Mentorship can be a rewarding experience for both the mentee and the mentor. But how do you figure out if mentorship is for you? Is it a commitment really worth doing?

Many interior designers become mentors for a variety of reasons such as giving back to the industry, reinvigorating their creativity, and pursuing a new purpose in life. Mentorship is a great way to use your experience as a navigation to guide new designers towards success.

But just like any other journey, passion alone won't make you a good mentor. Mentorship requires patience, effort and time in order to build a strong relationship with your mentee. There is mutual benefit from mentorship as you will not only develop your skillset but can help elevate someone else's design profile.

Let's explore what it means to become a mentor for interior designers...

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What do interior design mentors do?

Becoming an interior design mentor is all about inducing growth. Your primary goal is to get to know your mentee, recognise their skillset and improvement areas, and introduce them to the vast range of career opportunities available. Additionally, you're responsible for conducting professional training and creating a development plan for steady progress.

However, the role of an interior design mentor extends beyond guidance. You should aim to become a role model for your mentee by being respectful, taking accountability and staying transparent. By embodying the qualities you wish to cultivate, you motivate them to reach their full potential.

Moreover, mentoring interior designers involves nurturing them to become strong leaders in the industry. Beyond honing their technical expertise, it entails developing their soft skills. With good leadership, effective communication skills and undeniable talent, they're invincible.

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Benefits of becoming a mentor

Mentorships benefit the mentor just as much as the mentees. It fuels your passion for your craft and at the same time, gives your career a whole new purpose.

Here are three reasons why you should become an interior design mentor:

Pass on your expertise

With years of experience in the industry, you have a wealth of knowledge waiting to be shared. Not just in design, but in other areas such as emotional intelligence, networking and building a reputation.

Becoming an interior design mentor lets you pass this stored knowledge to new designers. This keeps your values and experience alive even after decades—even after you've forgotten them yourself.

Build relationships with designers in the new generation

Mentorship also expands your pool of opportunities. As someone who's been by their side during their highs and lows, you get the front seat by the time they reach their goals. A proud mentor moment.

But apart from the satisfaction of seeing mentees succeed, these relationships also birth opportunities for future collaboration. After a few years, your previous mentees could become a high-priority client or a one-call-away fellow interior design expert.

Give back to the industry

Last but not least, being a mentor lets you give back to those who guided you when you were starting out. By nurturing designers who care as much about society as they do about their careers, you contribute to creating a more peaceful and welcoming industry in the future.

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3 types of interior design mentoring

When starting your journey as an interior design mentor, one thing to consider is the type of mentorship you're offering. This will determine the preparations you need to make along the way.

Three types of interior design mentoring:

One-to-one mentorship

One-to-one mentoring is when you and your mentee set a regular weekly or monthly meeting schedule. This type of mentorship is best if you prefer to focus on one mentee at a time.

During every interaction, you identify your mentee's struggle points and recommend actionable ways for them to work around these issues. You'll also brainstorm tailored solutions, track their progress, and provide feedback consistently.

Group mentorship

As opposed to the previous type, group mentorship is when you meet several mentees in one class. The discussions are more generalised and mentees are free to share their works, ask questions, and receive feedback.

Group mentorship is great if you'd like to work with several mentees at once. Or, if you have an existing network of designers who are interested in joining your classes.

Online mentorship

Lastly, you can do remote or online mentorship. Online mentorship often happens through video conferences or emails and is best if you have a tighter schedule or prefer to stay at home.

The agenda is more or less the same as traditional mentoring. Except, it gives you plenty of time to prepare, lets you record your meetings (with consent!), and allows you to work around your mentee's and your schedule easier.

Where to sign up as an interior design mentor

Mentorship schemes you can sign up to now as a mentor.

Built by Us

Best for: BAME advocates

If you're passionate about helping underrepresented groups grow their interior design career, become a volunteer mentor at Built By Us. Built by Us works towards creating a future consisting of a diverse workforce. An industry where everyone is treated equally regardless of race, gender, and belief.

As a mentor, you are asked to devote a fragment of your time to any of the following mentorship programmes:

• FLUID - 12-month one-on-one mentoring
• Shape - 6-month one-on-one mentoring
• Build programme - speed mentoring

Be a volunteer mentor at Built by Us today.

Creative Mentor Network

Best for: Knowledge-hungry designers

The Creative Mentor Network is a great platform for those who are a bit anxious about mentoring. It's normal—everyone starts as a beginner.

To officially become a mentor, you first need to complete eight hours of training to equip yourself with the skills and resources for a better mentorship experience for your mentees. Every week, you will require to commit at least one hour for mentorship.

Mentor training comes with a small fee. However, the knowledge incurred and the satisfaction of seeing your mentees grow make it all worth it.

Start your mentor training with Creative Mentor Network.

Shadow to Shine

Best for: Empathy-driven designers

Shadow to Shine is a passion project that gives everyone a chance to succeed. Whether they're students, professionals, ex-convicts, and so on!

As a volunteer mentor at Shadow to Shine, you are required to complete at least ten mentoring sessions within twelve months. Alternatively, you can request one-off mentoring sessions instead. You'll most likely meet mentees from all stages of life, hence you need to foster a non-judgmental learning experience at all times.

Sign up to become a Shadow to Shine mentor.

The Society of British & International Interior Design (SBID)

Best for: Networking guru

If you're thrilled about meeting the most talented interior design students in Europe, then you should join the SBID Student Mentoring Programme!

This is a six-month-long one-on-one mentorship where you'll be responsible for nurturing one of the promising talents of SBID. Within six months, you'll discuss your mentee's goals and help them obtain the resources they need. This includes experience, network, and exposure to different career paths.

The potential for mentees to become part of your interior design firm may be the cherry on top!

Learn how to become an SBID mentor today.

International Interior Design Association (IIDA)

Best for: Raw talent magnet

IIDA has given over 500 mentorship opportunities to students since 2011. So if you're looking for talented new designers to collaborate with in the future, this is your chance.

IIDA mentors can work with one mentee at a time or request several mentees at once. The pairing is determined on a first come first serve basis and you'll be doing a series of in-person, virtual, and hybrid sessions depending on you and your mentee's availability.

Best part? You don't need to be an IIDA member to join. Enquire now.

During the sakura season in Japan, it is not uncommon to find a group of strangers congregating around a singular tree, their eyes fixed upwards on the pink blossoming branches. They may stand like this, statuesque save for the occasional snap of a camera, for 20 minutes at a time. When Winnie Tam first witnessed this scene, she was in awe. Winnie had never before witnessed such a collective appreciation for the natural world, a public acknowledgement that it is the small moments in life that bring the most joy.

Winnie is an architectural designer. Or rather, Winnie's creativity currently manifests in the design of physical spaces (she struggles to confine herself to any one title). "I studied a long time to earn the title of architect, but I don't feel that architecture encompasses all that I do." Winnie is also the founder and director of Fourteen a.m., a design studio specialised in creating sanctuaries for city dwellers—restorative spaces where one can find shelter from our relentlessly fast-paced and over-consumptive society.

As a character, Winnie is gentle but assured—a manner that is hard to describe but immediately evident in her designs: a note of amber timber, a perfectly blemished wall—subtle but intentional. Winnie's designs are understated, but the thinking behind them is deep and complex. I invited Winnie to share a pot of peppermint tea and escort me through her intricate way of thinking in the hopes of identifying the essence of her signature style.

Origins of Fourteen a.m.

Winnie's greatest tool is nature. Nature gives Winnie space. Many famous creatives have ruminated on boredom's role in creativity, the principle being that boredom allows you to empty your mind of distraction, in order to make room for new ideas. Winnie explains that nature is her escape from distraction, "Normally we're too stressed and distracted but in nature, we are able to zone out and hear our own minds." In nature, Winnie also finds ready-made inspiration. "When I take the time to look at a tiny little leaf or lichen or rock formation, I am in awe of the beauty, shape, texture, and function. I always want my designs to remind us of some form of nature."

Ironically, Winnie has always lived in some of the world's largest metropolises. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Winnie moved to London to study and has also spent time living in Tokyo. She half-jokes, "If I were to move to the country, I'm not sure I'd know how to live there." The places Winnie has called home have influenced her perspective on both the world and on her craft. "My design style is a juxtaposition of city living. Growing up in a city breeds a 'head down' mentality. You feel stressed all the time and you walk by so many beautiful moments because you don't know how to appreciate things." It was moving to Japan that allowed Winnie a fresh perspective. "Japanese culture definitely influenced the way that I am now. Too often we look at things, but we fail to really see them. In Japan, every single season is appreciated. Every single day, there is something to celebrate—even the smallest things." Tokyo's residents are swallowed by city life but still manage to slow down and cherish the world around them. Japan also fostered Winnie's appreciation for intentional, traditional craftsmanship. She explains, "In Japan, every detail has meaning and there is a very particular reason why things are done in a certain way. I credit that to care, when you care for something it becomes meaningful. Somehow, when you pay more attention, you gain a lot more enjoyment."

Winnie continued this more mindful way of walking through life upon her return to London. If anything, for all her time spent in the city she has learnt to appreciate nature more, "For me, it is the wonder of finding amazing things that are so often overlooked. When I take the time to appreciate nature, I find life a lot more beautiful. A piece of beautiful foliage growing out of a drain can create a moment of pause and appreciation.  It would be nice to constantly be in that state of wonder, but sometimes it means more when you really need it. Everyone experiences those moments: when life is stressful, and you're facing a problem, and you feel like it's the end of the world—and then you look at nature. It reminds you that everything is okay, it's just a matter of perspective."

Despite her internal connection to the natural world, Winnie's early experience as an architect was defined by high rises and corporate contracts, working on projects such as Paddington Square University campuses on Euston Road. Playing a role in such large-scale projects was a mark of success for an early-career architect but for Winnie, there was a missing piece of the puzzle. "Whilst I enjoyed my work, it didn't satisfy me. I had excellent opportunities but I didn't feel like I was making an impact or that I couldn't bring my own message." Whilst grappling with her own personal sense of fulfilment, Winnie realised that her work in construction coupled with city living was the catalyst of all the stress in her life. The two paths of realisation culminated in the founding of her own practice, Fourteen a.m. Why Fourteen a.m.? Because it is a time that does not exist. "It's an impossible moment, like living in a city and finding isolation or undergoing a construction project and not being stressed. These things feel impossible, but I want to make them possible." Fourteen a.m. is as much a journey of self-discovery as it is a business venture. In the beginning, even Winnie didn't know what direction it would take. "I didn't actually know what it, or I, was all about in the beginning but over time I have learned so much about myself. Designing is a way to influence others whilst also understanding myself."

A space to call home

In 2020, Winnie began a full renovation of her own home.  The project was originally intended as a proof of concept of sorts for Fourteen a.m. but due to Covid-related delays in construction, Fourteen a.m. came to be before its completion. "Before you launch a business, you convince yourself you have to have a certain amount in place but it's not the case. As with construction, we tend to go about building a business in a very rigid way but that is where the stress comes from." Instead, Winnie opted for a more organic approach, assessing the situation rationally but avoiding imposing set boundaries.

Regardless of the timeline, designing her own home taught Winnie invaluable lessons for her new venture. Playing the role of both the designer and the client, Winnie came to better understand the client perspective. "In that job, I was the client, the designer, and the project manager. Access to all those mentalities incentivised me to make the process less stressful. I understood the ins and outs of how the design was progressing, I had complete control over its development and yet I still felt stressed. You can only imagine how stressed an uninformed client must be. Now, I keep my client as involved as possible throughout the process."

Winnie's definition of involvement spans beyond allowing clients to share preferences for furniture and colour palettes. In fact, the renovation of the home itself is just the beginning. Winnie explains that home and lifestyle are intrinsically linked, "I want Fourteen a.m. clients to embark on a personal journey. There is no sense in building a beautiful, serene home to live in without a mindset to match." Winnie is currently working with a mindfulness expert to implement a programme for personal development alongside the development of the physical space. "An architectural project will take a minimum of one year. I'm given that one-year window to gift my clients educational material and expose them to a more mindful way of living. We're developing a really woven process. Ultimately, the zen space my clients end up with should really be a reflection of the state of mind they have cultivated throughout the process." Winnie herself is not a professional in mindfulness, hence her partnership with experts in the field, but she has experienced its impact first-hand. She recalls, "I have been a very stressed person. I find the city and work hard to cope with but mindfulness really helped me. In my experience, mindfulness takes time but it is worth the investment. I've become a different person and I enjoy my life so much more, I want other people to have a chance to experience the benefits as well."

