 Narciso Rodriguez. I'm a fashion designer. I make dresses. I make shoes. I design accessories. Is there like a, yeah it's a bit of a crazier scene. Maybe we can turn up Narciso's microphone. Sorry. It's a sign. I'm very passionate about my work. I'm very impressed with my fellow award winner here, whose work I admire so much. I feel humbled to be in the presence of these guys. Wow. Should we pass this one? Is that me? Maybe we should pass that. Okay. I don't know. Maybe it's me. I'm good. Let's see if Andrew is my sparking and if not we'll pass this one. This will become the talking step. My name is Andrea Cochran. I'm a landscape architect and I have a small office in San Francisco. We're 14 people and our work really explores the intersection of architecture, art and landscape and tries to blur the boundaries between all those things. Our work, our studio is 14 people and it really sort of thinks about half that work is high in residential work. The other half is affordable housing and parks and wineries and hospitality. So it really is a very rich diversity of work and what I found is that one part of the work feeds the other and we can try things out on the residential projects and then have them built on the other institutional projects that allows us to create a more rich set of materials to work with. I'm Robin Standerfer. I own a company with my husband called Roman and Williams. It's an interior design firm but it's really a practice that makes things. We make spaces and objects and experiences and that's what we love to do and a real focus of the way that we approach interior design as a place to engage people and the spaces are stylistically diverse. They're about context and about being relevant to the client and the place they are on the planet and to always engaging the story, everybody's story in all of their spaces and I hope to get to tell you more about those spaces tonight. I'm going to start with some of the questions that I think the teens asked a lot of the designers this afternoon. So my first one is, do your parents understand what you do? Or how do you explain it to them? I would say most of the time, no. They have actually asked me repeatedly, what exactly is it that you do and how does this apply to search engines? But no, I think at certain points I've been lucky enough to work on a lot of different projects and some of them resonate with different audiences which has been interesting to see. But yeah, I think there's a bit of an eclectic portfolio. So some of the projects are really quite apparent and approachable and some of them are a bit more esoteric. But I think when we talk about both art and design, there's this question of answering questions versus asking questions and I think early on in my career design was this is like an amazing Brian Eno sound situation. Kind of enjoying it actually. Can you hear that? It's kind of magical. Anyway, at certain points I think art was defined as kind of a practice of asking questions and sorry, art being asking questions and design being art that answers questions or being kind of more targeted, having a client is another thing. So I think at certain points being able to break it down and say here are my motivations, here's why I do this, and here's the output and how it's applicable to this and that. It starts to make more sense to them. Can I check? Sure. No, it was difficult for my parents to understand why it would want to go into a career in the arts or design. I mean, I think for them, the law or doctor would be a wiser choice. But it took a long time. I remember even sort of midway into my career, I was working at Calvin Klein. I was one of the best design jobs in America. And my mom said to me one day, are you going to give up that ridiculous career of yours? And then over time when I started my career, they understood that whatever it was that I was doing was working, so they then understood what was going on. I don't know if my parents really understood. I went into landscape architecture because I wanted to, well actually by accident, I wanted to be an artist and they told me that being an artist was not, that wasn't going to fly, I had to be able to support myself. And so I became a landscape architect kind of by default because then I thought, well maybe I'd become a veterinarian because that was like a real thing. It was like natural science and that was the other thing I was interested in. And then I became a landscape architect just by accident in college by finding a class and someone talked about how those things related. And suddenly the interest in art and science became something that I could really do. And I think for them, I think they always thought of landscape architecture. Planting trees or digging holes are not like, not that it was a designed field. So, but then after a while they kind of got it, but it was, you know. Well no, just to start with that answer. But I think that, you know, when you make spaces and my parents are no different than I think a lot of people, they think of the end experience, which is sort of amazing. But the process of making the space seems completely strange and sort of magical that you go from that initial sketch to sometimes, in some cases three or four years, until you actually have a finished product. And that's a long time. I mean, think of fashion. There's so many things that are much more compressed about creating, going from a design to a finished product. And construction architecture spaces tends to be slow. I think that what is wonderful, my parents live in New York City. They get to experience a lot of our spaces. So I'd love to see the results. But the process seems, you know, I try to take them through it, but it's, I think, seems completely mystical to them. And I've sort of just come to accept that. I love that. Sorry to interrupt. Thank you. What I find really interesting