 1. Our clients disagree with our aesthetic opinions, believing that their own ideas are better than the ones we offer 2. We have a difficult time explaining to our clients that we must be paid for our services; we don’t offer colour consultation or finishes selection for free. Did you ever run up against these problems or did your clients respect you as a business person when you first started out? We feel disappointed and disheartened and we want to feel excited and inspired. Your designs DO inspire me; I feel refreshed and renewed when I view your books. Jessica Schiedel
Vicente Responds:
You must not be putting yourself across as a professional. Because when dealing with professionals, one expects to pay. And maybe you should take some lessons in how to sell your concept. Are you clear in what your concepts are before you present them to clients? I think it is better for you to analyze what it is that you are doing wrong in how you present. Are you giving your fees before you start? Are you sending out a contract? Are you presenting a complete concept? These are the things you need to analyze in running your business.
I strongly urge you to employ a business advisor who will be able to negotiate contracts on your behalf and help set you up for success. I’ve been working with Sean Low for many years and he has proven invaluable to me. Sean has helped me secure many of my big projects to date and he always offers sound advice when I’m presented with new opportunities. (Sean also worked as the President of Preston Bailey’s company and was one of the reasons Preston managed to turn his business around and grow it into the international success it is today).
Sean has a mentoring program that helps small business owners get on the right path. Of, if you are like me and want to turn your successful business into more, you can retain him as a consultant. If nothing else, be sure to read his blog and get in touch with him if you have any questions. It’s worked super well for me over the past eight years.
The economy, the industry and then some…
Posted by Vicente in Events, Interior Design Business, Random on March 4, 2010
Last night I went to The Armory Show, an art show where dealers from around the world show their art – anything from contemporary to mid-century, early 20th century paintings, photographs and sculpture. Some amazing De Koning work was being exhibited at one stall and another one was all Henry Moore drawings and sculpture. Guests consisted of a lot of really pretty, tall, thin women and short men (it was a benefit, after all) and it was a real pleasant evening.
Straight after that event, I went on to the launch party for the Kips Bay show house where all the designers gathered. It is a daunting task to put this room together with major requirements that whatever you do, you have to bring it back to the way you find it. And then you have to try to knock the viewers’ socks off and be conservative with budget without having to show it. Not an easy task.
In addition to these I’ve been to a few other industry events in the last week as well and from talking to the people there, everyone seem to be much more hopeful about the economy. Though from watching the news I feel like it’s getting worse, I think that people with money are relaxing a little in how they spend it. That doesn’t help the middleclass and how they deal with their problems, of course. I’m torn between the fact that I want people to spend money and thinking of people who don’t have any. At least today they allowed the bill to extend unemployment to go through and stopped payments for the unemployed. I don’t know if it’s about the rich still getting richer and the poor getting poorer, but on the flipside, if you have 10 people working for you and you have to pay salaries and insurance, you hope the rich get richer and spend it with you.
Maybe I am just a capitalist pig at heart?
Before I left on the trip I saw the light, but after traveling around the world I feel like there’s a global kind of gloom…it’s a central decay. Governments not really being able to do anything and other governments that are just destroying their societies – be that in South-East Asia or Africa…I don’t believe in Armageddon, but so many of those signs are being written on the wall. I’m sure it’ll pass, but we need some sort of hope and we need some sort of unity, globally, that will lift our spirits.
And I think we are all responsible, because you listen to the tea parties here in the US and you can’t help but thinking that people are getting dumber, not smarter.
In general there are all these wonderful things like Kip’s Bay, the new book etc. None of them are money makers, but I think that we as designers need to put ourselves out there this year to benefit our businesses. Last year, nothing would have helped – even standing naked in Times Square, depending on what you look like, of course. My sense is that it is time to go public again. People are starting to come out of hibernation and get on with their lives. What is your sense of it all?
What Is An Original Idea?
Posted by Vicente in Interior Design Business, Projects on January 19, 2010
In design everyone’s always looking for new and original ideas and it got me thinking about what constitutes an ‘Original Idea’. I think a ‘new’ idea in design is how something from the past can be reinterpreted to suit today’s point of view. Yes, nothing is new, but on the flipside, new ideas are always coming out in the marketplace and it’s “Is anybody else doing it right now?” or “Has anyone else seen and old idea and reinterpreted it in a new way”? In being reinterpreted, are you taking that which served one purpose before and is now reinterpreting it with a new use?