Winnie's own home exemplifies the concept of mindset manifesting in space and vice versa. Her house is a transformed Edwardian maisonette, equal parts dainty and daring, intimate and unabashed. Everything that fills the space serves a purpose. Winnie clarifies, "Each home has a certain mindset and I believe that everything in that space should share the same belief." The decor is symbolic of moments that matter to Winnie and her partner, the indents in the walls house her art and foraged treasures, and the story of the building's past is remembered with carefully marked silhouettes. For Winnie, sustainability was also a priority. "Everything is all-natural, and that was important to me. Raw timber provides structure, clay is used to plaster the walls, and handmade terracotta tiles line the bathroom—no plastic. It is manmade, but it is all reminiscent of nature. There are lots of imperfections because in nature nothing is symmetrical or identical and that imperfection is what makes it perfect."

Winnie's understanding of beauty in imperfections is infectious. After our talk, I find myself smiling at cracks in the pavement, a tree grown crabwise, and shoes withered by age. "If you don't put pressure on things being pristine, you can still appreciate their beauty after a little wear and tear. Nothing is too precious. If you're designing a home intended to grow and change with you, then imperfection has to be a part of it."

The method

In dissecting and designing her own lifestyle, Winnie learned the value of connection with her clients. To begin a project, Winnie must first understand her client's lifestyle—from morning to night, what do they do? Winnie refers to this step of the process as the Winnowing—a meticulous method of separating chaff from grain but in this case, a one-hour-long, face-to-face meeting used to sift through a client's lifestyle to find useful materials. Winnie realised that each step of her design process could be likened to a method of working the land and felt that referring to her process in this way felt less cold and unbending. "I never say: 'This is what we decided at the beginning and that's how we have to move forward.' It's much more forward-thinking and flexible. I allow the design a life of its own rather than forcing a manmade outcome. It's about a home being grown in an organic process." After the Winnowing, a design enters the Nursery—a delicate process of tending to the initial idea and allowing it to grow. Once the idea is fully formed it undergoes Pruning—a refined approach to tweaking and tailoring. "Pruning allows me to see design in a different way, a design is something organic that you shape with love and care." After that, the build commences and once complete, Winnie provides the necessary AfterCare.

Winnie acknowledges that her method is not suitable for everyone. "If you're not into this way of thinking, you might think that I'm crazy." Those who do seek out Winnie's services have a natural appreciation for beauty and a willingness to embrace the process. In other words, "They're ready for the journey." Winnie can play the chameleon, stepping into her client's shoes in order to see the space through their lens and design accordingly but if a client's mindset is too foreign from her own, Winnie would rather refer them to a designer who can provide a more suitable service. "As designers, we design lifestyles. And so it is important that our visions for that align. You live in a home and without the action of living there, without your journey of being there, the home is redundant."

Truly mindful design, must be conscious of the experience delivered not solely the finished product. Winnie conducts herself as a designer with this in mind. Designers approach a project brimming with ideas and preferences and naturally, Winnie is not immune to this. "Of course, I am inclined to have preferences but I want my relationship with my client to be a very mindful one, where I understand who they are and put that ahead of my own tastes. Especially when it comes to residential design, the design is as much the client's as it is mine." Ultimately Winnie strives for a design that truly embodies her client, and that means being unselfish. "You can't be possessive about a design being 'yours'. Your client is the one who lives there, and they should want to live there."

Defining a sanctuary

Winnie reaches the conclusion that her signature style cannot be defined by something physical. It is her ethos that leaves a mark: the commitment to bringing appreciation and gratitude to our lives and harnessing the healing power of nature. Winnie's current vehicle for promoting her ethos is interior design, but their is always the possibility to translate that same message via a new creative medium in the future. Winnie explains, "I believe in constant evolution, and I still see so much potential for refinement within my process.  I hope that my process can constantly evolve and improve and I learn more from each project and client."

Though Fourteen a.m., at present, focuses on residential interiors, Winnie makes it clear that a city sanctuary is not limited to a space for living. There are different moments of stillness and connection scattered around a city. Winnie explains, "A coffee shop, an office, or a hotel. It's the feeling of a space rather than its typology." In fact, a sanctuary does not have to be a physical space at all. One could find sanctuary in a dress, a book, or a piece of art.

For Winnie, the challenge is never a lack of ideas but overcoming boundaries imposed by her technical understanding. "If I can, I want to design everything. I think many designers share the feeling that creativity does not have a finishing line. Creative people have a common desire to create beautiful things because, when we look at existing beautiful things, we gain a certain gratitude from them. We create because we want to gift the gratitude back.”

A city sanctuary has no design manual; it is about the way the design makes you feel. "It's an ethos, a lifestyle. I want Fourteen a.m. to be something that can be integrated into our everyday life and our mindset."

Connect with Winnie Tam

Website: https://www.fourteen-am.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fourteen.a.m/

Email: winnietam@fourteen-am.com

Whether you're new to the world of interior design, or are looking to take your career to the next level, an interior design mentor can help make your dreams a reality. Interior design mentors are established industry experts, who are willing to share their expertise to help early-career interior designers to navigate the complexities of the interior design industry.

It is important that interior design mentees and mentors are a good match. You will want to work with a mentor who is passionate, experienced in your areas of interest, and who you connect with on a personal level.

To help you in your quest for the perfect interior design mentor, we have created this guide to finding a mentor that suits your needs and compiled list of digital platforms pairing aspiring interior designer with skilled industry professionals.

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What is an interior design mentor?

Interior design mentors are experienced interior designers who help budding designer start their career or take the next step in their interior design journey.

The responsibilities of an interior design mentor vary depending on your needs. They can help you find a job, start your interior design firm, connect with other professionals, or solve re-occurring issues in your business.  In addition, interior design mentors can also serve as your sounding board and advisor to discuss your ideas, problems, and frustrations.

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Benefits of an interior design mentorship

Having a mentor will help you become the best interior designer you can be. An interior design mentor is not there to tell you what to do and dictate your business, but rather to support you in your own journey and steer you and your business in the right direction. Here are out top three reasons to partner with an interior design mentor:

Develop your skills

A mentor can help fill the gaps in your existing design knowledge and develop your soft skills, such as communication, leadership, and time management. Your mentor will provide you with honest feedback to ensure you are always developing.

Stay on track

An interior design mentor can help you stay motivated in achieving your goals. They're a source of guidance and support during times of difficulty, especially when you're experiencing creative block or other challenges.

Expand your network

A mentor can connect you to other professionals in the interior design industry, help you build relationships, and explore new opportunities. They can also recommend networking events that you can attend to further expand your network.

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What to consider when choosing an interior design mentor

There are an abundance of qualified interior design mentors, but not all of them will be a perfect fit for you. Choosing a mentor is an important decision, here are four things to consider:

Specialisation and expertise

If you're looking to specialise in a certain area of interior design, it makes sense for your interior design mentor to also have experience in this niche. A mentor can provide you with invaluable information that can only be gained through experience. They'll also know what type of risks you may face and will help mitigate those circumstances before any real damage is caused.

Reputation

A good mentor will have a proven track record with positive feedback from previous mentees. This will help you determine whether you should invest your time in them or not. Ask yourself the following questions while running a quick background check:

• Have they mentored a now-established interior designer?
• Have they maintained a positive relationship with previous mentees?
• Do they have a positive reputation in the interior design industry?

Availability

If both expertise and reputation get the green flag, then it's time to check their availability. You and your mentor need to work to the same schedule, otherwise it will affect the frequency of your interactions.

Set an ideal schedule that works for both of you - could be weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc. This way, you can maintain consistency and make the most out of the mentorship.

Compatibility

To foster a healthy mentor-mentee relationship, you need to make sure that you enjoy the interactions with your mentor. You shouldn't feel intimidated, scared, and above all, discouraged. Rather, it should be a positive learning experience where you can confidently share your interior design work, ask questions, and remain motivated.

Top interior design mentorship platforms

Interior design mentors can be found anywhere. It is always good idea to reach out to interior designers you admire directly and ask them if this is a service they have considered providing. However, there are also specific platforms and programmes set up to make it easier to find your dream interior design mentor.

Built by Us

Built by Us is on a mission to increase the diverse hiring rate of the interior design industry. They support underrepresented groups in building their early-stage design careers. Built by Us have mentorships available for different career levels:

• BUILD. A mentorship programme for budding interior designers who want to look for a new job, start an apprenticeship, or gain field experience.
• FLUID. A flexible mentorship programme for existing designers looking to scale their business and enhance skills.

Explore mentorships with Built by Us.

Creative Mentor Network

The goal of the Creative Mentor Network is to create a more accessible future for creatives from lower socio-economic backgrounds. They support struggling new designers with one-to-one interior design mentoring with trained field experts who know exactly what you need.

Explore mentorships with the Creative Mentor Network.

SBID Mentoring

If you're a student member of the Society of British & International Interior Design (SBID), you can't miss the SBID Mentorship program. SBID Mentoring is a treasure trove of opportunities for interior design students who want to get ahead of their peers. Here, you can join design training, earn university recognitions, and explore student competitions to help construct a solid reputation.

Explore mentorships with SBID.

IIDA Student Mentoring Program

The International Interior Design Association (IIDA) also offers an exclusive and dynamic mentorship program for IIDA students. In this program, you 'shadow' a professional for one day and experience what it's like to officially become an interior designer. You're given all the tools you need to get started. Plus, you get to connect with established firms and professionals as well as receive feedback from your mentor.

Explore mentorships with IIDA Student Mentorship Programme.

Private Interior Design Mentors

There are a huge number of established interior designers who offer private mentoring for early-career interior designers.  Unlike the prior programmes, private mentors offer more tailored solutions and spend more time and effort working towards your goals.

Renowned interior designers who offer private mentorship:

• Melissa Lunardon. Learn how to transition from full-time employee to self-employed.
• Jo Chrobak. Discover how to start your own interior design business unconventionally.
• Veronica Solomon. Navigate the everyday challenges of being an interior designer effectively.

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The takeaway

An interior design mentorship is a great way to enhance your skillset, learn the ropes of the interior design business and build your professional network.

When looking for an interior design mentor, be sure to consider how you align both professional and personally. An interior design mentorship can be a mutually beneficial partnership for mentee and mentor when the pairing is right.

Starting a career as an interior designer requires you to showcase your skills and experience within the interior design industry. Studying interior or architecture is a traditional way of doing so. But it is not the only way.

Whilst you'll be competing against candidates with bachelor's degrees in interior design or more, there are other steps you can take to showcase your relevant skills and, most importantly, passion for the interior design industry. With the right skills and knowledge, you can land a role as a junior interior designer in an established firm or even begin building your own interior design business, with no degree required.

Follow these steps to learn more about starting a career in interior design and how to become an interior designer without a degree.

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How to become an interior designer without a degree

1. Equip yourself with the necessary skills

Interior design is a highly skilled profession that requires a broad skillset of organisation, communication, and creativity. Interior design projects have a lot of moving parts so being diligent and organised is essential to keep the project on track. You'll also be responsible for liaising with both clients and suppliers, so communication and people management skills are invaluable.

Creativity and an eye for design is innate, but it can be trained. Visit trade shows, read interior design trade publications, and practice your craft in your own home—the more you expose yourself to the industry and put your skills to the test, the better you will become.

As well as developing the soft skills required as an interior designer, you'll need to level up your knowledge of interior design tools and software. Many interior designers use software and 3D technology to illustrate their designs and it is useful to have basic drawing skills to hand-draw initial concepts. Gaining basic proficiency in these skills will give you a head start, try signing up to courses both online and in-person.

2. Find interior design work experience

The best way to hone your interior design skills is to practice. There is an abundance of entry-level interior design positions on offer, but as you lack experience and formal training, an apprenticeship/work experience could be a better first step.

You can connect with large interior design firms, or approach independent interior designers. It might be easier to find placements with bigger, more stablished interior design studios but independent designers may welcome an extra pair of hands and you'll likely gain more practical experience.

Soak up any opportunity you can to gain knowledge and experience in the interior design industry (or adjacent fields). Use work experience as a foundation to slowly hone your skills and decide that interior design is the right industry for you.

3. Find an interior design mentor

Being a newbie in the interior design industry can be daunting, but an interior design mentor can ease the nerves and provide you with an excellent head start in your career as an interior designer. Mentors are industry experts with years of experience, ready and willing to share all that they have learnt.

Mentors can offer practical advice on how to reach out to potential clients, tricks to negotiate with suppliers, and can offer you feedback on your design work. But a mentor offers much more that training. Having a mentor is also a great way to build your professional network—meeting suppliers and potential clients. It can also lead to various work collaborations, exposing you to different styles and themes.