about your answers to is that each of you, I think, has within your explanation has come up with an explanation about what design is, which in some ways are some of them are similar, but I think go with each of your fields. And I have one more childhood question, and then we'll move on from some Miss America questions to some other ones. But what did you do at an early age, and we don't have to go in order if people just want to jump in, what made you realize that design was the right path for you, even if you were dealing with parents who didn't understand or in circumstances where people didn't quite know what it is that you were aspiring to do, how did you figure out that that was the thing you needed to do, and how did it sustain you on a particular path? Ladies first. That's better? Yes. Well, you know, I think that when you love something and you have to look at its essence, I think for me design is about making things, and the essence of making things is something you love, and if you love it and you're devoted to it, I think that it sustains you. It sustains you through difficulty and not being sure or certain about which exact path to take. I think that, whether it's my relationship with parents or friends or education, always loving that sense of creation, always being inspired by making things, and whether that's about color or shape or technique or detail, that the essence of that, I think, can really keep you feeling rooted and keep a foundation that's very strong, that drives you through a lot of different challenges that any field has, but an artistic field, it's challenging to harmonize the administrative, the financial, and the artistic together, and I think that a lot of design fields, certainly a lot of the ones represented on this panel have those challenges, and I kind of love those challenges, but they're always something you have to persevere and work through every day in macro and micro ways. You know, I look at it backwards, because I didn't figure out what I was doing until I was kind of doing it. I was an adult, but in looking back, it's kind of no surprise what I am. I mean, my favorite thing to do was play in the woods and build forts. So, I mean, that's the landscape architecture seems kind of... And the other thing I love to do was, I like to play with the Barbie dolls, but I didn't care about the Barbie doll, I care about making furniture for the Barbie doll, or making clothes, or, you know, it was all about the creative process. So those are the two things, sort of a polar opposites, that, you know, build tree forts, be in the woods, and then designing things, and so in retrospect, looking back, it's not a surprise, but at the time, none of those things, and it certainly didn't lead me to the career path. It just, in retrospect, I realized, oh, I was kind of primed for it the whole time. Okay. Robin's point is so true. I mean, it's, for me as well, it was about making things, creating things, the inspiration, putting that into, I don't know, a building, a box, a shape of painting, and persevering, even when you sort of, you're inexperienced at what you're doing when you're young, and you're sort of testing the waters, trying to figure out what you want to do. You know, that paper, the scissors, the collages, cutting the fabric, was so meaningful to me that it sort of pushed me in the direction of fashion. Yeah, I never made a decision. I'm still waiting to make a decision. I think you have to know it's always been about creating things and making stuff, and what I've really liked about it. Oh, yeah. Oh, is that working now? Is this better? Can you hear me now? Cool. This is much better. Yeah, so for me, I never really made a, never really made a specific decision, and it's always been about making stuff, and what I really love about my discipline, if you can even call it that, is I get to do lots of different types of things, which means tackling new challenges and constantly kind of discovering and experimenting. So for me, it's always been about being output focused, but focusing on the journey as an exploration and trying to find new pathways and new applications of technologies. Erin, you mentioned when you were talking about your initial description of design about the idea of a client, which is one of the things that we talked about when sort of differentiating between art and design, that idea of functionality and a client. And I'm imagining that things are very different in terms of what Roman and Williams are doing or what Andrea's doing regarding a relationship with a client versus what Narciso or you are doing. So do you, any of you have an idea, so often for some of your work, you have a client in mind from the get-go, whereas with you, it might be different, but do you often think of a client when you're doing your work, a particular type of person? Is that often? Always, I mean, I think it's the most, it's like a rule to know who you're designing for. It's like the basis because if, and I think good design is built for people to use, it's practical. And so it starts with knowing your customer. That's a, I design for many women. I always, I mean, people designers, fashion designers sometimes bend themselves into these like kind of idealistic women who have downtown girls, chic girl, uptown lady, and I've never really been interested in that, I've been really interested in dressing women of all ages, everywhere, all body types. It's what I find to be really inspiring. So, I hope I answered your question. Anyone else want to chime in on your relationship to fashion? Yeah, because it's really about people. So, you, if you, I think, take your head out of the idea of a specific client, but think about this idea about this communal experience that if we hope, if we're successful, that engages a lot of different kinds of people, different ages, different demographics, right? I