A Design Atheist Converts to Design Evangelist

*Part I of the seven part series: What Spending a Decade Inside Our Design Firm Taught Our CFO

My career was in business, not design. I saw little practical value in design beyond décor at Christmastime. But over the past decade, I had a front-row seat to the work of an unusually gifted designer: the founder of the design firm Thirteen and Crowne. That experience completely changed my assumptions about designers and design.

I thought that hiring a designer meant I would have help choosing furniture and hanging decorations. Maybe a designer could give me a break on the price of a couch. Or maybe she would talk me out of a mistake with a paint color for my study. I’ve realized that design isn’t polishing a project after the important decisions are made.

Watching Jen work on scores of projects gave me an appreciation for the science and artistry behind effective design. I marveled at her innate ability to validate our clients and enhance their preferences instead of criticizing their ideas. Her organizational abilities to lead disparate trades in achieving a completion target are nothing short of supernatural - always on time and under budget. And of course, nothing beats witnessing one of Thirteen and Crowne's grand reveals, when a client experiences the magic of their new space for the first time.  

Jen sees things other people don’t. She views projects in terms of color, proportion, flow, contrast, budget, use case, resale value, architectural integrity, and emotional evocation. She predicts how one decision in one corner of one room affects the way the entire project will turn out. She lives in the future version of a space while the rest of us are still choosing between sample swatches of flooring.

Working with Thirteen and Crown has converted me from a design atheist to a design evangelist. I now believe professional design is not an indulgence; it is a necessity. It has taught me that attempting any project without a talented designer is like building without blueprints.