I think that one of my strengths have been being able to see something from the past and using it in a new way. Like when I first did picture ledges eighteen years ago, or the first time I leaned a huge mirror for fashion designer Willi Smith twenty eight years ago and presently, with an easel, which was always used to rest art on, but which we now use as a TV stand.
My Easel-as-a-TV-stand idea recently got copied by a major retailer and they are now selling these at a really affordable price across the country. On the one hand it is a flattering thing when your idea gets ripped off, but on the flipside one has to wonder why these manufacturers don’t go to the source of the creative idea and have them create for them, instead of just copying them. I think in Europe it is much more prevalent that manufacturers see someone with a good idea and for the manufacturer to ask the designer to come up with other good ideas in partnership. In this country they just knock you off, which to me is very frustrating.
That does not stop me from trying to be innovative in my work and keeping the hope alive that manufacturers will see the possibilities of working with a creative firm to not just come up with one creative idea, but many.
Purchase Orders – How I do it
Posted by Vicente in Interior Design Business on January 11, 2010
When we do purchase orders they’re always backed up by the estimates supplied by the supplier and our price request sheets that include measurements, drawings, details and style numbers so the supplier can give us an accurate price. If your PO is not clear, with attached samples and checked and rechecked, you run the risk of being stuck with a piece of furniture that has been produced wrong and which you will own, which ultimately reduces your profit. In our office it’s a policy that the associate working on the project has to have both the office manager and myself read every purchase order before it goes out. Three sets of eyes are better than one.
The PO’s are numbered with the name of the client, the date we need the furniture ready and then they’re filed per room – alphabetically by supplier name, with the estimate and the price request included. So this way, it’s easy to check if there are any problems. As we check on delivery, or if there are any problems, it all gets written on the PO so that there is always an updated status, including date, name of person and comment.
This has worked for me for years and I know there is a big move towards digitalizing everything, but I just feel that there’s nothing to beat an actual piece of paper with the sample attached to it. What works for you?
Design – Where to start…
Posted by Vicente in Interior Design Business, Random on December 9, 2009
How can a designer conceptualize a job without having full information? It’s like deciding to marry someone before you meet them. You need to know what the perimeters are, what you are dealing with and only then can you start the creative process. Anything else is a waste of time.
In this office we always meet with the clients at our office first, look at any floorplans they may have and once we’ve agreed to work with each other, we go to the space to study the particular light or quirkinesses that we have to take into consideration, then we measure the space and photograph everything. From this we can start the design process.
Anything else is just building sand castles in the sand. That’s what most clients do, it’s not what a designer is supposed to be doing. A designer is supposed to be prepared, have all their information and work with facts combined with creativity and professionalism.
Keeping the Staff Motivated
Posted by Vicente in Interior Design Business on November 23, 2009
As the boss you have to suffer the slings and arrows, the fears of money going out and not coming in, the expectation of the phone ringing with a new client (or not!), but the other side of being in charge is that you are ultimately responsible for keeping your staff feeling that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. After all, one is the parent to the children in this equation and children get scared very easily, especially when they hear of problems all around them.
My way of encouraging is by trying to think of creative challenges that allows them to put their creativity to work – whether it is working on a charity event that we have to design a chair for, or working on a new tile collection or rethinking how we will move the office around to keep it working better, taking excursions to different museums to find inspiration in color and compositions, piling them all into a train to go to Philadelphia to see an art exhibition…we just have to keep the creative juices flowing.
I do try to still be realistic with them about business, keeping them abreast of what’s coming up, what worked and what didn’t so they feel that they’re in the loop. As a business owner in a creative industry, payment can come in many different ways – everybody here is working towards the future and if you can help them to expand their range of vision, that can be an enormous compensation. Thank God it’s not wall street where it’s all about the buck! This is about seeing beyond what’s in front of us and letting our imaginations be free and at the end, you start to lift up your own spirits as the boss, because we’re creative people as well and we get to tap on our positive sides.
Installation
Posted by Vicente in Interior Design Business, Projects on November 20, 2009
In this office the way that we bring a job to conclusion is by installing it all at once. Everything is scheduled to be completed and delivered close to one particular date (installation date) and what is finished sooner gets put in storage or kept at the office or sometimes held by the supplier. It is our aim to have it all ready for that installation date.
Suppliers are checked, we go to the upholsterers and cabinet makers to check everything, emails are sent to suppliers to let them know what the installation date is and we all hold that date as the golden day. Prior to installation date whatever construction work is needed is done, the space is painted, floors are finished and then window treatments are done, the carpeting is installed and on a selected day, everything is delivered still wrapped.