think that a great space, a great hotel, a great restaurant, although sometimes it becomes super popular, becomes kind of niche, and can be for a certain kind of group of people, or it's expensive, so that starts to kind of take certain people out of the ability to kind of go there and engage with it. But one thing we really love in a place like, let's say, the Ace Hotel is it's very much about sharing. You'll see someone there, one day I came in, I saw, and then four skateboarders come in, and a whole range of people, and that's when you do, like, I get goosebumps, you know you succeeded. Because people just are loving the experience, and it's not about only kind of making one kind of honey, do you know what I mean? It's like there's a lot of different bees, and that's, I think, a great thing about when design can really be inclusive, and not exclusive, it's at its highest hum. Because everybody's on? Can you guys hear in the area? Okay. Oh, I need a mic, okay. For us, I think it's really interesting. Our work is a little, I guess, schizophrenic that way because when we work for our residential clients, it's really about making a place kind of like, with you, where it's really identifies who that person is, and is there something about them or references something that's really powerful to them to express in the landscape. But on the commercial or institutional projects you're making places for lots of different people and it's very public. And on those, it's been interesting transition for me to kind of identify who they are, but I think what it comes down to is making really comfortable places where people feel that it's scaled appropriately and they're comfortable in terms of shade and sun, and you know, I think when you think about good design, then it draws people in and there's enough activity so that there's places for people to be alone or in groups, and I think they start to be drawn to it because they're comfortable there. For those of you who design spaces, are you ever surprised with what someone does with a space when you're done with it? Sometimes usually as part of the process discovering that narrative together, whether residential or commercial. You know, you're tending to, let's see the standard hotel, we had a lot of space that we weren't allowed to program but you were allowed to do something public so we made a little ice skating rink. And there was time, it was a long project, but there was time to kind of figure out how to again make this corner which is a very kind of prominent corner in New York City, right, on the 13th in Washington be active and not pass it. So, and also people are just like, how did that get here? I mean really, I have to say I think the best design is sort of unselfconscious and not sort of heavily purposeful and just sort of appears. I mean certainly we're all in the background but I think that it's again strongest. You're not forcing it on people and people are allowed to engage in it and enjoy it so I think people, yeah they do, to answer your question they do make more of it but you've created almost in a way like you've put those breadcrumbs there and then they come and sort of track them and then the temperature raises. As a landscape architect, I don't think anybody should become a landscape architect if they're control freak so our spaces are never look, I mean not never, but in 10 years they're completely different than they look and what we designed for day one is never what it's going to be later. I mean things happen, trees die, plants grow, there's a sort of evolution and it's like there's never one moment in time that it's the right moment so it's part of a continuum so yeah a lot of stuff happens and sometimes it's like and you have maintenance people and unfortunately in this country that's not the most I'm like you're up where it's really a profession that people study and learn a lot about so it's really something about evolution. I know Erin and so you do things very you know in different fields but what about your control freak or when do you have to let go of something? A lot of the projects that I work on are all about embracing chaos, a lot of the collaborative creativity projects like the Johnny Cash project or the sheet market is all about people hopefully you know breaking the rules but getting people to work together and actually highlighting their individuality and their creativity in this platform. I worked on a project at the Tate Modern called Exclusive Forest which was all about evolving animations and it was really an experiment in and of itself how do you make an interface that encourages people to create their own rules and then break those rules so no I'm really excited by embracing that. Sure I think all designers are control freaks now you have to you create something if you sketch it you have to bring it to life you have to see it through the production chain I'm meticulous about the way things fit how they're made what they're lined in yeah I guess control freak I would love to hear about for each of you in your own projects if there's one piece or one piece of work that you might identify with that was sort of a turning point for you in terms of being an expression of your individuality or in a professional way was kind of a key turning point that was a little Miss America E I know. Someone ready to go first? Aaron was. This is probably not the answer you're looking for but I feel like honestly each project has represented has been a turning point and kind of a constant repivoting and experimenting I think the a project I worked on a long time ago called the sheet market was one of the first experiments I did with Amazon Mechanical Turk and it was very much the thing that got me interested in collaborative creativity and getting people to work together to make something I think since then I've become a bit more optimistic about the