4. Build your interior design portfolio

Your portfolio is your opportunity to showcase all your skills to potential employees and/or prospective clients. design skills. Visual proof of your work is far more valuable than a written CV in the world of interior design.

Your portfolio should showcase your unique design style and the best bits of your work so far. If you do not have any completed projects to show off, you can include illustrations and concepts in your portfolio. To build your portfolio,  why not provide free or discounted interior design work for your family and friends. Or, if possible, get creative in your own home. Your designs don't have to be extravagant and polished but should serve as evidence of your commitment and vision.

5. Start networking

The first step to becoming a real interior designer, is to tell the world (and yourself) that you are one. Start with your family and friends, invite them to a get-together and introduce them to your new creative venture. From there, set up your website and social media accounts and start promoting your work to the public.

Don't be afraid to reach out to professionals in the interior design space via Instagram, LinkedIn or email. Be polite, and always include a clear ask: do you want specific advice? Are you asking a question about their work? Are you looking for an internship opportunity? Be specific and confident—don't ask, don't get!

It is also a good idea to attend industry trade shows. Here, you will meet lots of industry professionals and be exposed to all the latest trends in the world of interior design.

Best of luck!

Instagram is no longer just a photo-sharing app. It has evolved into a multi-faceted media platform with frequent updates, drawing in billions of users to discover what everyone is posting and what conversations are being exchanged. The allure of Instagram has grown beyond personal accounts as businesses realise the potential to reach audiences far and wide with online marketing.

One of the first steps you should do is to convert your Instagram page. Found in the settings of your account, it takes just one switch to transform into a professional account. Then, you can access tools in your Instagram insights. Instagram Insights is a great tool for everything you need to know about your followers and content. However, with the vast metrics available, many are still confused about how to use the data to their advantage.

Peeking into the performance of your post, reel, and story can only take your social media engagement so far. So to maximise this tool, you can use it to improve your social media strategy. In this guide, we'll cover everything from tracking social media analytics to interpreting the output for your marketing strategy.

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What is Instagram Insights?

Essentially, Instagram Insights is the platform's dedicated in-house analytics tracker. As mentioned, only professional and business accounts can access this insight tool. You'll be able to check who follows your account and, most importantly, the performance of your content. The analytics will show which post or reel is performing the best and attracting new followers. With the information provided, you can then use the data to improve your social media strategy.

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Instagram Insights explained

To access Insights, click on the professional dashboard tab at the top of your Instagram profile. Click the 'See All' button in the upper right corner to access insights. Here, it provides summarised information about how many accounts you've reached, the number of accounts you've engaged, and your total followers. You can also check each post's insight by clicking 'View Insights' just below the photo. For reels, click the three buttons on the lower right side of the screen. Get started with Instagram Insights by looking out for these key analytics...

Accounts Reached

Accounts Reached refer to the number of unique users that viewed any of your content. It also provides a graph that shows how many of your followers and non-followers you've reached. To learn more, let's break the 4 parts into sections:

Content Reach

The insights on this page are dedicated to which type of content reaches your audience best. You can also pick a period range to see statistics covering the last seven days to the previous two years. It will reveal which reel, post, story, or live video performed best and can filter the top content.

Reached Audience

Reach Audience breaks down the top towns/cities, countries, age ranges, and genders of all the unique accounts your content has reached.

Impressions

Find out the total number of views on each piece of content, including repeat views.

Profile Activity

These analytics are important for accounts with buttons, such as a call button, business address button, and website button. It shows the number of taps on the following buttons made by visiting users.

Accounts Engaged

Accounts Engaged shows the number of followers and non-followers that engaged with your content. Take your nights a step further by viewing "Content Interactions"— this section presents the number of accounts who liked, commented, shared, or saved your content, whether it be the post, reel, or story.

Total Followers

As its name provides, it shows your total number of followers. It also shows the number of follows, unfollows, your followers' top locations, age range, gender, and active times.

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Using analytics to improve your social media strategy

Instagram insights offer more than just numbers and statistics, they are your roadmap to a more engaged Instagram audience. By learning to analyse the data provided and use it to inform your social media strategy, you'll see improvements to your level of audience engagement and, hopefully, your client conversion rate too. Ready to get started? Use your analytics to inform the following areas of social media management...

Posting schedule

Track your social media analytics and note the times when your audience is most active. You can schedule posts so you don't miss your follower's prime-time activity.

Content performance

After you identify when to post, you can highlight posts that receive the best engagement. For example, if multiple 'behind-the-scenes' vlogs receive the best engagement, you can pin that as successful content production. From there, your strategy can branch out to include tutorials of your work. If the tutorials do well, they are a successful part of your content production strategy. Growing a successful strategy comes from understanding how you did and then trying new ideas from there.

Understanding your audience

Appreciating the love and support from social media is one thing, but targeting the right audience is another. Let's say your business caters to women in their 20s to 40s who love handmade accessories, but your social media tracking shows males in their 40s and 50s to be the main audience watching your content. Perhaps it might be time to revisit the drawing board or change your target audience.

Marina Felix is a writer, researcher and creator; her penchant for storytelling has led her to discover new narratives across art, architecture, and interiors. This time, however, her curiosity has led her further afield—back to her childhood home and then onwards, travelling across the US in an attempt to piece together a fragmented biography of the continent's once richest lady, Arabella Huntington.

Arabella Huntington was an art collector, philanthropist and wife of railway tycoon Collis P. Huntington—on that history agrees. From there, the accounts begin to differ. Arabella is a woman immortalised in contradiction, to some she was conceited and deceitful, to others smart and charismatic. Rather than blindly believing either speculative narrative, Marina opted to refer to the evidence at her disposal. And so began her journey across America, tracing the story of Arabella Huntington through scholarly archives, public records and scattered ephemera: letters, receipts, menus, drawings, and journals.

Marina's work is an act of female solidarity; repositioning Arabella as a public figure in her own right, regardless of her marital status. But it is also a personal act of kindness, a modern-day woman recognising another woman's incapacity to control public perception and taking it upon herself to rewrite her story.

As told in Marina Felix's own words.

When and how did you first become acquainted with Arabella?

I have, in a vague sense, known of Arabella since I was a child. I grew up in San Marino, California—a small suburb of Los Angeles that most people have only heard of because of the cultural institution that it lays claim to: The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens. When it first opened to the public in 1927, the institution was called the Henry E. Huntington Library & Art Gallery—Henry Edwards Huntington was Arabella’s husband for the last 11 years of her life.

About a year ago, I learned, for the first time, that Henry E. Huntington was not alone in founding the museum that had always been in my backyard. He and Arabella jointly signed an indenture in August 1919 that would leave their estate—which at the time included 500 acres of land, botanical gardens, agricultural operations, and two priceless cultural collections, one of books and manuscripts and the other of art and decorative objects—to the public after their deaths as a benefaction of sorts. I spent the first 18 years of my life living in San Marino; I visited The Huntington at least annually, if not multiple times a year, and I did not know that. The sole portrait of Arabella that was and is on display at The Huntington frightened me as a kid, and I much preferred to run through the botanical gardens than to sit inside the museum.

Come spring 2022, I found myself in the early stages of dissertation research for my master’s program in Edinburgh and decided that I wanted to incorporate The Huntington into my research as a case study, but it eventually became its focal point. The Huntington is an Eden-like place and I credit so much of my pursuit of art history and Early Modern history to its influence. It was through the dissertation research that I became more intimately acquainted with Arabella. As I learned more about Arabella, I encountered a lot of conflicting data. Some accounts of her are scathing, describing an unparalleled hauteur and an air of condescension that not even royals could afford (that’s a paraphrase of a direct quote); others tell of a mother whose heart of gold and love for her son was unlike any other, of an enchanting, charismatic woman whose wit, taste, and sense of humour made her a beloved presence.

There are tales of a salacious, indecent Arabella who lied her way to the top; but I never fully believed that storyline. So I looked for more evidence—I looked at her collections and tried to imagine the kind of person that would be compelled to bring those objects into their life, to aggregate things in such a way that they created an impression of a character. I looked at the art that she was drawn to, the decorative schemes that she dreamt up, I looked at the titles from her personal library, and I thought about her attitude toward counterfeits and her commitment to women’s charities. I recognised a character who valued, at least, the aesthetics of truth and someone who prized beauty—in layered textiles and antiques, in authenticity, in philanthropy—and I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to her story.

Why is it important to unravel Arabella's lost biography—both for the public and for you personally?

I think it’s exciting, frankly, that there is still mystery in the world, and that not all of it lies ahead of us. That, and the fact that Arabella's story deserves to be told as a standalone work.

I didn’t really consider the public when I started this project, and it wasn’t so much for myself either. It’s been for Arabella. I’ve just been following my nose, steered by some invisible compulsion and a feeling that it’s the thing I should be doing. My father told me once to be a friend to the friendless. It’s not that Arabella had no friends, but since she died in 1924, the interpretations of her life that found their way into the world haven’t always been friendly. As this project has played a greater role in my life, the growing possibility of it being received by the public has made me think more broadly about the themes in her life, in her character, that transcend time. Her story, like so many, is nuanced and it’s important to me that each dimension gets its due diligence. Sadly, Arabella is just one of many influential women whose story has been lost in history.

Can you share a timeline of your journey so far?

I discovered the tip of this project’s iceberg in May 2022 during my master’s dissertation. As I got deeper into that work, I started imagining scenes of Arabella’s life, encounters with other figures and things she might say or do, and that was all firing in my imagination as I put the finishing touches on what was a pretty academic work. Since I’d never taken on a project like this, I was hesitant to speak it out loud—what if I didn’t find any new answers? What if I got to the end and didn’t like what I found? What if it took me years, not months? How would I pay for my life? So I reached out to a few writers that I knew and I asked them, "How do you make it work? How do you feed yourself while you’re researching and writing something that no one has asked for?" After that, I spent some more time thinking through what savings I had, and how to logistically orchestrate this for myself.

In the end, I got really, really lucky. It turns out an old family friend of ours, Nancy Armitage, had been researching the Huntington family since the early 2000s purely out of her own passionate interest—she’s a California-based artist (and her sons had been my babysitters!) At the suggestion of my mother, I called Nancy up and soon realised I had a real friend to share all of this energy with. She is relentless as a researcher, and she told me on the phone that she had “a lot of journals” filled with information about the Huntington family. She asked if I planned to go in person to do more research, and in the same breath offered to let me stay in one of her spare bedrooms.

Her house is about a 12-minute bike ride from The Huntington and so, I needed a bike. The best way to bring a bike from your parent’s house in Wisconsin out to California is via Amtrak. Knowing that Arabella travelled by long-haul train for so much of her life, it seemed like a worthwhile experience for me to have, if only to gain a bit of a descriptive edge. So in October 2022, I boarded a train from Chicago to Los Angeles and that is what I consider to be the real first step in this journey. And yes, I definitely over-romanticised the experience ahead of time, though I would not trade that experience for anything. I spent nearly eight weeks in San Gabriel, California, biking to and from The Huntington most days, treating archival research like my job. During that time, I realised I was going to have to consult more material than was available in San Marino if I wanted real answers—or at least, information that hadn’t passed through someone else’s historical filter.

In mid-December, I flew from California to Austin, Texas, where Arabella’s brother and sister lived; it was also the birthplace of her best friend and personal secretary, Carrie Campbell. I found a few leads in San Marcos, Texas that I’m still now chasing down. By the beginning of 2023, I had purchased a used car and arranged for research appointments in Syracuse, New York, where there is a good amount of archival information on American artist Anna Hyatt Huntington, Arabella’s daughter-in-law. On New Year’s Day, I drove from my parent’s home in the Midwest to upstate New York and I spent three weeks in a little Airbnb in Syracuse, avoiding slips on ice and devouring material in the university’s Special Collections Research Centre. At the end of three weeks, I had a lot of material that I’d never seen before, and neither had Nancy for all of her years of work. That was big for me. When my time in Syracuse was up, I set off for New York City via Oneonta, New York—H. E. Huntington’s birthplace and the city in which he had grown up.

Once in New York City, I took a trip to The Metropolitan Museum to see one of Arabella’s old interiors named the Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room. I was also very lucky to consult materials at the Hispanic Society of America, where the staff quite generously let me into their archives to see what material I could in a single day. I went to Tiffany & Co. on Fifth Avenue, since Arabella’s last New York residence was what stood before it, and I asked the staff if any of them knew that information. They didn’t.

