Phone rings, yet again, on a BUSY day
Client “Hi Jimmy”
Me “Hi Mr. X”
Client “The guys are installing and I just wanted to ask, do we plug the table lamp to the socket on the left or the socket on the right”
My Mind “You can plug it in your #$%#$%*&$#, that’s how it will really light up”
Me “The one on the left please”
Client “Thank you” with a smile in the voice “you’re a lifesaver”
Yup, that is what I am
Most people can judge different professions, they allow themselves to give opinions both good and bad about almost anyone regardless if they are in the same profession or not, regardless if they are qualified to give such an opinion or not, they just do, and it is widely accepted. You hear people declaring someone as a good lawyer/bad lawyer, good doctor/bad doctor, good politician/bad politician etc ……
BUT, if you are a designer you are almost robbed of this right, and you have to watch what you say and how you say it. If you should ever dare say “this is bad design” or “I do not particularly like this design”, you are immediately labeled as someone that wants to be a style police, someone that limits creativity or the ever so popular label, you are jealous. It is even worse if you happen to critique a younger designer, you suddenly become the evil one, the horrible step mother that is stifling budding talent, and who is threatened by new talent and their possible success.
So why cant we as professional working designers freely express our opinion without being judged ?
I know that creativity and beauty are hard to define, they are vague areas that are very perceptual whose very nature creates more vague definitions of what is good or bad. In recent years the grey area has grown even more, encompassing many disciplines in the world of visual arts not only design making it harder to define what is good and what is bad.
Still, with all this craziness and ambiguity I believe there is a difference between good and bad, and more importantly there is what we like and what we don't like regardless of how great it is, and it should be ok to express an opinion without people becoming too sensitive.
What do you think ? Should you be able to freely express your design opinion, or shut up and be goody two-shoes as requested by some blogs?
I am blessed that most of my projects are fun with nice happy home owners as clients. I am proud of all of them and the end result is always a good one where both the client and I are happy.
Recently I did a project that is not residential, the person responsible for the project I discovered day one is a neurotic man, obsessive, and a pessimist. You know the type that keeps asking you the same question over and over again, thinking that you will slip and change what you said before, interrogation style.
After the first meeting I asked him nicely to just let go and have trust especially that whoever is approving the project already saw all the 3D renderings and things are ok, they will get exactly what was approved in the pictures. I reminded him of all the other very successful projects we executed for them (with him not there thank God). To no avail.
Risking sounding like the crazy person designers are thought to be, I told him how we can affect things with our negativity and that he should only look forward to the beautiful end result, basically in “baby” talk I asked him to only have positive thoughts about the whole thing, again, to no avail
Fair enough, LED lights delivery was delayed for 2 weeks (a first I might add), custom wood work was delayed (again a rare occurrence), fabric I chose earlier and reserved was sold by a great salesman and I had to choose new fabrics, shall I go on ? Do you get my point ?
Has this ever happened to you ? Do you believe in this ? Or is this too crazy ?
I am a big fan of Kelly, Hoppen that is, always have, probably always will be. We both share a deep passion (she does not know) which is an obsessive fascination with Taupe. The “King Of Taupe” title most probably would never be bestowed upon me, for even though I do love it and use it in abundance, I always get the urge to infuse the room with a tiniest bit of color. Unlike Ms. Hoppen, I can never exert enough self restraint to keep it at Taupe. Oh yes and I tend to change my designs a bit from one project to another, but that is a minor detail. So, as much as we are twin souls, we do have our individual slightly different characters.
I own all her books.
I follow her news.
I subscribe to her blog, which brings me to why I am posting about her. While enjoying reading all about her trip to the Far East and Russia, and her visit to the huge furniture store that carries her line, I learned that she was pushed into signing a few leather trunks from her new line. I felt envious of the “few lucky” people who would own one of those precious little trunks. WOW, a piece signed by Ms. Hoppen with what appears to be a gold marker pen. What I would do to have one of those.
By the way, she actually said “few lucky” about those eventually buying the trunks, and I quote “In the end I gave in so a few lucky people will have these “one time only” signed trunks”.
Just wondering, who is the lucky one in this instance, the owner of the precious little trunk, or the person who has people actually willing to pay money to own a piece of furniture with his/her marker scribblings on the leather ?
Just asking.
I have a Facebook account and a Facebook fan page, which reminds me that perhaps I should work more on promoting them, anyway I do, if you are interested.
The thing is I am “friends” with several well known designers on Facebook, not because I am special but I guess they accept adding anyone and everyone that adds them. But I think I am going to be deleted from their lists after this post. Maybe I should not post it there !
My observation is, why are they mute ? Well, except for their own news they are totally mute, nothing,not even a whisper, Nothing. They don't comment, they don't "like", they don't argue, what is going on there? Are they too important to do these menial things ? Or are they above that ? They are definitely not too busy to post and boast about themselves, but too busy to say something nice to anyone ? Even when someone comments on their status with very nice from the heart comments they do not respond. Is this a PR stunt that we are unaware of ? Are these the rules of belonging to "A" list designer categories ? Now I know I am not posting anything that might be of interest to them, but they are even silent with each other, and they all speak the same jargon (important design stuff that is) ! I am not going to mention that not once do they comment on blogs, but that is major anyway.
Just thinking out loud here. Not criticizing God forbid.
Click on the icon if you would like to join me on my Facebook page
I am very passionately expressing “This is what I see for your designs, blah blah blah blah………”
“Would this look good?” they ask
“Actually, no, it’s going to look horrible but I like playing around with people’s money and homes” is what came to mind.
I wish I would stop biting my tongue sometimes. But it is the smile and the lengthy explanation while holding the hand that comes out.