future of humanity and it's the role of technology in that process so I think there was a bit of a pivot from more critical to more optimistic but it also was a serious pivot in really thinking about the potential more utopic applications of some of these technologies remaining critical and hoping to encourage that kind of discourse because it's important. It's very true, I think for me since I started to work or sketch or design I think it's been process of evolution and one season we start I start thinking of one thing that doesn't really come to life until two seasons later but there are different there are different moments that have just I think my career or my work in people's minds press moments the wedding dress that they did those moments I think bring your work to a broad audience but then there's the evolution your personal journey which is the best part, the hardest part the sweetest part the part for me that's the most fulfilling I think it is an evolution and I think for me starting my own office 15 years ago was a big moment where I could sort of express myself as an individual designer and not be part of a partnership or a firm but I think the big thing for me too has been editing and trying to edit edit edit and to get to the minimum that you can edit where it's not boring and get to that point where you feel like I think with your younger design you want to add stuff in and try new things and I think when you get to a point where you're comfortable you can take stuff away and feel good about it I think that's sort of a career point where you feel confident that we don't need that, we don't need that and you can be your own editor I think that to me was a critical point and continues to be Oh, it's just so interesting to listen to everybody's answers I like going last I think that it certainly is there's two parts one is that the experience I think that I have with Spaces and I've talked about that before but that experience is sort of so important and that's why I think that Steven and I are very focused on stylistically not being interested in doing one thing doing high, doing low doing a lot of different kinds of things because I think that then it becomes about your engagement first with process which is personal and extraordinary I think that again going back to making things why I do this is because I love that whole sequence the challenge of that process and touching every material and visual color and every shape and all the conversations and everything that goes into that although it can be overwhelming and intense and infuriating and really extraordinary and satisfying but then so that's one part of it and that's a very in a way private part of it because like going back to the question about family no one even as much as we're partners and we're a couple it's very personal that design moment when you see that color you see that shape and then you can see people react to it and it's the own experience sometimes you get that they'll connect with the experience you had but often it's completely independent and that tension between yours and then giving it away is I think one of the most satisfying and amazing things about doing this excuse me are you satisfied when you look at some of your older work when you do you think it's critical or would you redesign it or do you think it's just right the way it was no I mean I think especially working with technology it's really challenging because technology is changing very quickly and it's very difficult to archive a lot of the stuff and it's very difficult to look at it with the eyes that you had when you created it in the context that it existed I think about what they meant to me at that point in time and now realize that they won't have that meaning to any of the viewers but that doesn't bother me there's new stuff to do yeah some things could always be made better I think when you I mean I work on deadline too so sometimes I have no choice but to end it and then you could look back about NAW for out of sleeve but I don't know I think it is for me it is the process that always takes me to the next season so I look back sometimes fondly sometimes scared but it's the foundation of what I do so I have to look back okay sorry we're working with two mics here I have a couple projects that are kind of favorites that I look back on and I'm really proud of and I feel like they have the timeless quality and then I have others that I think they were fine for the time but I've moved on and I can see where I've moved on from there but there's a couple that I'm still very proud of oh I don't know there's always there's always little things you want to change and with spaces they keep living and they also do there's operators and they have a life of their own so you go in and people have added things you can like those things sometimes they surprise you and you love them sometimes you can't stand them and so I think that um but it is it's cumulative I think as each thing happens you realize that that was influenced by something else that you did before and then that leapfrogs is something that you do next and there are always a conversation between all of them but when every time I think something opens as it were like usually I mean residential projects are unique that's a different kind of experience but public spaces which we do a lot of you know there's never seems to be enough time or enough money or enough anything so there's always a moment of difficulty kind of let go you give it away and it's sort of like a child it has a life of its own and you're on to the next one so then don't look back, yes check um either in your own design category or beyond it what inspires you to create today and is there something that you're working on today that you think is pointing you in a future direction can think for a minute I don't know if you've heard that Narciso