Interior Design by Urbane Design
“If you want creative quality, you need creative diversity.”
–Fabricio Teixeira, design partner at Work & Co
As interior designers, it is our job to bring fresh, innovative ideas to the table for our clients. They trust us to bring a transformative vision to the design of their homes. With that trust brings a responsibility to seek out a variety of perspectives for our work. We must push ourselves to bring diversity of demographics, thought, and experience to each and every home we touch.
In this article, we’ll walk through the importance of diversity in interior design and how it benefits our clients and society as a whole.
Creating a diverse design team brings richer solutions to the table
Our perception of the world around us is influenced by countless factors: our race, ethnicity, gender, age and sexual identity, geographical location. A challenge as interior designers, especially in the commercial space, is that our end product must be a functioning space for virtually anyone who walks through the door. And while designing for all of society is a difficult task, we can certainly make it easier on ourselves by creating diverse teams before the project even begins.
Choosing designers, contractors and partners with diverse backgrounds can help prevent us from creating stale, stagnant or tone deaf work for our clients. When we design homes that feel safe, comfortable and relatable to our clients, we create spaces that invite free thought and new ideas.
Selecting diverse talent also keeps our designs innovative. “Homogenous teams feel safe. But safe is bad for performance.” – Harvard Business Review article. It may feel easy or safe to work with designers, contractors or vendors that think the same way we do, or have the same design style, but when we lean too heavily on the familiar, we create an echo chamber that can dilute our work over time. It is imperative that we continuously seek out individuals to work with whose life experiences differ from our own in order to maintain a creative edge.
Seeking out a variety of clients and project types sharpens our design skills and builds a more inclusive community
In addition to selecting diverse business partners and design teams, it’s important that we gain experience in a wide variety of project types. We perfect what we practice, and while there is certainly value in becoming masterful in a certain area of interior design, it’s important that we seek out work that challenges us (and scares us a little.)
Building a multifarious portfolio means seeking out a diverse clientele. Our design style is affected by the people and experiences we surround ourselves with — which means seeking clients from the same communities can lead to work that feels repetitive. Building a portfolio full of different home types and design styles for a range of individuals can help bridge the divide between us as designers and the communities that we serve.
Seeking diverse staff, partnerships, and clients can build richer communities and push the industry forward as a whole. For more resources and info, visit The UX Collective’s series on diversity in design.
Looking for a forward thinking design team? Contact us today!