From New York, I drove to Richmond, Virginia—the city in which Arabella grew up. While in Richmond I commuted to Newport News, Virginia, where I spent some magical days at the city’s Mariner’s Museum—an odd-sounding place to find information on a female art collector, but Collis Huntington’s 1869-70 railroad venture with the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway in no small way led to the founding of the town and I suspect it was then, while he was completing the negotiations for that job, that he first met Arabella. With great thanks to the late Cerinda Evans, former librarian at the museum, there is a wealth of material on both Arabella and Collis Huntington. It was also there that I saw the only known sculpture of Arabella—a definite win. We are very lucky to live in a world where emailing archivists and librarians goes a long way! I have definitely made the most of that where I could.

I spent a few weeks digesting all of this information, trying to make sense of what I’d gathered when I got lucky again. I was offered a place at ChaNorth, an artist’s residency in the Hudson Valley run by New York–based arts nonprofit ChaShaMa. After the residency, I made my way back to Austin, where I was able to (finally) verify the birth and death dates of Arabella's closest friend, Caroline "Carrie" M. Campbell—an oddly difficult task up until my visit to the Austin History Center by way of the Austin Public Library. A few new rabbit holes presented themselves to me there and, whilst I've made efforts to see them through, it's now a matter of sitting down to give shape to this work. There are a few other places of interest that I could stand to visit—New Orleans, Alabama—but for the scope of what I'm writing now, they may come further down the line.

Your information has been primarily sourced from scattered ephemera—how do you find it?

For the objective sources, it really comes down to archives and other books/histories about either Collis P. Huntington or Henry E. Huntington, of which there are a couple of really fantastic examples (and to those scholars I have to express my deep appreciation and admiration because there is a lot of material to sort through). In the archives I’ve found old shopping receipts, letters, calling cards, telegrams, photographs, journals, sketches, newspaper clippings, you name it.

I have also been gathering old magazines, postcards, etchings and advertisements from the time period and own a growing collection of books by authors that I know Arabella had in her personal library. Admittedly, these sources are more peripheral but they help to create an atmosphere for myself as a writer and for my eventual reader.

Handling such a personal collection must be a very intimate experience. How do you approach the process with respect?

It’s incredibly intimate. It may sound silly, but there have been portraits of Arabella that I’ve seen in these archives, ones that have never been published, that took my breath away or brought tears to my eyes. Or there have been moments when I’m reading a journal entry or a letter, and I’m so moved by the small favours and moments of kindness that I’ve encountered. I can say very honestly that none of the information that I’ve found thus far is particularly shocking or scandalous, at least not by the standards of my modern frame of reference.

Respecting this process and the delicacy of it is something that I’ve thought a great deal about since she clearly went to pretty extensive lengths to keep parts of her past concealed. If Arabella were alive today, I hope that whatever I put out there she would be glad for. Much of that comes down to what I mentioned before—societal values and what is deemed “indecent” or “becoming” today are vastly different from the social norms that were in place between 1850 and 1924. Given my understanding of the massive paradigm shifts that have taken place for a woman’s agency, independence, and personal freedom since then, what I am writing approaches her life with respect and honesty, to the best of my ability. That said, I do intend to weave in more than one perspective on Arabella, and I hope that my readers see the value that comes with that multi-dimensionality.

You are able to draw a more honest picture of Arabella from these intimate records than had you been able to conduct an interview—agree or disagree?

I agree. After all, the whole basis of my interest in Arabella’s life came from the records and pieces of her life that still exist. Piecing together someone’s character based on the objects and artworks they were/are attracted to is almost easier than having a conversation with them. There is less interruption and a certain bareness to that kind of introduction—the objects speak for themselves.

I will, however, temper my agreement because if I’ve learned anything during my brief stint as a journalist it's this: you can always be surprised in an interview.

What challenges have you faced in putting together the puzzle of Arabella's life?

The biggest challenge for me has been learning to recognise and/or accept what might truly be a dead end. Just today I received an email from the archivist at an all-girls finishing school in New Orleans that has been operative since 1727, and we know through oral history that Arabella attended a finishing school in New Orleans roughly during the Civil War. It has transpired that it wasn’t that finishing school, though I still have lines in the water to see if I can find an old student record that can confirm her attendance. I’m also interested to know what name she was using at the time.

Another challenge is making sense of the sheer volume of research that I’ve collected. Whilst there isn’t exactly a deadline for a manuscript, I am constantly self-auditing my day-to-day work output. It’s been a real exercise in patience with myself to accept that the road I’m walking is a long one.

This is your first project of this kind, is it your last?

It is. My background is in art history and architectural conservation, and the resulting skillset is one that has led me to pursue this project with confidence, however naive or misplaced that may seem.

Is it my last? Not no! But with where I stand now, I don’t think that a forgotten figure tale will be the next project that I take on. I love writing stories about misunderstood characters, or characters where your first impression wasn’t the right one. It just so happens that Arabella’s story is also, in a sense, a forgotten one, or at least one that I think deserves retelling.

What can we expect from the finished product?

I’m currently writing the manuscript of what is going to be a book that paints a portrait of Arabella—if I had a talent for painting I would probably do that, but all I have are words. It’ll be a book somewhere between fiction and non-fiction, and I hope that it captures the story of her life and character as even-handedly as I can manage.

Curating an exhibition isn’t out of the question, either—I proposed one to The Huntington to celebrate the centennial of her death, but for understandable reasons, they respectfully declined the proposal. I, for one, think it would make a spectacular exhibition in addition to a book.

What do you hope your audience will take away from Arabella's story?

I want to see Arabella recognised and celebrated for her contributions to American art history and museology, but I don’t expect the general public to become too concerned with that aspect of it. Maybe they will. What I see in Arabella’s story is a struggle to define herself, to try (and inevitably fail) to control how she is perceived by those around her. In an age where so many people are constantly curating and editing their digital profiles and personas, I believe Arabella’s experience could provide a worthwhile model. Some things don’t change, or at least not as much as we think. Individuals are complex and nuanced and imperfect and this is a concept that has been weighing on minds for a long time.

To learn more about Marina Felix's work and keep up to date with her Arabella Huntington project, visit her website.

Interior designers often start their businesses on their own, taking on every role required to keep their new business afloat. But as business inevitably grows, a question arises: Should I hire more employees for my interior design business?

Some interior designers thrive as solo-preneurs, while others feel that hiring more talent for their interior design firm is the best way to grow and expand. Expanding your team is a smart way to jumpstart the growth of your interior design business. With more hands to help, you'll have more capacity to take on new clients and projects. However, building a team doesn't happen overnight. Hiring new interior designers, or general employees, requires patience and foreplanning. It is important that you hire employees who understand your process and ethos, and that you have the right infrastructure in place to help them succeed.

If you're an interior designer considering expanding your team, this article will help you understand when the time is right and how to find the right employees for your business.

3 signs you're ready to expand your interior design team

Everyone would like a helping hand every so often, but you need to decide whether hiring an employee is a sensible and necessary move for your business. Before making the decision to expand your team, assess yourself against these common reasons for hiring a new interior design employee.

1. You don't enjoy your work

Your work should make you happy. If it doesn't, there is a problem. If you find yourself constantly exhausted, anxious, or unmotivated then you may be suffering from burnout. Burnout is a side effect of stress and is rampant among creative entrepreneurs. Burnout can cause your creative spark to fizzle out and as a result, your work as a designer becomes a chore rather than a passion.

And no wonder you're stressed if you've had no time off! Being a hard worker is a great asset, but not if it is to the detriment of your well-being. Remember, you are worth more than your career! If your schedule is packed to the brim, then hiring new staff for your interior design business would allow you to redistribute your workload and take the necessary time off. It will also help reignite your passion and inject fresh enthusiasm into your business. Recruiting a new employee could be your key to a healthier work-life balance.

2. Your quality of work is suffering

If you're not producing your best work and delivering an exceptional service for your clients, something needs to change. Client experience is everything. If your client feels that you are distracted, disorganised, or not delivering on your promises then that will have huge negative implications for your business.

Negative feedback from clients could be a wake-up call to the fact that you can no longer manage on your own. Expanding your team through strategic interior design recruitment will make your whole process more efficient—leaving you time to deliver a personalised, professional service to all of your clients. Hiring a skilled interior design employee is an expense not to be taken lightly, but remember it is an investment in your business's future.

3. You're experiencing rapid growth

Congratulations! This is an exciting time for you and your business, but the success can also be overwhelming. Suddenly, you are swamped with administrative tasks, client enquiries and accounting responsibilities.

Rather than put the breaks on, now is the time to go full steam ahead and hire a new employee to help you continue to grow your business. Think about the areas of business management that are eating into your time the most and make sure you hire an employee who is capable of helping in these areas. Productivity is key in the fast-paced world of interior design. When employees are just as skilled as they are passionate about their craft, you can expect high-quality work and higher attention to detail.

How to hire a new employee as an interior designer

If you've decided that expanding your team is the right move for your interior design business, you now need to know how to hire the right talent for your business. The right employee will bring fresh ideas, have a genuine passion for the role, and be motivated to succeed. As a result, you'll see vast improvements in your firm's productivity and level of client satisfaction.

The key to finding the right talent for your business is to not simply search for new employees but to attract them. You need to make your interior business stand out as a place where potential candidates would love to work by appearing organised, professional and innovative. Follow these steps to attract the best interior design talent and make a hire that will contribute to the growth of your business.

1. Outline the role

When hiring for your interior design business, you need to write a job description that sells. Introduce your firm's culture and goals to attract candidates who share the same values. Keep it clear, concise, and informative. Then, follow with a clear list of qualifications, responsibilities, growth opportunities, and benefits. Tips for writing an effective interior design job description:

• Be transparent and specific. Don't use vague descriptions like "big salary".
• Use positive language
• Use SEO keywords
• Link to your social media pages and portfolio

2. Advertise the role

To attract the right talent, you must advertise in the right places. Interior design job boards and communities are saturated with hiring advertisements, so although it is worth posting anywhere you can, it is also worth thinking outside the box. Try scouting emerging talent from trade shows, university graduates, and small-scale competitions. Try advertising your position on these interior design hiring sites:

• LinkedIn. A leading professional networking platform with a vast interior design community. Engage with interior design groups and discussions to expand your network and attract potential candidates.
• InternMatch. A dedicated networking website specifically designed to connect junior interior designers with established firms. Create a profile for your firm and attract promising candidates looking to gain practical experience.

When a potential candidate sees your advertised opportunity, the first thing they will do is look you up online. Your online presence, across both your website and your social media, serves as the face of your firm. Thus, you'll want to keep them well-managed and updated. Be active on social media platforms, such as Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Share your recent projects and actively engage with the interior design community. Present the best of your business online, and you'll attract the best talent  in return.

3. Support your new hire

Cultivating a positive work environment is key to retaining great employees and attracting new ones in the future. Provide your employees with opportunities for professional development by off mentorship, and skill enhancement workshops. You should also strive to promote a healthy work-life balance by offering flexible working hours or employee wellness programs if possible. A healthy work environment = happy employees.

The takeaway

Hiring new talent for your interior design firm could be the key to unlocking new business growth. You can hire employees to help take the strain out of your workload and rekindle your passion for interior design, or to help you meet the demands of an already organically growing business.

When you make the decision to hire, you should do so with a clear strategy and end goal. It is important to hire people with passion, professionalism and respect.

Struggling to attract new clients despite your relentless efforts to update your website? This is your wake-up call to start tracking your website traffic!

Website traffic refers to the number of potential clients that visit your website over a certain period. It provides valuable insights about where your engagements are coming from, what the most-viewed content is, and how long viewers stay on your website. Armed with this data, you'll know exactly what your viewers need and want!

Not sure where to start? Here is a walk through everything you need to know about how to monitor site traffic—from the basics to the best website tracking tools!

What is website traffic?

Website traffic is a measure of how many visitors are coming to your website. The more people browse your content, the higher your site traffic is. This data helps you identify the best marketing strategies to use and what type of content gets the most attention.

There are a number of key metrics that help you better understand viewer behaviour. You don't have to monitor all of them. You'll have to determine where your priorities are and what you want to keep an eye on. Five key website traffic metrics to track as a wedding planner:

• Unique visitors - number of new users that visit your site in a day, week, or month
• Page views - total number of times a webpage has been viewed by visitors
• Session duration - average time visitors spend on your website
• Bounce rate - number of visitors that exit your website after viewing only one page
• Conversion rate - the percentage of visitors that have turned into clients, subscribers, or followers

Why should wedding planners monitor website traffic?

As the wedding planning industry continues to grow, understanding the behaviour and preferences of potential clients has never been more crucial. For this reason, real-time website traffic tracking has become an indispensable practice for wedding planners.