said it was a secret I mean I think there's there's countless new technologies we live in an incredibly exciting time so I see where I first started trying to get started doing like data visualization projects and there was no data to be had and you know I would work with public APIs and there would be traffic accidents about you know mortality and it was totally not where I was trying to be but now there's just an abundance of all kinds of fascinating data and fascinating technology so the hardest part is actually deciding what not to do as opposed to what to do um but I what inspires me is just exploration and you know it's like being a pioneer or something, astronaut just for change of views um yeah I think you discover that again as part of the process I don't know I mean we've made some spaces that have had some cultural relevance that have changed people's I think experiences but I don't again I think it's about loving what you do so much and sort of just being so focused so inside it I think if you really are getting a rhythm and being inside it then they will come if you will and then the response comes and there's a powerful connection with it and I don't know that you really preconceived that you're going to make the next big thing I just don't really believe it works like that so I don't have a hard time when I look back at projects that are more important I think people have a real powerful reaction and relationship to I could not pinpoint how all those things come together it's like cooking it's spontaneous and when they come together it's incredible but I people ask us all the time I would say press call and say what's the next big thing all the time I'm like I have no idea but hopefully somehow I know by doing it and discovering it that way for us I think the change is we're starting to design a line of furniture with an outdoor furniture company so that to us takes us into more product design which has been a really interesting thing to work with and I think also doing predominantly residential high and residential work where it's really about this emotion and personality that's very palpable and sort of tuning into that other person to doing much more public spaces and more civic scale spaces which have a longer lifespan and you're not thinking about what's going to work for now but designing for the really long time and making things that are really enduring and so that's been a really interesting shift for us as we think about that different scale oh thanks so your question was about inspiration to me everything that we're working on in the office is a top secret and the inspiration for the next season I mean I said it jokingly but it's kind of true I walk to work I take pictures of everything that I see people how they look how they're walking down the street and I get to the office and I put it all down and some of it makes it to the wall of inspiration and some of it gets discarded but it's all kind of drives drives ideas and makes the next season makes the next season come to life in a very mysterious way I mean I don't know how all of these little bits of inspiration drive that next collection but they do I think we live in a world now where more and more people sort of know about design or think they know about design in ways that I think that five or ten years ago it probably wasn't something that people would as easily identify with what do you think this kind of general popular knowledge about design does for the future of design blessing and a curse blessing and a curse I mean it's it creates a challenge and I don't say that only because I happen to be a design professional it's more about defining what design means and it goes back to when I talked about it being unselfconscious it starts to create design with a capital D and I personally and I think certainly at our practice and Steven and I feel like we are interested in design being again egalitarian and integrated even if sometimes we make things that don't fall into that category we run a business right and there's certain realities about running a business but in a philosophical way I think sometimes all those people knowing about design sometimes it engages a big community that are interested and that's the blessing that's beautiful that's wonderful but I think the curse can be that it doesn't always allow design to be cooked and hatched and really considered on a level it starts to make it kind of too fast and immediate that anything can be designed and I actually think it's a very I love spontaneity but I think there needs to be a great amount of consideration to what design means and what making something means and that that's an important crossroads I think we're at with a lot of sort of TV a lot of content and I love to hear what Aaron has to say about it because that design content and that's it's sort of cool like with music like everyone's sharing it but then how do you then create at that same time a platform to where you're setting it apart where you're making something that stands out as something that has a point of view that's not just diluted by it being coming from every different direction and I'm interested in where how those two things are going to play in a unique moment now with the amount of design content that is everywhere and it's good and bad right but it's challenging to be part of that tide I think for us as landscape architects it's an amazing time because for the first time almost ever I've been practicing for a long time people actually know they can name a landscape architect and know what landscape architecture is I mean like fashion design people could name for hundreds of years people who were at the forefront of those fields it's only now and even in architecture it's become more and more but in landscape architecture it's a profession that's come into its own that actually has someone has a