Designer as Therapist

More than a decade ago, I put together a series of special home furnishings inserts for a regional weekly newspaper called the TAB. Having never worked in publishing, I found the general atmosphere there much more poisonous than any other work environment that I had ever seen or experienced. Judging by what I was being paid, the pay scale must have been abysmal - what made it bearable for me was the positively delightful editor that I worked for. Coming off of a self-designed sabbatical, I had made a commitment to myself to try new and "fun" stuff and this gig - I thought - fit the description.

What jogged this memory for me was Home Is Where the Head in today's "New York Times Home and Garden" section. "Architects complain that they are asked to behave more like mental health professionals than designers, clients complain that their architects and their mates do not understand them, and the stories of couples coming asunder, or of clients suing their architects, are legion." Christopher K. Travis, an architectural designer in Texas has found a solution: "an exhaustive psychological and aesthetic compatibility exercise for would-be home builders that is part New Age self-help manual, part personality test."

I looked on my time at the TAB as a learning experience. What I learned is that the most successful residential designers had first been in some form of counseling - art therapist, sex therapist, sociology and even teaching. I finally came to understand why my initial forays into residential design had come to naught - I never found that counseling connection. In hindsight, a lesson learned - I finally understood why I found business much more interesting! (I also learned the few companies that were getting their money's worth from their p.r. agencies. I found small boutique agencies were happy to be helpful to a novice working with a circulation of 600.000, while larger agencies failed to follow up because they were busy putting out boilerplate releases. I am often curious whether anything has changed in the ensuing decade+.)

The "New York Times" story reinforces the importance of the psychological connection that we all have to our homes for those in the business of making and marketing products for the home.