Analysing your website traffic gives you a deeper understanding of how your website is resonating with your target audience. This includes whether or not you're attracting the right people and if your marketing strategy is working. Top three benefits of web traffic tracking to wedding planners:

• Identifies traffic trends. By monitoring website traffic, it's easy to stay on top of wedding trends. This way, you'll know what content to create and what services to promote in certain months!
• Improves website performance. With a birds-eye view of what goes in and out of your site, it's easier to spot underperforming pages or features. For example, if you have a high bounce rate on your landing page then maybe some buttons aren't working or it's taking too long to load up.
• Boosts conversion rate. Lastly, monitoring web traffic also highlights pages or content with high conversion rates. This allows you to allocate your marketing resources more effectively and amplify your chances of attracting paying clients and not just ghost visitors.

How to increase website traffic for your wedding business

The data you get from monitoring your website traffic can be used in several ways. For one, it can be used as basis when choosing the best marketing strategies. Two, it can be used to spot website issues and strengths.

The long-term goal for website traffic tracking is not just to boost viewers, but to improve your client acquisition. This way, you score more projects, improve your skills, and attract wedding planning vendors to collaborate with in the future. Here are three different ways to boost your website's traffic:

Use SEO Keywords

Investing in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the best decisions you can make as a wedding planner. The simplest, and least expensive way to do this is through keyword optimisation. SEO keywords are the most commonly searched phrases on Google and other search engines. By strategically incorporating these into your content, URL, meta tags, and headings, you have a better chance of ranking high on search engine results pages (SERPs). Thus, boosting your website visibility to wedding clients.

If you're a new website, then it's best to start by optimising your content for long-tail keywords. Although these keywords have a lower search volume, they have less competition and give you a better chance at ranking on the first page.

Promote on social media

Social media is another powerful tool to use to increase website visitors.

Start by identifying the social media platform your viewers are most active on then use your website traffic tracking results to list down the best type of content to promote. If that's settled, regularly share valuable content, use hashtags, and link your website on the caption to drive traffic to your site!

Make your website mobile

With the proliferation of smartphones, more people access the internet through mobile devices now than ever. Hence, if you want to improve your website's accessibility and user experience, then it's time to make your website mobile-friendly.

Three ways to optimise your website for mobile devices:

• Use a responsive web design. Responsive web design automatically adjusts your layout to smaller screens. A lot of online web development platforms have this feature, but you can always ask the help of a professional to get this done!
• Compress your media. Images, videos, and files with large resolutions slow down your website. So if you want to decrease your website's load speed, then you should compress your images without compromising quality!
• Adjust your font. Check if your fonts are legible and sized right for mobile screens. Adjust as needed and make sure it isn't so large that it takes up the entire space!

Best website traffic monitoring tools for wedding planners

Now we're down to the last question—how to monitor site traffic? There are currently a lot of website traffic monitoring tools that wedding planners can use to track their site traffic. Here are five of the best site traffic analytics tools for wedding planners...

Google Analytics

Star Feature: Conversion Tracking

Google Analytics is one of the leading site traffic tracking tools that many businesses use. It lets you monitor active website usage real-time, and discover your top traffic sources (social media, direct traffic, organic search, etc.). Furthermore, you can easily monitor how well your website is working towards its goals with its Conversion Tracker.

Start monitoring your website traffic with Google Analytics for free or avail Google Analytics 360.

Semrush

Star Feature: Organic Research

If you're already optimising your website for search engines, then SEMrush is guaranteed to become your best buddy. With SEMrush's Organic Research tool, you can track what keywords drive the most traffic, how you rank for said keywords, and what keyword opportunities to go for. This eases your SEO efforts and contributes to a more robust website tracking toolkit!

Try SEMrush for free to get limited access to their web tracking tools, or subscribe to the SEMrush paid plans now!

Matomo

If you are as much of a planner in real life as you are in your career, then you'll love Matomo's Customisable Dashboards and Reports. This feature lets you highlight the web traffic metrics that matter most to you, whenever and however you want. Matomo offers an array of advanced analytic tools to choose from including event tracking, user interaction analysis, and more!

Download Matomo's self-hosted version for free, or purchase its cloud-hosted version, Matomo Cloud!

Clicky

Star Feature: Heat Maps and Session Recordings

Want a clear visualisation of your website traffic? On Clicky, you don't just get vague numbers—you get a heat map of what users click, scroll, or spend the most time on! Clicky's Heatmap and Session Recording feature records individual user sessions that show how every user navigates your site. This allows you to see how well your website is performing from the user's perspective and helps you identify weak areas.

Try Clicky for free, or take a look at its paid plans now!

Ahrefs

Star Feature: Site Explorer

Ahrefs is a powerful SEO and web traffic monitoring tool capable of crawling your website to gain valuable insights into its performance and web traffic. At the same time, it spots opportunities for growth by analysing your organic search traffic, backlinks, referring domains and more. The cherry on top, it also keeps you updated on the latest wedding planning trends, to help you create relevant content at all times!

Ahrefs is a paid web traffic tracker that comes complete with everything you need. Explore the Ahrefs Plans and Pricing now!

Why not just give it a try?

That’s how one might describe Zaffrin’s mantra. And from our hour-long conversation, you realise it’s not just fluff. She started a blog about honey simply because she loves honey. Never mind that only 2 people are going to read it: you and your mom (as Zaffrin astutely points out). We so often try to backfill the logic of why we want to do something, or need to do something, that we miss out on the ‘trying’ and the ‘liking’.

Five Dot Botanics, a minimalist plant-based skincare brand, sprung from ideas jotted down in a notebook, and from that very same mantra. Zaffrin launched Five Dot whilst she was on maternity leave from her day job as a media lawyer—coming into the beauty space as an ‘outsider’ and challenging the norms of the beauty industry. Each Five Dot product has only five natural ingredients.

Our chat brings us to what she’s learnt from beekeeping, parenting three children, and gardening. We talk about owning your story, about discipline and compromise, and about what matters the most. We contemplate how learnings from the Five Dot side hustle have cross-pollinated into the way she approaches her day job. And we also marvel (and laugh) about that one time in her 20s when she took multiple trains across China to turn up at Shaolin to learn kung-fu. True story! There was no kung-fu involved, but she did stay there for a bit, and slept on the equivalent of a plank in a guest house at the top of a hill. The bottomline: We may not be great gardeners, or successful gardeners. But each of us is a gardener of kinds. Keep trying stuff, even if they don’t work out. We may just enjoy the flowers along the way.

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What were some of the things you wanted to be when you were growing up?

I grew up in London and my parents are from Bangladesh. Growing up, I was very creative, and spent a lot of time reading and writing. I knew I wanted to study English literature. I hadn't necessarily thought about a career in law but, coming from a first-generation immigrant family, pursuing a creative career was seen as ‘high risk’. I don't think that they were strict in saying, “Don't do it” but I didn't feel confident or inspired enough that I could make a success of it.

I did English literature at university and I loved it. Storytelling—the heart of everything, and what we learn about ourselves in the world through the stories we tell. I also knew that I was thinking, "What's a good job to do?" I'm quite cerebral and I thought law looked like a good thing. I studied hard and I got a great job in a law firm, but what I hadn't appreciated is, what does it mean to have a good cultural fit for yourself? I was very fortunate because I knew I wanted to be in media, so I then ended up on television. Being surrounded by lots of creative people seemed like the perfect fit for me.

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"A cultural fit". What does that mean?

It's not a static thing. What cultural fit means for you is constantly evolving because you're not the same person year on year.

In my 20s, what I hadn't realised is that I really like to be around people that are kooky or different in their thinking or different. They maybe didn't all go to the best universities in the world and come up with the same degree and then end up on a graduate recruitment program—they were different people coming from different backgrounds, ages, races. I think the city has changed since I started out 20 years ago as a young lawyer, but I felt it was quite stifling for me as a person. I'm lucky to have left the city law firm environment and to have gone in-house. In-house suits me perfectly because it's full of people in a business from all walks of life doing different jobs.

Cultural fit is whether it's a space to be yourself and turn up to work and feel that you're you. Space to say what you think, maybe just even how an office is designed. In TV or in the media, we think a lot about what it looks like to have a collaborative working space. What does it mean to be open plan? What does it mean to have plants in the office? And sometimes older institutions don't think about that. And they're small things, they're luxuries and I'm aware of it.

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You've mentioned that you are a very cerebral person. How is that manifested in your work and daily life?

I do enjoy being able to think things through, whether that's a legal contract, or it's reading a story, or it's a poem, or thinking about a problem someone's having. I'm not so much a passive consumer. I do read a lot. I consume a lot of media, but I like the practical application of using my knowledge or wisdom to solve something. I'm an in-house lawyer and it's not academic. We're constantly trying to answer a problem for how a business delivers something, and I like that. I much prefer to have a practical application for what I'm working on. I'm probably not cerebral in the sense of being an academic. My husband’s background is in theoretical physics, and it's probably nothing I could ever do. The grade of what it means to be cerebral is quite wide.

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I saw on one of your Instagram posts that you wanted to be a textile artist at some point.

I'm quite a visual person, and I had spent all my childhood and as a young adult making things with my hands. I really wanted to do art, but at the time people were saying I should be a lawyer or doctor, or one of those things. I really wanted to do English and art, and I did art at A-level. I just found the mixed media of textiles and fabric and designs so utterly pleasing and absorbing. But I do think it was quite fleeting because the reality is, had I pursued it, I don't think I would have found enduring interest in it.

I enjoyed the hobby of it, and I enjoy doing something with my hands and the making and the pleasure of it. But actually, this is one of the things I've learned as I've got older: sometimes we mistake the pleasure we find in hobbies as a feeling that we need to either monetise or become a genius at it, instead of just saying, “Oh, wow, I just really liked this and this is great. That's all I need to do with it. It doesn't need to become something.” I think that's a little bit like where my love of art and textiles has come from. It didn't necessarily mean I have to go and be a textile artist. It was okay just to enjoy it.

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Is beekeeping a hobby for you?

Is it a hobby? Is it a lifestyle?

Yes, so I took up beekeeping. Going back to talking about who are our friends and who are the people we hang out with, one thing that always freaked me out is the idea that I would have lots of people that are the same. They are all left-wing Guardian readers, it’s a digital echo chamber. Everyone earns a certain amount or lives in a certain way. Things like that worry me because how do you challenge who you are and your perceptions of things? I just had my second child, and I was feeling a little bit lost. I wanted to take up a hobby so I wasn't just worrying about things. I took up beekeeping because I had a honey blog where I wrote about honey. When you join a beekeeping association, you meet different people. I'd never met an 86 year old retired civil engineer, who maybe voted in a different way to me, but you can form friendships and mentorships and relationships with different types of people.

Beekeeping in London is very diverse. It's very exciting. You rely on a community to look at things together, whether it’s disease management, or what's happening with your hive or your queen. It’s a community-based activity. It gives me such pleasure, it's completely different to everything I do. Even though you need to read, you can't rely on the books. You have to just be in your bee suit and think, “Okay, what's going on here?” And I love it. The bees surprise me. They've taught me more than anything else. About trying to control things to get an outcome, but then nature can be a bigger force than you can ever imagine. They’ve taught me to stop and look at the flowers, to look at how something so precious can be built out of visiting nectar. They’ve taught me how to be still, how to hold this moment and be in a moment. Beekeeping’s had a profound impact on me, in a way that I didn't know before I took it up.

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How did the honey blog come about in the first place?

It's a really random thing. After my second baby. I knew I wanted to have a side hustle of some kind, but I didn't know what it would be. That's always the thing: you always think of why you can’t do stuff. So I told myself: I need to just write about something and get it out. Everyone thinks the whole world's going to read your blog. But no one reads your blog. Two people read your blog: you and your mom! You need to get over the fear of just putting stuff out there, what does it look like, how do you write content, how do you get on social media, how do you build something. It doesn't cost anything to do all of those things, really. You just get WordPress and a domain name for £6.

I was making pancakes in 2015. And I was putting honey on the pancakes, and I thought, “Well, I love honey.” So I'm not going to obsess over what this blog should be about. I'm going to write about honey. I'm going to write everything there is about honey: types of honey, where it comes from, how bees make it, what it tastes like, how to cook with it, how to use it in beauty products. It's a totally basic blog but it doesn't matter. I guess it’s like getting your first novel out of your system. You just have to get it out of you. I love it. It was good. I've met lots of people and had a lot of fun along the way doing it.

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How do you think you've cultivated that mindset of “just get on with it and see how it goes”?

When I was 20 to 30 years old, I was full of anxiety. Things had to be perfect. I know now that failing is a good thing—and what I mean by failing isn't really falling. It's just trying things and having them not work out. Most of my inhibitions have been about embarrassment—how will I look in the eyes of others—and that is so paralysing. Most of my stuff doesn't work out, and I'm now okay.

