If you are an aspiring designer and you would like to be very good at what you love, I’d like to share some pointers with you as someone who now feels very comfortable with design and does not need to catch inspiration to do something fantastic.

I am an architect, urban designer, interior designer, furniture designer and a graphic designer. I’ve designed in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the US. My clients vary from startup entrepreneurs to large scale developers and occasionally homeowners. What unites them is that they are well-cultured, travelled, curious, even-tempered and most importantly, expect nothing less than excellence. When they want a clear, beautiful and holistic vision for their project, they work with me.

My specialization is experience design. In other words, I infuse flavor into the buildings, landscape, public spaces and signage that would otherwise would be plain vanilla. I add complexity and variety that turns a new project into an integral part of the city; a meaningful, memorable and magical experience. This specialization is very useful when it comes to establishing the vibe, vision and branding for the project.

Talent + Process = Skill

When people look at the projects that I’ve worked on, they think I am very talented and they are impressed with the scale of the projects, the amount of variety within the same project and the holistic harmony.

Talent is what people who are not familiar with design process label the ability to design, but they are not exactly right. No-one is really born being able to design like a famous architect. Some of us are born with a good eye for proportions and beauty, but the rest is skill that is acquired by designing hands-on.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote that “it takes 10,000 hours of intensive practice to achieve mastery of complex skills and materials, like playing the violin or getting as good as Bill Gates at computer programming.” It also takes about that long to gain the skill to design well. There are about 2000 working hours in a year, so if you only design and do nothing else consecutively for 5 years, you can become a pro. I have roughly 20,000 hours of pure design under my belt because I was lucky to land in a firm that only did front end design. My experience is unique, I am a bit of a design unicorn. Any style and scale, bring it on as long as it will be challenging and create a positive impact.

Images in this blog have been downloaded from our Pinterest boards. It is a collection of the projects that we like from around the world.

How to Handle A Designer’s Block

A lot of designers who are starting out have a writer’s block at the beginning of the project. They just don’t know how to start and they are afraid to make a mistake. They question if they are even good if no ideas are flowing. If you get into this mindset, it will be very difficult to get out. Not knowing what to do and doubting yourself does not make you a bad designer, it makes you a thoughtful person and that is a great thing for a designer to have. Thanks to Pixar, what you have to do is tell yourself: “Silenzio Bruno!”. After that, you need to start generating options, and it does not matter if they are bad, what matters is that you will have something to evaluate. Now that you have some options, look at them side by side and compare. What are the advantages or disadvantages? What parts do you like best? You can also turn to another designer to evaluate together. After that, select a couple of options and continue developing them with evaluation sessions when they are needed. It does not need to be your professor or your manager who calls the meeting, evaluating your work by yourself is what will make you good.

How to Know When to Stop

The next difficult point in the design process is stopping. My mom’s close friend in Moscow was educated as a stage designer and ended up doing a lot of amazing interiors work. She would do things like buying an oversized dress and hanging it on the wall as decoration. Her words solved the stopping point for me even back in architecture school, she said: “you are finished with your design when you can meditate by looking at it”. To me it meant that I would look at my design and not find anything that I could pick on. It is done when there is harmony and a feeling of peace in you as opposed to irritation and wanting to fix little things. When you got to your stopping point, there is no need to overdo it, if you’re not there yet, it may be good to take a break, walk around the block and look at it again. My best time to evaluate my own work is in the morning - after being away from it for a while, I can be a better judge of my work. If you do not have the luxury of time, use your professor or manager to help, they will look at it with fresh eyes.

Time Management

At some point in the workplace, you will run out of time for your design work. That would put a stop on your design project as well. We really don’t want that to happen. I still have to multiply the time I think it would take me to do something by x3. When I am given a fixed amount of time for a design, I divide it /3 and aim to finish in the third of a time. That helps me personally always be on time. Keep in mind that sometimes that time that is given to us is simply not enough. It could be your manager who miscalculated or if you have your own clients, they may have not provided enough fee. You have to balance the effort with time and result. At the beginning of sparkSTUDIO, Yevgenia and I had a job to do for $10,000 that would really cost closer to $100,000. We ended up focusing the effort on the most important parts to avoid having to close our firm right away by spending $100,000 worth of time.

Don’t Try to Please All + Find Likeminded People

I remember I had a design critique at UC Berkeley that I regret I did not ignore. It was an unhappy old architect who emphasized buildability of the projects. He did not appreciate my fluid Zaha-like forms rendered by hand with pastel sticks. My project was experiential and did not aim to be an example of a project that students in construction class would present. He basically said that it should be a rectangular structure that is easy to build and that what I had was not architecture. I went back to my room and cried for hours. The next year in studio, I switched to rectangular forms that I knew would be safer from emotional perspective. I regret that this guy had an impact on me and I miss the beautiful fluid projects I could have designed if I ignored him. I hope you got the message and will not make the same mistake.