preference or an idea I love it I'm like go for it, tell me what you think because before it's like these blank stairs like no one knew what you did or how you did it so for me the idea that there's actually more information out there and design in landscape architecture is actually understood as a profession is I'm thrilled I'll continue on my optimistic track I think to me in dealing with computers and technology there's sometimes this feeling that there's a battle between design and the tech design usually represents tech moving more towards human not human moving more towards tech and I think that's a good thing that I'm excited about and I think it's generally it's seeing design really take over the technology world has been really powerful and exciting and inspiring and I think it's really important frankly because technology is playing such an important role in our lives having it be sympathetic to what has evolved for millions of years to be us is crucial for our happiness and really improves upon our success, our efficiency and fundamentally what more important things like it being fun to be alive so many interesting different perspectives on one question I mean for fashion it's a little confusing because design, I mean for me represents something very rarefied, something very considered something well made and executed and something really thoughtful and so much of fashion today not just in fashion but many many disciplines there's fashion design, there's way too many people putting product out or people misleading consumers with what they call design and I think it just for me it's a little bit confusing because it's overwhelming there's so much so much out there putting on fashion shows who have a right to put on a fashion show but it's not really design and I'm kind of tough on myself and the team that I work with we love design we appreciate everything that everyone does and we hold it sort of sacred so it's a tough thing although I have two more pages of questions I actually would love to turn this over to the audience because I'm sure a lot of people out here have questions as well so if people could oh great we have a mic stand over here so it would be great if you have a question if you could come up and identify yourself and let us know if you're a designer or interested in design let us know how that informs your question it would also be great because Narciso has to leave early if those who have questions for him might start us off so please come up if you have a question it's no time to be shy I have a question I speak into this cool so my name is Margo I work at a fashion start up here in the city although I'm not a designer I went to design school for a year after I got my BA in economics so probably an aspirational designer but it hasn't happened yet I guess my question is I'm inspired often always by things visually auditory here I go now with adverbs for senses things I see on the street things I hear music people I meet I'm not necessarily quite sure the best medium in which to manifest it so I'll draw or I'll make some music but it's never really focused in that like it's never been a driving force that I will focus all of my inspiration is one medium so I guess my question is was it very clear to you really early on was it going to be clothing or apparel or that it was going to be in the tech space or AI or was it going to be in spaces or experiences was it obvious to you or was there some kind of period sorry for me it was very obvious I was eager at 15 some fabric I needed to make something but that doesn't I mean everyone's journey is so different I mean I work with people who studied architecture who studied graphic design and then worked I met an attorney who was 40 and loved fashion so much and knew so much about fashion she just gave up law and started from the bottom so I mean everybody's path is different and it just you keep creating whichever way you need to create until you find where you're supposed to be I think anyone else have an answer to that or can we have another question hey guys thank you very much it's a wonderful conversation I feel like the other capital D word right now is data driving business design there's a feedback loop now that's really informing us I'm a great director I deal with a number of different media and obviously digital is a big part of it but I also think about how data is now informing design and I I don't know when this will happen but I'm just waiting for the scales the tip unfortunately and I said unfortunately because I feel like it's not the base but it's sort of hard to deny when you do see results this may be more predominantly in the user experience but I do think it could be quantified in fashion how were your sales how was the ace reservation and so on so I'm curious to see how is data and how is this feedback loop playing a role in your maybe in your vision of success or in your entree to the next thing and your expectation of it or you're embracing of it or maybe you hate it I'm sort of struggling with it as well but curious to hear your take thanks it's a good question and I think it's actually a pretty nuanced answer I think it's clear that there's a lot of power that can come from analysis and from a lot of the data that can be gathered and forming that recursive feedback loop but there's also some pitfalls that are easy to fall into as you get gravitationally pulled towards something and that local maximum may not actually be the ultimate maximum that can be achieved by taking a leap and doing something that's totally different than has been done before so I don't know if that really answers your question but I'm both optimistic and excited about the potential for data to help us with these recursive understandings but also realize you need to take risks and do crazy stuff that data I initially say is headed the wrong direction and