The following day everything is unwrapped and placed. Accessories are brought in on consignment along with fresh flowers, candles, the works. We ask the client not to be there when this work is being done and then at an assigned time, the front door opens and the space the client saw in the renderings is brought to life.
Then of course everybody is happy and they all live happily ever after.
Well, that’s the way it is always planned, but the reality with suppliers, as with life, is always very different.
There’s always a truck broken down on a highway somewhere (garage attendants must make a fortune on broken delivery trucks), items that you have checked and rechecked get damaged in waiting, or, like in a particular job that we are installing right now, we saw all the parts of the mirror being put together and approved it, but the mirror got made a foot larger than it was supposed to. So three days before the installation, Moe from my office is waiting for it to come in and we realized that it’s too large. So now we have to call the manufacturer, show a great deal of desperation over the phone, put the mirror back in the truck, send it back to the factory, have it recut and the back refinished and then pray that it will be delivered on time on Monday for installation and Tuesday’s walk-through with the client. Sheets from Restoration Hardware that were supposed to be delivered are lost in transit, those lovely pre-recorded computer generated automated people on the other side of the line really never gets you to the real person you want to talk to, that could maybe solve their mistake and now we have messengers picking up different aspects of the total set from different stores to be able to have the bed made for installation date. That workman who always walks through on carpets with some undefined material stuck to the bottom of his shoe…getting a cleaning person there to take the stain out. The temperamental sound system installer who requires the whole apartment empty before they proceed to mess it up with all their equipment. With today’s flu pandemic (swine or other tsunami), people who were supposed to be at work are off sick, same with suppliers and with Thanksgiving around the corner, we toil and sweat (and we’re not even mailmen!) to get the installation – regardless of rain, sleet or snow – done on time.
These are none of the things that the client sees as one walks through the space, making it seem that all we did was be fairy designers, waving our wand and making their dreams come true. (Bull, we’re not fairies and if somebody has a wand, please, I’ll pay for UPS to pick it up from you and promise to return it.)
Is there a wand out there? Please contact this office ASAP!
Magazines
Posted by Vicente in In the news, Interior Design Business on November 11, 2009
My first project 36 years ago was published in House Beautiful and I have had the privilege since then to work with most of the top interior design magazines and their editors. Some of these publications still exist, others have come and gone, but the one thing that has been a constant amongst all the successful ones is their integrity and how they manage to stay true to their brand. What many of you may not know is that there is a split between editorial and advertising that is similar to the split between church and state. Editorial will never be influenced by advertising as that would seriously hamper the integrity of the magazine and maintaining a high integrity is the holy grail to all editors-in-chief.
In my post yesterday I wanted to express my sadness at the demise of another publication with such integrity. I also feel frustrated at the amount of publications that are still around. Every single designer out there dreams of being published in a magazine, but very few of us are lucky enough to have that opportunity. When the number of high quality outlets dwindle down to only five, even fewer of the really talented designers have the chance of being featured, because, let’s face it, there are only so many pages per magazine.
I agree with those readers who have commented on the post below about how the richness of picking up a magazine and leafing through the pages will never disappear. How it looks and how you can pass it around the room and show to different people cannot happen on a computer screen. All the pages, whether modern or mid-range or traditional have a richness because of paper, printing and it makes a designer’s work really shine.
While I cling to my love for magazines and the experience of reading one, I hope that there is an opportunity in our future that will allow all designers to have the exposure they need in order to get new business and build up a hefty ‘look book’ to showcase their work.
Editorial Comment
Posted by Vicente in In the news, Interior Design Business on November 10, 2009
My work on the Met Home cover, December 2008
It is sad that in our industry, where publications are the inspiration and the platform from which we can show our work and worth, top quality magazines keep closing. To me the closing of Met Home feels like a personal loss. Editor-in-Chief Donna Warner is a great friend and a really special lady and Linda O’Keeffe, the editor that I most worked with at the publication, is somebody who is great fun to work with as a photographer and an editor who really allowed my work to shine.
You know, we think that the economy only affects us in our work and in our capability of getting clients, but here is one more affect of how it keeps eroding our capabilities to expand our exposure and expand our possibilities of getting work. We’re basically left with five national magazines in which to showcase our work and it is a sad state of affairs, which creates a situation where more demands are made on us of what these magazines want to show, which affects how we choose to design spaces, which affects the working relationship where magazines can become demanding and force us to go through the eye of the needle to be able to appear on their pages.