I obviously have a less gung-ho approach when I'm advising clients in a legal capacity, because they are relying on me to do all of the thinking! Another thing that weighs on my mind is that our life is very short and very fragile. The idea that we will live a long life is an illusion. What if this is the last five years of my life? What if this is the last year of my life? I never really feel that death is very far away from me. That sounds very morbid, but it isn't meant to be. It's meant to be a very uplifting statement. You don't have time to waste. I don't want to discover who I am when I'm 70. I want to discover who I am, every day, and not care so much.

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How does that attitude translate to learning new things?

I tend to approach life with “Why not?", "Why not have a go?" The more you do that, the more you're trying stuff. I've done loads of stuff like acting classes or music classes or sculpture classes. Some people say they don't understand the logic of it, but it doesn't need to make sense. It's only when you're trying to backfill the logic of why you've done anything that you get stressed out. If I did that, I would never have started a skincare brand.

I think we just need to enjoy learning stuff. Some of the things I try out are not for the end result, It’s not a case of: if I do this, and this, and this, this will happen. It’s just: if I do this, maybe I'll enjoy it. Sometimes people will say I should just relax. Some people associate relaxing with putting your pyjamas on and watching 20 hours of Netflix. They think that my ‘hobby’ looks very active and can't be restful. But weirdly enough, it's for me more restful than just being a passive recipient of entertainment. Neither approach is the ‘right’ one. But sometimes maybe they don't understand how relaxing having a hobby can be.

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You’ve got a few things going on. Do you ever feel overwhelmed?

I only have three projects that matter. Everything else is ancillary; everything else can come and go. Family comes first, whether it’s my kids, my family, my well-being. To be honest, I'm squeezed for time, for sure. But there is no doubt in my mind the hierarchy of what's important. My kids first, my family first, my mom and dad and my husband or me. I will take the time to go for a walk on a Saturday morning, even if I'm stressed, because that's important for our kids

Next up is the day job or the night job. They're like two kids I love. It’s not like I love Five Dot and I don't love law, or I love law and not Five Dot. They coexist. And I put tons of energy into both of them. I work very hard. I don't think I could ever confess to not working hard. It does ebb and flow. I do have days where I'm thinking, “Oh, why have I put a side hustle on top of three kids?”

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What do you do for self care?

Beekeeping. You're forced to really be in the moment. Also, my kids are a great distraction. There's nothing like children who want to play. They’re 1, 5 and 7 years old. My 5-year-old, in particular, is not interested in you not being present. To him, why would you want to be anywhere else other than in our imaginary game?

There was a really great TED Talk by Shonda Rhimes. She was getting burnt out, but the thing that resonated with me was that she had a year of saying yes to her kids. It’s funny how you get a snippet of wisdom from somebody else that sticks in your mind. I think that was one of the things. I also think skincare has become self care. It's part of taking time out to be yourself. I'm not a big beauty ritualist so it's not like I spend two hours doing it, but it’s just about being mindful when you put on your face mask or take your makeup off.

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You describe your position with Five Dot as being a "beauty outsider". What’s it like being a beauty outsider?

It took me a long time to accept being a beauty outsider is where I'm comfortable. I was on Sephora Accelerate this year. One feedback I got was that it’s okay that you're a beauty outsider—that's part of your story. A part of me had been really shy about it. A lot of it is about how you own your story. Some parts of my life I think I know how to own my story, others I'm still trying to work it out. Like what does my cultural heritage mean? How do I own that story and what that means now?

With Five Dot, I want to grow a sustainable business. It's about challenging the norms about how many ingredients we've got in our products. I think it is okay to be an outsider. When I grew up, fashion and beauty wasn't for people like me, no one looked like me in any magazine. And that's okay. I don't want to sell to everybody, I only want to sell to a tribe of people who get what we're about. They're super interested in the idea of minimalism, the luxury of less. They're not always beauty junkies but they want healthy skin, they care about their health. People like the fact that we’re saying something different in beauty. We write about stuff that's not about how to have the perfect glassy skin. We talk about what it means to over-consume, or what it means to have a product that can be used by a 25-year-old and a 55-year-old woman? We ask different questions.

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What's been the scariest bit of this journey so far?

I think, as we scale at the pace we’re doing, the scariest bit is running out of cash before you get that cycle ready. I used to hear about people saying that before I had my own business and I didn’t get it. I get it now. It's a very crowded marketplace. Can we get cut-through quick enough to own a space in it before someone gazumps your house?

I’d rather we either be a great success or be a failure. I don't think, in the long-term, limping along is where I want to be. I don’t want to be sitting on this, half-hearted, for 10 years. We want to have grown a community, we want to be doing change, we need to be excited by it always. We need to innovate and have a conversation and be real people. We can't just exist and not excite anyone.

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What has building this beauty business taught you about yourself and your identity?

That the outsider is really the insider. Who is outside of what? We create a sense of what something is. I say I'm a beauty outsider, but I am the beauty industry. In the same way that someone would say, “Your parents are from Bangladesh. Are you really British?” Yes I am British. It’s about owning that space.

I also think that there's a new conversation to be had around things becoming much more holistic. Everything's become interconnected. We now live in a world where beauty is health. What does health mean? Health is wellness and wellbeing. What does wellness mean? You can't be a brand now without asking. And every brand has to be sustainable because the earth is on fire. And so then what does it mean to be a good business? Because people don't want to just trade cash for a commodity. The conversation has become bigger, and it's really exciting because we're really close to that. As we scale, we have to keep that personality and feeling of connectedness to those issues.

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How do you find the time to work on Five Dot?

I launched a year ago when I was pregnant. Everyone laughs because there's a five-year age gap between my last baby and this one. They were like, did you have a baby so you could work on your business? When I had the ideas for Five Dot, I was doing my day job. Launching a business, and getting stuff together, doesn't all happen at once. I spent like 90% of my time waiting.

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I was speaking to someone yesterday and she introduced me to the term, "Hurry up and wait."

Hurry up and wait. I love it. It was totally “hurry up and wait.” But I'm glad I wasn't impatient with it.

I know I work in TV but the biggest joke is that I don't watch TV and I don’t do much passive entertainment. Everyone says to me, “How do you make the time?” I don’t spend more time on Five Dot than anyone else spends on watching television. I just traded out doing something else. I probably wish I had more time to go to the gym. But I think anyone who's watching TV or scrolling the internet for two hours a night—half the population probably—are addicted to it. There is no magic to it. I'm very disciplined. There's always a list. I know what the three things I need to do are. I don't always get them done but I'm very clear about what we need to do. I think it's about being prepared to make a compromise. If you're not prepared to let go of something in the pursuit of something else, you’re not ready for business, or having a side hustle isn't necessarily for you. Because you need to be relentless. It's different if it's a hobby because you can just fit it in. I think we've got a lot of capacity to do stuff if we're just being disciplined with our time.

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How did you cultivate that discipline?

It's hard to say how people get discipline. I suppose my background as a lawyer makes me very disciplined. I think it would be hard to divorce my day job from all this, because you bring all your day job to your side hustle. Sometimes that's really good. I've got discipline, I’ve got focus. Sometimes it's bad, because my background is what holds us back. I can occasionally be risk-averse with Five Dot. For instance, we may have some braver things we want to say, and I can be a bit hesitant and prefer sticking to what works—I would say that's where the interference of the different skill set isn't good. But I'm aware of it. I'm aware that I can hold things back by not having the clarity to look at it with a slightly different hat on.

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Does the hat-switching ever get too tricky?

Not really, no. Because they're enriching each other. At work, they know I have this other affair with my side hustle. My side hustle knows I'm a lawyer. And they each enrich the other.

If anything, Five Dot probably made me stronger in my day job. There were things that held me back: confidence, making decisions or talking up. I've had to exercise these skills constantly in my own business, because I'm the business owner. I think at the start it was harder, because I was shy to say I had this business, but it's so out there now. When you're hiding something, the energy you waste is more about hiding it from other people, rather than because you find the switching difficult.

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When did you stop feeling shy about showing the world Five Dot?

Five Dot was just an idea on a notebook. And I was like “Oh my God, I've got this thing...”. But no one cares. But in your head, you're thinking you’ve built Nike.

Four months before I was going to launch the brand, I knew we would want to get press out there and I wanted to be associated with it. I've always wanted to be transparent and honest with everyone I deal with. When I told people at work about the side hustle, it's not that they didn't care, but it's so obscure. It’s like "They’ve got a dog, so what? I've got this side business and I do amateur dramatics in my spare time." It's no different, they just see it as a hobby, I guess.

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What have your kids taught you?

To be in the moment and have fun.

Noah, my middle child, is like “There's no time to waste”. You’ve just gotta have the fun now—if it doesn't work out, we simply forget about it or be done with it. My oldest has taught me a lot about being careful with words. She's very thoughtful. Do you say what you mean, or are you not saying what you mean? What is your tone? She’s interested in understanding what we really mean to say to each other. Sometimes as a parent you can be passive-aggressive, and she's taught me about what it means to be careful with words and do and say what you mean. My youngest is a baby, and he's just reminded me that nothing of any value can be bought. I've been holding a baby and stroking a baby. It's not about having children, because you can get it from dogs or friends or your partner. But it's this sense of needing each other physically. If your life is not full of relationships or love, really, there’s no point. The youngest has taught me the need for real connection.

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You mentioned earlier that you used to worry about having friends that all look the same or have the same leanings. Fast forward to today, is that still on your mind?

It's always on my mind, and it comes up in my day job as well. Are we recruiting diversely, broadly, differently? Are we challenging our unconscious bias? We've never been more aware of the prejudices or things that we might hold unwittingly, and that's one thing.

The other is that now as a business owner, I really get what they mean by having different types of people, rather than having lots of the same types of people. Brian (my husband), our designer, our investor, or our cosmetic formulator—we’re the most crazy, different bunch of people, though we share the same values and vision. That used to stress me out before [everyone being different]. I’d just want everyone to be nodding in agreement, but I can have much better discussions where we don't agree. And that's great. I’d have taken things much more personally, a few years ago.

On the Feed

I collect lots of stuff. I'm getting rid of a lot of stuff because I'm trying to live a minimal life. This is a collection of letterpress letters, and it weighs about two ton. I want to put it under a coffee table. I've owned that for 15 years. For 15 years I've been wanting to make it into a coffee table.

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My kids are obsessed with labelling stuff. I think this comes from them seeing me with notebooks and Five Dot when I’m packaging parcels. We've got quite a vivid imagination in our house so everything has a name. They became obsessed with sticking labels on stuff. So they’ve named these plants. Everything is variations of Frederick or Fred. I don’t know why. I was like, "Look can you give them an Asian name?"

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My baby’s four weeks old, and I realised I need more behind-the-scenes photos from Five Dot. I was massively breastfeeding and he's tiny because he's just born. I was so exhausted in that photo. This is my bathroom at home. I was doing a product demonstration in my bathroom. The baby just cried and cried and cried. My husband is in Ireland, and my two other kids are downstairs watching TV. I said, "Look, I have to put the baby in the sling, or this photoshoot is not going to happen."

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This is me in China. I lived in Hong Kong in my early 20s during SARS. I was very lost because I was about to finish my job as a lawyer. The dotcom bubble had burst and I thought I was going to end up at an insolvency department in the City. I strangely decided that I was going to go to Shaolin and train with the monks in Kung Fu. But obviously Shaolin is a male monastery. What was a woman doing learning Kung Fu there? I hadn't really thought about it.

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This is my little son who in lockdown learned to ride a bike. Every Saturday, we do walks as a family in nature. My husband's from Ireland so he's more obsessed with walking than I am. This is Nunhead Cemetery in south-east London. I had never been in a cemetery. Bangladeshis don't really hang out in cemeteries!

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Off the Cuff

On collecting things

Pleasurable. You can find all kinds of curiosity in things that you've collected, whether it's plants or pine cones on a walk, or buttons discovered in a market. The repetition of the same thing is really pleasing to me

On urban gardening

Being in the moment. My gardening is terrible, but I'm a really enthusiastic gardener, and I never have enough time to really do it properly. I throw myself in with gusto at the start and then forget to nurture on a daily basis which is what you need to do, and then have great successes and then massive failures, but it's fine.

On parenting

Chaos and joy. None of us have a book about how to do it. I think it's super important that we understand ourselves before we parent kids. We can pass down a lot of things we don't mean to if we don't reflect. Also, we have to be selfless. There's no space for putting yourself first when you have children. And love them—love them and let them know they're loved. There's no point in hiding it. There are times in our lives where we want to be coy. With kids it's just "I love you." You say it all the time, you say it every day and it's so liberating.

