Velinda back (so soon) because I couldn’t leave you wallowing in grief for too long. THIS IS A DESIGN blog. And despite it all, we’ve been designing! But not in a way we’re used to… well not EXACTLY.
Before we lose those of you who read one paragraph and skip to the photos (yes, I see you), I want to give a big accolade to my E-Team, led by fellow EHD alumn, Grace De Asis. And we owe a GIANT thank you to our impressive, first E-clients who not only executed all of these designs themselves, but also filled in as photo-stylist AND photographer. There wasn’t a pro on-site… like, ever. We never made a site visit. Still, these ‘amateurs’ have made us so happily-impressed and today, they’re boldly sharing their reveals. We’ve met them via Zoom. They’ve uploaded questionnaires, ‘Pinned’ inspiration, communicated measurements, and hopped along for the ride as we discovered this whole E-Design thing. We’re forever grateful.
So about this unique (errr… crazy?) way of working. Covid has had us all adapting and we feel incredibly fortunate to be able to work from the safety of home. Still, I opted to start a business in January of 2020… Cool. As a ‘2020’ startup/first-time business venture, there’s nothing like adapting a process that doesn’t even exist yet to new, global pandemic restrictions. Goodbye, familiar design process.
But wait! As I started to break down a lot of our familiar, Emily-led processes, I realized the EHD design team was actually QUITE trained in working from afar. Afterall, for The Portland Project we spent a ton of time drawing up concepts for a project that was located in…. well, you guess. The Mountain House; we could check in more frequently, but it was still a couple of hours away, so a lot of those details were dreamed up remotely. When we did Target shoots, we worked with unreleased inventory that we couldn’t see, touch, or feel until the product was on-site, yet we successfully formed designs based on color, imagery, and dimensions. And for flash makeovers, in order to pull off the ‘surprise’, we could only sneak in to grab measurements ONCE. The rest of the design took place from afar.
So, while I don’t believe designers should think in terms of 2D and while so much can be said for ‘feeling’ a space IRL… Our training through Emily, serendipitously, prepared us to design our way through a pandemic. And magically, has led us to the coolest, down-to-earth clients all around the world. (Our first E-client was located in the Netherlands!)
This is a reveal post, so I want to skip to the fun part! But so you aren’t totally lost on how we get to these end results, the basics of our process is set up to mimic our process of working with ‘Full Service’ clients; the cliff notes of which are:
- Intake: Questionnaire, Photos/Measurements, Client Inspiration Imagery
- Design Prep: Concepts & Moodboards, Internal Inspiration imagery, 3D Modeling/Drawing
- Presentations: Zoom-based check-ins on Concepts & Floor Plan Options
- Sourcing: The fun part. We shop. Clients hold the power to ‘approve’
- Final Design: We reign it all into a cohesive design and pull together renderings to assure a successful, client-led, design-execution. We also throw in tips, important dimensions, design alternatives, etc.
And if you’re one to need more than the cliff notes, you can find out all of the below here:
- Budget expectations
- How to know if E-Design is right for you
- What E-Design is & isn’t
- How we’ve made it ‘digestible’ (our Menu)
And now, onto the fun!