The conditions that we as designers have to adhere to in order to appear in their pages, gives us no recourse but to succumb and adjust, in some cases our design and in other how we choose to represent our work, and in turn affect how people view the work, the trends that they see coming down the pipe and the sense of what is the state of design. (If more magazines are traditional, more traditional work will appear which will give the impression that traditional is the direction of design.) Nationally, only Elle Décor is left out on the marketplace, to show contemporary work that speaks of clean, simple design. We’re lucky in a city like New York where magazines like NY Spaces give us another venue of exposure.
The closing of Met Home is a great loss to our industry.
Ask Vicente: The Initial Consult
Posted by Vicente in Ask Vicente, Interior Design Business on October 21, 2009
Name: Andrea V.
Comment:
Hi Vicente-
After stalking your blog fanatically for the past few weeks, I thought of something to ask you.
What types of questions do you ask your clients in the initial consult? Do you find that it’s difficult for the client to articulate what it is that they are seeking within the interior? If so, what are some methods to navigate the forensics and psychology of building a concept that incorporates both your and the clients vision?
I recently had the misfortune of a client not liking what I pulled together. Which really struck me as odd (and made me kinda want to crawl in a hole, too), because he loved it during the presentation and from my point of view, it was a concept that pulled the whole house together. The whole home lacked cohesion and I absolutely tried my best to give it a better sense of calm and flow (which is what he told me that he wanted, but I digress). It was a really strange situation, but it made me second guess my interviewing skills. So much that I figured I must have not done enough due diligence during the consultation phase. Maybe that’s not what happened and he ultimately didn’t want to spend the money. I’ll never know. But I’d like to gain more insight on how to go about getting the client to build an honest rapport and spill the beans about what they desire and of course, what they want to spend! (Always the hardest part!)
Thank you for having this feature on the blog. I think that your humble nature is incredibly inspiring and I love the open dialogue feeling that you have created in this little corner of the internet 
Keep up the great work!
Andrea V.
Vicente Responds:
Hi Andrea -
I don’t ask them for specifics of what they want that room to be, I ask them what is the emotion that they want the room to have. If you ask for specifics, they are going to tell you they want this chair and that sofa and that is not what you want. Here’s my list of questions – feel free to use this as a base and adapt it as you see fit.
GENERAL
- What colors do you like?
- Are there particular colors you dislike?
- Do you like textures?
- Do you like stone?
- Are there certain metals you like?
- Antique pieces?
- Do you have any allergies or back problems?
FABRICS
- Silk, wool, cotton, linen?
- Rough, smooth?
- Stripes?
- Leather
LIVING ROOM
- Entertaining
- How many people would you like to seat?
- Do you like deep seating?
- Do you like loose cushions?
- Tight cushions?
- Slipcovers?
- Area Rug?
- Window treatment?
- Floor treatment – stone, wood?
- Table surfaces? Large, small?
- Colors?
DINING ROOM
- How many people would you like to seat?
- Do you like service in the dining room (side table, etc) or service from another room?
- Area Rug?
- Window treatment
- Floor treatment
- Colors
KITCHEN
- Entertaining
- How many people would you like to seat?
- Appliances?
- Window treatment?
- Floor treatment?
- Colors
MASTER BEDROOM
- What size bed do you like?
- Would like you like book storage?
- Lounge chairs?
- Wall to wall carpet?
- Area Rug?
- Window treatment?
- Floor treatment – stone, wood, etc.
- Table surfaces? Large, small?
- Colors
- Special Lighting
FAMILY ROOM
- Entertaining
- How many people would you like to seat?
- Do you like deep seating?
- Do you like loose cushions?
- Tight cushions?
- Slipcovers?
- Area Rug?
- Window treatment?
- Floor treatment – stone, wood?
- Table surfaces? Large, small?
- Colors?
- Office Equipment
BREAKFAST ROOM
- How many people would you like to seat?
- Window treatment?
- Floor Treatment?
- Colors
- Lighting
GUEST BEDROOM #1 & #2
- What size bed do you like?
- Would like you like book storage?
- Lounge chairs?
- Wall to wall carpet?
- Area Rug?
- Window treatment?
- Floor treatment – stone, wood, etc.
- Table surfaces? Large, small?
- Colors
- Special Lighting
Go through the same questions for the Entry, the Office, Kids’ Rooms, Powder Rooms and Bathrooms or other rooms that are not accounted for here.
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