On the beauty industry

Complex. The beauty industry is for everyone, and you will find your space in it, even if it's not obvious at the start. I think that about everything really now—there's a space for everyone. And there's a space to prove, there hasn't always been but there is now. Also, don't be permissive. Don't wait for people to accept you and include you to own it.

On beekeeping

The most unexpected, so nothing will ever happen according to the book.

Follow Zaffrin on Instagram, and visit Five Dot Botanics' website here and Instagram here.

Laura sits at the intersection of multiple worlds. Art and math. East and west. Left brain and right brain. Words and graphics.

She first went viral on Twitter over Thanksgiving 2019 with a self-deprecating joke about her role as a product manager at Twitter. (In the aftermath, her mom asked her what a ‘mee-mee’ is.) Fast forward to 2020 and Laura’s Twitter notifications blow up again with her comic, The Wuhan I Know. Laura was born in Wuhan before moving to the States at age 4. During the COVID pandemic, her hometown is thrust into the world’s consciousness in an overwhelmingly negative light. We talk about her main drivers for publishing the comic, and her experiences of day and night (literally) during this period. The comic gains so much traction on Twitter that it’s picked up by NPR and other news outlets, and Laura wins a book deal to turn her comic into a graphic novel.

We dive deep into what the process has taught her about herself, how she works as a creative, why she likes coffeeshops, and about why she wants to bring the value of authenticity to her book and life.

P.S. Fillmore Bakeshop in SF gets Laura’s vote for the best sourdough.

First things first. Tell us about the bread obsession.

It's nothing too sophisticated. I just have always been a huge fan of bread, ever since I realised that it existed beyond sliced bread. Growing up, my family was fairly middle class, and so my mom always got like the sliced bread. I always hated those that were super dry. I think American bread is also pretty bad compared to the rest of the world. And so I always hated bread growing up. Out of all the carbs, why would you choose this really dry flimsy little piece of square? But once I graduated and started making my own money, and realised that bakeries with actual fresh rolls and super puffy, amazing, scrumptious bread existed, Wow! A whole new world opened up to me and my hatred has now turned into an adoration for really good bread. My favourite bakery of all time in the city is called Fillmore Bakeshop. It's in the Japantown/Fillmore area of San Francisco. I highly recommend it. Their sourdough roll is probably the best thing I've ever had.

So now, I’d love to start at the beginning...

I was born in Wuhan. My parents both immigrated to the States for graduate school right after they had me. I was raised by my grandparents in Wuhan up until I was around 4. That's when my parents had saved enough money to bring us over to the States. We lived in Louisiana for a bit, then we moved to Texas for my dad's job. And that's primarily where I grew up. I would consider Texas to be my second home in a way. My parents have the classic immigrant story in that they went from rags to riches. My dad, in particular, came from a family of farmers. Even now, when I go home to Wuhan, the family still lives in the countryside and it's completely different from everything I've experienced over here.

For college, I went to the University of Pennsylvania, which is in Philly. I knew I wanted to leave Texas for a bit and see what else is out there. That was really great. And that's also where I found my love for tech, for design, and for art. I've loved art my entire life. It was then that I was able to combine all of that to get a job at Twitter right after graduation as a product manager. And that's how I ended up in San Francisco.

How did your love for art come about? Do you remember?

Honestly, I feel like I've been doodling before I even knew how to write. At a very young age, I remember I would piggyback with my parents to the church every Sunday, but I didn't understand a thing. I was probably incredibly young then, and I always would just be doodling and drawing. My mom was like, “She loves to draw, but she also makes such a fuss at church, we should probably maybe send her to a class when we're at church.”

They found this Chinese artist who’d immigrated to Dallas, who apparently was pretty well known when he was in China. He had a studio where parents could send their kids to and so I started learning from that teacher every Sunday. I didn't particularly like it because his style was black and white sketch drawings of still life. If you looked at my journal of doodles from that time, they're all superheroes, bad guys and animals. All super fun stuff. That's when my mom first realised that, not only do I like it, but I had some kind of talent. I did end up quitting that studio, but I started going to art classes at school.

What does drawing mean to you?

Drawing has been a huge way of expression throughout my whole life. From the moment I was young, there weren't many outlets for me to express my feelings. My family in particular was fairly stoic. I've always had an aversion to being alone with my thoughts, because I just didn't know what to do with them. Drawing was a good outlet for when I couldn't put all my thoughts into words. Or even if I did, for when I didn't have anyone to express them to. It was great to just have a pencil and paper that I can lay it all on. A lot of my early comics and drawings were pretty biographical. They either depicted something that I wanted to reflect on, or something I want to cherish because it was a great memory.

When did you start drawing comics?

I didn't start drawing comics until college or later, and I remember how I first started. After I graduated, I started work here in SF. There was a period of time in which I felt really disillusioned. I was in a long distance relationship with my then-partner and that really hurt and it was easy to feel lonely as a result. Work was really stressful. I was wondering, 'I love art so much but why am I not doing that in my life.' I decided that every night before I went to bed I’d draw a short thing about that day or a moment in that day, to appreciate my days more.

What was college like for you?

People always joke that artists can't like math, but I love math! In college, I got into the business school. I’ve always loved numbers, stats and analytics but at the time, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I think I changed my major 20 times over those four years, honestly. I remember this one class on mechanical design in which we 3D printed things and we laser cut different objects to create these cool structures. I absolutely loved that. It brought together my love for hands-on learning with my passion for art and design. I did a couple of animation courses too—those are the ones that I pulled the most all-nighters for. But they were really awesome all-nighters. I enjoyed every single minute of them.

Math vs. art. What was it like for you switching between the left and right sides of your brain on an almost daily basis?

If anything, it really helped to have two different things that I was doing every day. When you got tired of one thing, you could easily switch to the next and it will help you balance out your entire life. I think a lot about friends who went to art school who would get so burnt out about art that they couldn't—they didn't—even want to draw another thing.

Did you ever consider studying art instead of business?

For a bit, yeah, but I just knew it wasn't practical. My parents are very classic immigrant parents, and there was no way they would pay for art school.

So, art was always something for you to keep on the side?

I always wanted to keep art as a passion, for sure. It’s been a huge part of my life, but I didn't think it would ever turn into a full time or actual ‘life’ thing that I would do. One, my parents probably wouldn't let me go to art school, but two, I actually wasn't really that confident in my art to be able to get me into art school. I didn't think that I was good enough compared to a lot of my peers. I thought it was just better if I keep it as a passion. But, sometimes, life just surprises you.

I want to talk about your doing art full-time. But first, let’s talk about going viral—not once, but twice...

It was super left field. I saw a joke about it and I just thought it was super funny and I should do it [the meme] for my job. This was definitely something that my dad has said before, about everything that I do. And so I posted it, not thinking that it would ever go viral because my job as a product manager [at Twitter] is fairly niche. But the next thing you know, everyone in the world was liking and retweeting it. I love that everyone also used a format for their own jobs. It's like, no matter who you are, even if you were a hotshot doctor, your dad would still be mad about it. It was really a funny moment with all these strangers on the internet.

How did you end up at Twitter?

In college, I'd been switching between a bunch of majors and had decided to go into finance, because that's what most people in my school did. It was the most acceptable job to my dad. He had this dream that his daughter would become a Wall Street hotshot. Thankfully, I did not go through with that. I ended up realising that it was not for me at all.

In junior year, I went on a trip to San Francisco where we got to meet different companies and alumni in tech. Twitter was one of them. That was my very first time getting introduced to Twitter as a company, and beyond just an app. I got to learn a lot more about the tech world which at the time I had known nothing about. After that trip, it just really hit me that I’d been making things my entire life. And that's what tech is about. It's all these creative minds coming together to make really cool things. I ended up recruiting really hard for tech at the last minute.

You were at Twitter when the pandemic struck, which really put Wuhan on the map. As a result, you created another (soon to be viral) comic, why?

The main driver for publishing that comic was this dissonance I felt with being on this side of the world in which everyone around me was fed a lot of media about how awful Wuhan was. I even heard rhetoric about how the people were savage for eating bats. There were a lot of very nasty negative things about people in my family and people in my hometown. I’d hear that during the day, and video chat with my family back home at night. They had nothing but love and worry about me and like everyone else around. That was really unfortunate and heartbreaking for me to feel those two very different perspectives, but having no one to marry them together. The common thread is that we're all in this together trying to fight this thing. There's no point in bringing down one or the other.

I wanted to be able to combat the negative media that we were getting, especially in the Western countries, and bring my own point of view. I wanted to say, "This is actually my beautiful hometown, and all the beautiful things that you're missing. And everyone here is trying to get past the same challenge in the world and we should be banding together instead."

Why do you think the comic went viral?

From the feedback and fan mail I got, a lot of people were saying that the message was super universal. I think the main group of people who had really positive emotions connected to it were one people who were also Chinese-American or Chinese like me, and have felt that the world was demonising them for something they had no control over. They really appreciated that my comic called out people's bad behaviour. We should be bonded together over it. The last panel [in my comic] says “Jiayou Wuhan.” "Jiayou" is "rooting for you". At the end of day, we're all victims of the same disease.

The other group was people who were non-Chinese or non-Chinese American, but who also had the same sentiments, and were glad to learn about all these new things about Wuhan. It's honestly such a beautiful place with beautiful landmarks, amazing food and wonderful people. So many of the fans responded saying that Wuhan's the first place they wanted to visit once everything's over. That really brought joy to my heart too. The last thing is—and this is all by coincidence—the very day that I posted it was also the day that Trump had called the virus a Chinese virus on Twitter. Every news article was picking that up. I think a lot of people were looking for that more positive outlook, compared to our president just taking the easy road to shaming someone.

Did you also receive hate mail?

I did, especially in the Twitter replies. I didn't read all their replies, but there were some. I honestly expected it. I’ve worked on the anti-abuse team at Twitter, and I've seen way worse comments. When I first posted it I actually expected it to get a lot more negative reactions than positive ones. At the time, there was a lot of anti-Asian sentiment. I did not expect to get such positivity. So if anything, all the positive comments really overwhelmed the negative ones.

So, how did the book deal come about?

After it went viral, the calls started coming in. I got an interview with NPR, which is really awesome. After the NPR interview, a publisher reached out to me through Twitter asking if I wanted to turn it into a book. I didn't know anything about the publishing world. I’d created this comic just after work in a coffee shop, and so I did not have all these crazy, big dreams for it. I just wanted to get my story out there. But after she called, I was like, "Wow, that's super cool. This is my rocket ship moment, there's no way I'm going to let this fly by."

I ended up going with my current agent, Brenda, because she really got my story. She saw the other comics on my website and really understood the type of storytelling I wanted to do. It was super quick. Within a couple of weeks, we wrote a proposal for this expanded book, which would touch on more than just Wuhan. It’s about my immigrant story, being in the intersection of two worlds, and trying to deal with the conflicts that come with being between two cultures. We're aiming for the summer of next year (2021) for when the book will come out, so hopefully when all of this [COVID] is over.

You mentioned earlier that you were really disillusioned and stressed at work. How did you end up leaving Twitter?

I was approaching a year and a half at Twitter. While I did like my co-workers and my role, there was a piece of creativity that was missing, similar to when I first started doing art at that studio, which was teaching black and white still life. It was so boxed in. I felt that same sentiment on Twitter. I got to exercise my design muscles, but even design is quite literally all boxes when you're doing UI/UX design on an app.

My mentor was also a product manager at Twitter. He said something that really flicked that switch i n my brain. He went to college to study film and wanted to be a filmmaker, but ended up as a product manager. I asked him, “Do you still write scripts on the side or try to film small short films?” He had been a PM for 20+ years at this point. And I remember him saying, "No, I actually think it's been so long that I don't think I can even write a script anymore." That hit me so hard. He was someone I really respected, and I still do, but it was just so sad to see him lose that part of himself after not being able to exercise it for so long. I can't let my love [for art and design] fade away. I need to make sure that I'm always exercising it in some kind of way. I will definitely regret the day that I realise I can't even draw anything on a paper. I'd resolved to put more art into my life, maybe even start doing art full time. I thought of becoming a traveling artist, but that’s when COVID hit. All these plans vanished. There was no way I could travel and I needed health insurance and job security.

After I got the book deal, that was the green light for me. One, the book deal gave me enough money to sustain myself. And two, I knew that I could not do this book justice if I was also working a full time job. If I truly wanted to try out full-time art, I needed to make sure I'm putting my full self into it.