ultimately turns out to be something bigger and better I think that's a absolutely right answer and if there is one and I can tell you that because we had a history Steve and I before we opened Roman Williams in the movie business and we designed sets for films and now there's similarities between the two but the reason I bring it up is because in both cases too much data analysis can often constrict creativity it can because it's so studied and those spontaneous seemingly absurd ideas that often create unquestionably the greatest work and I see it all the time I mean I was in a meeting yesterday where someone said well and these two guys that we've worked with down in Miami and these awesome two Israeli guys who make the greatest drinks in the world and have won all these awards and all these herbs and everything they do is sort of counter to everybody's analysis of how a bar or restaurant should be operated they're really just doing their own thing and they're really getting incredible response and profiting but some new investors came in and they were like oh we think they're using too much ice and we have to do an ice analysis of exactly the amount of ice because we could spend on using a few less cubes of ice every day now I'm all for look you definitely don't want to call me to give you the greatest financial advice in the world like I'm focused more on I mean we do okay at Roman and Williams but it's just money is not the first priority but I'll tell you when you're creating something extraordinary if you're lucky enough to get there too much data analysis I don't think would be your starting point it can certainly help inform you but it can also just crush you next question so I was just wondering if you guys had any advice for someone who's looking to actually switch industries and enter the design industry I personally I work in the financial industry right now so but interior design has been a passion of mine since I was a child so just wondering you know if you had any advice I know in RCC you mentioned someone that changed industries at the age of 40 and started from the bottom just you know any advice that you guys had I just say I hope you have some money in the bank to make a transition if you're really passionate about it you I mean you have no choice right I mean you have to you you can't take no for an answer right you just have to do it if you can Hello my name is Michelle Mitchell I'm a student a senior student at the City College of New York I'm studying electronic design and multimedia right now and our classes are they give us the opportunity to be very explorative also so we learn the foundations we learn structure but our professors give us like room to just reach out so sometimes I come across concepts where I have a great idea or I thought it was a great idea and then when I'm working it out something gets a little sketchy and then I lose myself and I can't figure out how to finish it so when you were or even now how did you like refocus and come back like to the beginning so that the concept you had can actually be carried out to like its completion and giving up on that project for me it's always been about passion it's like everything that I've worked on has gotten started off by some kind of curiosity or some kind of excitement or interest and then that passion makes me follow through until I have some form of deliverable even if that's nothing that anybody else is interested in usually it turns out that if I follow through and have some kind of some output now but at some point later remember that I did that and it will have some hook to something else that I did one thing is don't beat yourself up because it turned out to maybe not be ready maybe the timing wasn't right eventually those things do make you a more mature explorer so I think keeping a catalog and taking a lot of notes and trying to follow your passions are the things that have worked for me great answer everyone's going with Aaron's answer on that next question so on this panel of four we have two people from San Francisco and it sounds like the other two are from New York how important would you say your location or your environment or your living space is to collecting inspiration whether it's on your walk to work or even if it's just allowing you that freedom to run with an idea I'll just say that I don't think I would be where I am today if I had I was born in New York City and coming to California was the best thing I could have done professionally it was an environment that encouraged people lived outside they did things outside I see things all the time so for my career I think it's a great place I think for a lot of other careers maybe for architecture and others probably not the best place but that's my experience this is a funny answer just born and raised in New York City but I actually think that focusing on Andrea just even her profession I think getting to nature is an amazing and critical thing to do wherever you live so if you're making in or New York City or Miami it's I have found and it happened to me actually late in life because growing up in New York City you don't spend a lot of time with me or I didn't and being able to do that and making that a priority has I would say helped my ability to be successful as designer a huge an incalculable amount I love being in New York City but to me it's so inspiring everywhere I look here whether it's architecture the people the way the city moves the grittiness the glamour everything about it is just I think it is at the core of everything that inspires me today I love Tokyo and I love traveling it's beautiful to take a walk in the woods but I'm just surrounded by such great design every day and I love it I've been offered jobs in Europe and I keep coming running I run back to New York wherever I am it's really such a great city for design I'm originally from