Clients often say to me at our first meeting: “I’d like to feel safe and have peace at home.” I understand, as with all our hectic daily lives, we serve others all day. It is a very important task for all of us to be able to put the day’s work aside and relax at home. Some clients do not know the importance of design and its effects on our psyche.
My job is to educate my clients on some of the important aspects of their home, such as:
- respecting your own space
- understanding the importance of having your home reflect your soul
- feeling safe and content at home
- being proud of your space
- getting rewards from the design of your home.
Once the understanding of the importance of design is established, clients and designer can move on to the “How.” As a designer, my task is to “feel” what my clients needs are. I use empathy and my listening skills to seek out the type of space and style they desire, and need. In most cases, I ask a lot of questions, and encourage my clients to communicate their thoughts. These initial thoughts do not need to be about the space, they are typically very general conversations.
If you’d like to try an exercise, you can do the following:
Say out loud, or write down, 3–5 things you like doing the most.
Then say why you like to do those things? What particularly makes you attracted to those activities? Once you completed these activities, it is easier to see a bit of a concept behind the design of your home.
I often give my clients homework, and ask them to bring images of spaces to show me. We have a conversation about what they like about these images, and why they like those spaces. When I ask questions about materials, colours, I often ask specific questions about what textural qualities they like, whether they like warm, or cold feeling of textures. The sound qualities of materials are also important, and we have have to consider how busy the household is.
It is important that clients work hard on establishing their goals, and take the design work seriously. Should you be interested in more details, please contact me with any design problems.
