Successful design begins with understanding the client’s needs. As a design studio, asking the right questions is essential to getting to know our client and their vision, so we can produce the best possible project for them and avoid unnecessary revisions.
These questions help clients feel involved in the design process and also help us generate ideas and refine the creative process. While every project is unique, building a respectful relationship is vital to a great creative collaboration, and it starts even before we pick up a pencil.
Identifying a style you’re naturally drawn to can be easier said than done, but we find that gathering inspiring images from sites like Pinterest and Instagram, or from design magazines, helps create a moodboard that makes it easier to find a thread of design elements and see where the client’s taste is heading.
Digging into what catches our client’s eye helps define their own style and lets us select more carefully the characteristics we want to include in our design.
This may seem a simple question, but understanding the intention behind a design involves many factors beyond a room’s main function. Above all we like to ask questions, from daily use to how the client imagines living in the space; no detail is too small.
The user’s way of life gives us vital information for every design decision, from the materials used to the furniture layout, as well as helping us rule out elements that may not work from the outset.
Whether the client is renovating or moving into a completely different space, it’s important to consider which aspects of their current home they like and want to keep, and which problems they want to solve.
Design is generally appreciated for its aesthetic side; in fact it’s mainly about improving how a space works, which is why these references are essential to understanding the scope of the renovation and creating a list of priorities, so we can develop a project that resolves the space’s weaknesses and brings out its strengths.
While there’s no right or wrong answer, clients often have no idea how much things really cost and, although they have a figure in mind, it usually doesn’t match the reality of what they want or need.
Having an understanding of the budget available to design for the client’s needs is a very important step, since our role as professionals is to define, in line with the client’s priorities, everything that will and won’t be possible to achieve.
Sometimes all we need is an honest conversation to help shape and balance prior expectations so they match what the project can actually deliver.
Having a specific deadline by which we need the design project completed is as important as clearly defining the budget. Understanding the project timeline contributes to the success and satisfaction of the design process.
In our experience, a full-service design project can take up to 12 weeks or more to complete, depending on the dimensions and the level of intervention required.
We advise our clients to respect the renovation process, since many projects run to a very tight deadline can end up affected by design elements that turn out to be impractical and later need changing.
There may also have to be compromises on the quality of certain materials or furniture. Occasionally the project completion date can be extended by the client, if the client is willing to adjust the quality of the project as a whole.
We hope you find it useful.
!!Lets work!!