Southern California and there's been countless advantages to being around people working in technology in the Bay Area but those who know me know that I love to be around you as much as possible in college I studied abroad twice but I feel like you can get also nature being included in that you get inspiration from everything around you and diversification flexing your muscles is usually valuable so while I love the Bay Area I don't try to stay there all the time is there a question over here we met before my name is JC Campbell and it's kind of piggybacking off a question that somebody asked earlier and that actually jump ship to start venturing into your passion versus staying into whatever you're doing I guess what I'm trying to ask is what's the biggest risk you guys have taken and do you either regret taking it or looking back do you feel like it catapulted to where you guys are now before I started my business I had breast cancer I was in a partnership for a long time and I was afraid to leave because I didn't know if I could do it on my own and so faced with that choice I thought well I have to lose so I just I quit and I worked out of my house where previously I had been in a studio so I just completely cut back I had part time people come in and help me and I just totally changed everything and within a year I had enough work that I could afford to move back into a space and share with some people and then I built it up and now I have 15 people in my office so I think sometimes you're afraid to take a risk and life makes you take a risk and once you take that risk I would not have been where I would I realize I'm so happy today and I actually think of it as a blessing that I had to make a change and I think sometimes change is really hard and it's really scary and sometimes you have to just make yourself do it It's all about taking calculated risks I think one of the things I've been most surprised about is the things that felt like the biggest risks in retrospect don't actually seem like they in college I went in in computer science and I switched to fine art and that seemed like a crazy risk at the time I was so happy that I made that decision and kind of don't get me wrong because I work with and admire a lot of computer sciences but for me personally that felt like a huge risk to change paths and I'm hugely happy I did but I feel like there's countless risks and often times it's about taking the risks where it feels like it's pretty big fall down and often times it turns out to not actually be that much like the potential upside for going out on a limb usually quite a bit higher people will forget the pitfalls or you can work past them just creatively taking bigger risks it's not as risky as it may seem at certain times noted sure risk is a good thing it forces you to rethink everything that you thought was your path I mean whether it's one from one season to the next in your career my career I've always tried to take a risk it's a good thing just realized I gave kind of a bumbling answer and what I was really trying to say was that not taking a risk is sometimes a bigger risk that's that's what we all wanted to say thank you that's exactly okay we have time for one last question hi my name is Jennifer you know and I'm very interested to hear about mentors in your professional development and why you recognize or chose them as mentors in your life and pieces of advice that resonate with you or have resonated with you that you'd be able to share with us I think sometimes they are unexpected and you recognize them more in hindsight so if I look at people now I've had them along the way and it's not even about naming them so specifically as they were moments, moments with certain family members moments with certain teachers moments with going and hearing somebody speak that I think inspired always again speaking personally inspired me to feel like I could take that risk like gave me a certain amount of confidence in certain decisions so I think that it's less about that one person who gives you that direction than a collection of experiences that start to create a mentorship and so yeah I can't and maybe I do think in some people's cases they can point to one person but I think it's about trying to be that kind of great sponge and sometimes I think a book can mentor you it's about how you treat the information and how you absorb it and then what you do with it maybe I'll jump in for a quick second I had a bunch of amazing professors in grad school who taught me a lot and what they really taught me most was that each one of them had an amazing perspective on the same thing and they were all right but had I taken all of their feedback and tried to incorporate it would have been horrible a little bit of fiasco in actuality what they taught me was not listening to people is important and actually really being selective about what you do it's okay there's tons of things that are right simultaneously and figuring out which one works for you and what you feel most strongly about going there was really what I learned from them mostly absolutely that part the hard part is figuring out which is the one that's right for you but that's so important you get all of this great advice I remember someone saying to me you should start your own business and I thought they're crazy I couldn't possibly do this without support eventually I did do that I don't know it's finding those jewels that's the hard part great first I'd like to thank you all for coming and I'd also like a round of applause for our great panel we look forward to welcoming you all back to Cooper Hewitt on December 12th so mark your calendars I'm really excited and also we hope you celebrate National Design Week in all sorts of ways this week by going on our website looking at our videos attending some of the programs at Harlem or coming to our Gala so thank you