The opposite of a bad critique would be an encouraging critique done by a likeminded person. Yevgenia and I started sparkSTUDIO for many reasons, but one of them was that we really love working together and we see how much value we both bring to the projects with our different strengths but similar ideology. I think the trendy word that is used in firms now is “culture.” You definitely want to be surrounded by people who have the same culture. If you work with people who do not understand each other and have conflicts, your design will suffer and will not blossom as soon as it could in a friendly and encouraging environment.

Follow your Gut

Have you ever had a feeling about designing something and thinking it is not right? Follow your gut feeling. It will be 99% right. Here, do not go “Silenzio Bruno”. Acknowledge your concern and address it immediately, this will make you a better designer and get you to a promotion faster.

Deep Dive on Demystifying Design

Now that you have a few pointers, let’s look into the design process that has worked for me consistently, including the days when the inspiration wasn’t there. Your process may be similar, or completely different, but having a process will be something that will help you turn the creativity faucet on and off when you want it.

1. TALK

   Identify project goals with your client. Find out what matters to them in terms of aesthetics, function, durability, cost, sustainability and schedule.

2. GET INSPIRED

   Look at many inspirational project photos, I like to call them reference photos. Select everything that you think satisfies client goals, but with a critical designer’s eye, remember: “garbage in garbage out”. We never show the client something that we do not think is good.

3. DIAGRAM

   Think of the possible relationships of spaces. Try many options to organize the plan in a non-binding bubble diagram. Sometimes, I end up producing up to 10 diagrams while I brainstorm. They are fast to generate and OK to throw away. Try things that you would never think work - they may. Try things that you are sure will work - they may fail. That is OK. By playing with the diagrams, you are getting your head into the project and understanding it better. You are becoming an expert of this project.

4. ORGANIZE & NARROW DOWN

   By now, you have something to show, but what should you show and how should you show it? Do not overwhelm clients with hundreds of photos and diagrams. That would not go so well, you want to organize your work and narrow it down in a format that would help client make decisions easier.

   I usually organize my work by categories such us overall look and feel, exterior spaces, and interior spaces. Go from general to specific. The deliverable on this stage is a curated PDF with references and layout diagrams. I call this phase “Visioning”.

5. SHOW & TALK - VISIONING

   Show your visioning slideshow to the client and talk through it, you want the client to talk more than you do, or to have a conversation, but not have a presentation or a pitch. It is about the client’s goals, not your goals. Tell them that it is OK to be critical now if something does not seem right. The more you learn now, the more successful the project will be.

6. ITERATE

   Adjust the visioning package until you and your client are happy with it.

7. DESIGN

   Preliminary conceptual design is your first pass at the design. Bring together the selected diagrams and inspiration images. I do it in a 3d model. Make a few options, really make as many options as the time permits you in till you have something to evaluate. The first options will most likely not be the one that moves forward and your client will provide feedback for you to make updates. This is just the beginning of the design process.

8. SHOW & TALK - CONCEPT

   Only present the best options that you designed. Ideally, you would have two options, that usually gives enough choice and does not overwhelm clients. Again, your job is to make the client feel comfortable to talk, and you should listen more than you talk. It is possible that the client asks you to do something that you know is not a good idea, in that case ask them what the objective is and prepare another option that solves for the objective.

9. ITERATE

   Adjust your concept until you and your client are both happy with it.

10. FINALIZE CONCEPT

    Prepare a package with the final concept design that you will take into design development. Share it with your client, so they have it on the record and communicate that at this point, changing the concept will have cost implications. I make these packages in a slideshow format, and sometimes, I export animations. You may have sketches, 2d model or photorealistic renderings as part of this package. The most important things is for your client to understand the design intent and love it as you move into the next phase of the project.

11. DURING DESIGN DEVELOPMENT& CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS

    Here you will get into selecting products and materials. It is a very small part of the DD and CD phases, but it is what the client will see and what you are responsible for as the project designer. You want to make selections that match your concept 100%, if you deviate, you will have to adjust the concept. You want to pay attention to buildability, cost, timeframes, sustainability, maintenance and durability. You also want to select code compliant products and materials. If this is not your strength, make sure you have a good technical architect to lean on.

    You will have to prepare color, material and product presentations to have the client select from a few options that you prepared for them. Get the aesthetics right, but do not forget the other criteria and discuss this with the client.

12. DURING & AFTER CONSTRUCTION

    You want to be involved during construction to make sure that the contractor does not deviate from the concept design and product selection. You also want to review shop drawings, because sometimes a contractor builds in surprises for you in the shop drawings. If you rely on a technical architect to do this work, they may not be aware of the concept as well as you are and in the end, the client would not get what they wanted.

    Walk through the project with your client and talk to them about the completed project. Did the design achieve their goals? If something is not done properly, offer to solve it for them. Everyone should be happy with the completed project.

Don’t Forget to Have Fun

Finally, I will leave you with the most important part of design process. It is having fun. We choose to be designers to enjoy the process and the result, we love what we do and we are passionate about it. So, go ahead and have a lot of fun designing the world you want to live in!