Congratulations! What was the most eye-opening thing about going into art full-time?

Everything that I'm learning about myself and the way I like to work. They weren't huge surprises, because I know that I'm always someone who hated routine. I love being able to work at 2:00 am if I wanted to, because I'm very nocturnal. I prefer to work at 2:00 am versus 2:00 pm, and when you're working 9-to-5 for a corporation, that's just not possible. Learning how I like to work and being self-employed helps me to really get the most out of that.

Another thing that's very eye-opening is how much of a mental battle being a self-employed artist is. I thought going in that motivation or artistic skills would be the biggest challenge. But the biggest challenge really has been the mental battles whenever I'm stuck in a rut with my art, or my writing, or I don't know what to do and I'm the only person doing this. I had a whole team of people at Twitter all with the same goal. Now, how do you get past a lot of demons in your mind telling you you're not good enough or that you're an imposter, or you’ve wasted all this time? That's been a huge learning opportunity for me to build self-confidence.

Art is your comfort, but how do you cope when the mental battles that you face stem from being a full-time artist?

Before, there were no real stakes. I made stuff for myself. I could post it or I could decide not to. And even when I did, I didn't really care how many likes they got because it was mainly just for me. But now, there are all these stakes. If I'm making this book, I'd want other people to like it and read it. And because it's a memoir, I'm literally putting my full self onto the page. And that's really scary too, because if people don't like your book, maybe they don't like your art, or your writing, but maybe they just don't like you as a person. So that's incredibly personal. The biggest mental battle I face is how much of myself should be on the page.

My publisher also paid for this book, and I want to make sure I’m not letting them down. Because if your book doesn’t do well, who knows if I’ll have another opportunity afterwards, right? I try to constantly remind myself that this is still infinitely better than anything else I could have done and just to really enjoy the ride, because it goes by so quickly.

You tweeted that people warned you that you’d become disillusioned after making your passion your career. How did that make you feel?

I’ve definitely seen that before with myself. When I was in school, I ran this design business and I was lucky that it was fairly successful. But at one point, I had too many clients to handle that I was not enjoying my work. And I feel like that's probably what people mean about getting disillusioned. So far, it actually hasn't been the case, and I'm still really enjoying every moment of it. I think the difference here is that while there is a lot of pressure, I get full creative control over everything about my story. My editor gives feedback, but what I want to write about and how and the voice that comes across is all authentically mine. Whilst there is money involved, I think because I started off with a pretty good safety net of savings, I'm able to take a lot of pressure off as well and fully enjoy just the creative process.

What’s your book writing process been like?

It's been honestly such a wild ride. A typical graphic novel takes one to two years to create. But my editor and I both agreed to fast track that because of how timely the material was. So, we decided if I can get this book done in six months, she'll fast track it for summer next year (2021). That's definitely been a challenge but also a really cool goal.

When I really like something, I put 24/7 focus on it and it doesn't feel like time is actually passing. I usually do it in sprints. For a couple of weeks I’d be fully grinding on the art, or the writing. I was probably doing 14-hour days of drawing. Normally, I'd start around noon and go until 4 or 5 am. But it never felt like work. Everything just felt so fun and so free. When I turn in my art, my editor and my art director might take a couple weeks to get back to me and so that would be my vacation time. All the breaks I probably should have been taking during the 14-hour days, I just clump them all together: 2 to 3 weeks of nothing. And during that time I don't look at my story at all. I try to erase it from my memory, because it helps in my next round of revisions if I look at it with brand new eyes. And I usually do other things that are not work related, so I could refresh myself during that time.

Do you have a spot that you have to sit at to draw?

I can draw from anywhere. Over the last few months, I've been home in Dallas, I've been here in San Francisco, and in an Airbnb in Mammoth Lakes with some of my friends—it was there that I actually got most of the pages done! I typically designate my spaces. Wherever I sleep, I make sure that's not where I do my work, because it’s very easy for me to then mix up my leisure brain with my work brain. And I also make sure that wherever I work, I'm not also like watching Netflix or playing games. If I want to play a game, I will physically pick up my laptop, go to different rooms and do it there.

Do you have any pre-drawing rituals or habits?

Coffee definitely is a must. I don't know if that's a ritual or just a necessity. I have to have a cup of coffee in the morning. I always put on music. I have a specific playlist that I use every time I draw and I never get tired of the songs on it, even though I've heard them a million times at this point. I will typically do a quick meditation session too before I draw to focus. I need a lot of sunlight, in general. And I simply like to work around other people too. It makes me not feel so lonely.

You mentioned the very first iteration of this comic was done in a coffee shop. Were you always drawing at coffee shops?

I did always prefer coffee shops because I would like the vibe of them. I love the smell of coffee, and they usually put on fairly good music. I love being around people. It reminds me that I'm not tackling things by myself. Even if we were doing different things, it still feels like we, in a way, are on a team for a specific purpose.

Do you ever get into a rut and not know what to draw or write?

That usually happens after I’ve been grinding for a couple of days. I will usually have to take a day of rest after 4 or 5 days of drawing or writing. I honestly think that's a good practice for anyone that’s a creative, because you can't expect your brain to always be on. Maybe I'll listen to a podcast, go on a hike, or just do something to refresh myself.

Do you think you’ve found your voice as an artist?

Honestly, I'm still trying to understand what exactly a voice is. With this memoir, I think I'm getting closer and closer to being my full authentic self on the page. I think when people read this book, it will definitely be clear that I'm the one narrating it.

When I send it to friends, I think it passes the “name test.” Even if you blank out all the names, someone who reads it will be like, “Yeah, I'm definitely talking to Laura.” So, I think that I have found my voice in that sense, but it's constantly evolving. It’s a combination of everything I learned throughout the years. I hope it continues to evolve along with my art style.

Words versus graphics. Which one comes first?

The words came first for this one.

I wrote out a 100-page script before I even started drawing. I've heard it varies across all comic artists. Because my brain is pretty visual, it was easier for me to have the visual in my brain and write it down, instead of sketching everything out—my sketching ability probably isn't as great as I’d like it to be to where I could just sketch immediately what's in my brain. So, I'd rather just write it down first. It made it a lot easier for editing too, as I didn’t have to redraw anything.

Your book is a very personal memoir. You’re very open on social media about your background, your self-identity, your mental health. How do you feel putting yourself out there?

It's definitely scary! I mean it's funny, because whilst it is scary, I've always been super open.

As you said, I post about things that are probably pretty taboo for other people on social media. Even when I was at work, I spoke up about things I was really unhappy about that other people felt could really jeopardise my career. I was a huge advocate for diversity and inclusion, and I was being critical of leadership when I didn't feel that they were working hard enough on it. I think that's always just been who I am. If no one else is speaking about it, then I will do that.

Is that a function of your upbringing?

I do think it is something that I cultivated throughout high school and college. Growing up, since I'm the older sibling, when my brother and I get into fights with our parents, I would always be the more vocal one. One thing that was learned is how to be confrontational and to stick up for what you want.

In college, I was fortunate enough to be around some really awesome people that accepted me for who I was—that was a deliberate thing I wanted. All throughout high school, I felt like I was living this double life where there were a lot of things I kept hidden, like my sexuality. But in college, I got to be fully out and authentic to them. And, honestly life has just been that much happier. I realised that authenticity is the best value to have if I wanted to stay happy in life. So, that's the value that I bring now into my book and the rest of my life.

I love hearing that. Would you care to talk a little bit more about your coming out?

Yeah, I’m queer. I think I've really known that for most of my life, but never got to fully admit it until college. I grew up in a small pretty conservative religious town called Coppell in Texas. It’s predominantly white Baptists. I don't think I knew a single out LGBTQ+ person at my school at the time. Also, there were very few people of colour and being a queer person of colour is a whole new layer in itself.

All of that meant that I had to keep everything secret up until college. One of the reasons that I only applied to colleges outside the south was that I wanted to see what other environments there are. I knew that there are other places that could be more open and accepting, but I don't really know to what extent. I got to Penn, which is super open, super liberal, and one of the most LGBTQ+ friendly campuses—which I didn’t know at that time. It was because of that environment that I got to not only finally be open to everyone else, but to be honest with myself.

Wrapping up, how would you describe yourself? You’re a creator, a writer, a bread lover?

I am a bread lover, yes. I think you said "multi-hyphenate" in the beginning, and honestly, I think that’s a great word. I have so many different interests and so many different things that I do throughout my life. I hate to confine myself to just one word or my identity to just one thing. Multi-hyphenate. I call myself "Laura the Explorer" a lot because it also rhymes with "Dora the Explorer." "Explorer" is probably the best word to summarise all of it because I'm constantly looking for new things to try out, and new jumps to take. Because why do the same thing for the rest of your life?

On the Feed

I’d just arrived back in San Francisco after a couple of months at home. It was nice to be back in Texas, but I’m not really out to my parents or many people back home.I was just incredibly thankful to be back in SF and I love biking. I was out on a ride and I wanted to document this moment of euphoria. I ended up doing this self-photoshoot. I put the phone on a trash can, and I had a soy milk drink at the time and put it behind the phone to support it. it was just a really great moment.

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My birthday, May 14, was the exact day of my graduation. In the week leading up to my birthday, I did a Facebook fundraiser for Planned Parenthood. I said that if we reached $10,000 I’d wear the onesie on my graduation. I didn't think it’d ever reach that number, but it did, and so I showed up as a pink dinosaur on the day I graduated.

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My mom took this picture and, when I saw it, I zoomed in to the background. Those were the paintings that my brother and I drew when we were very young. I've always had a contentious relationship with my family, especially around my artistic side. While they were supportive of it as a passion, they were never supportive of it as a “real” thing. That was really important for me to see that my mom had these pictures for years in her office. And to know that maybe on the outside, it seemed like they were disapproving, but on the inside, they still really appreciated the artistic side of their kids.

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That’s my current apartment in SF. I always loved ambient light. I try to have as much light as possible when I work. I use an app called Procreate, and I use an Apple pencil to draw. My keyboard—that's what I usually do for breaks. I love music; not only listening but playing. Whenever I get tired or want a break, I'll usually improv music or just play a tune.

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That's my grandma on my mom's side. I'm actually probably the closest to her out of all my relatives in Wuhan. We call almost every week. I tell her things I don't even tell my parents. She's been a really great mentor figure in my life. I was probably still in Wuhan at that time of this picture. I’m holding a toy gun or something. It looks like we’re part of a gang or mob, and she’s the mob boss and I’m her firsthand.

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Off the Cuff

On anime

Haikyu!! The best part is the characters are all so lovable; there’s not a single character that I hate. It’s to a point when you love a character so much that you want to just like know everything about them.

On Twitter

The social media that I’m on 24/7.

On bread

Fillmore Bakeshop sourdough.

On family group chats

They’re an enigma to me. It's silence for a while, then my parents would ask for an update, which I give, then it's silence again. Rinse and repeat!

On romcoms

I am obsessed with Crash Landing on You. All my friends know I don’t even like cheesy, lovey-dovey stuff, but I can't explain it.

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Find Laura Gao on Twitter, Instagram and her website.

As an interior designer, brand partnerships are an excellent way of publicising your interior design business and attracting new customers, especially when first starting out in the interior design industry. Not only that, brand partnerships are a great way to align yourself with reputable brands in the interior design industry and perhaps even earn some extra income. No matter the size of your interior design business, there are a wealth of brand partnership opportunities available to you, including real estate agents, furniture companies, and architects. A successful brand partnership helps both collaborators to grow their businesses, so it is important to partner with a brand that you admire and trust.

Navigating brand collaborations as an interior designer might seem overwhelming, but the time and effort involved will pay dividends to your business's success in the long run. In this article, we've covered everything you need to know about brand partnerships as an interior design, including:

• Why a brand partnership is beneficial to your interior design business
• What brand partnerships are available to interior designers
• How to pitch an interior design brand partnership

Ready to collaborate on an exciting new project and meet a world of new customers for your interior design business? A new interior design brand partnership awaits...

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Brand partnerships for interior designers - what are they?

A brand partnership is when two or more professionals collaborate to promote each other's products or services. A successful collaboration results in increased exposure and learning opportunities for both brands involved. Four different types of interior design brand partnerships:

• Product partnership. When businesses co-create a product or service. A good example is when Nate Berkus collaborated with Target.
• Event partnership. When businesses co-manage an event such as a trade show or conference. For example, you can manage a show house with a furniture vendor to promote both of your brands
• Content partnership. When businesses create promotional content together. You can work with a paint company, for example, and create a TikTok series on how to choose the right paint colours for different rooms.
• Sponsorship partnership. When a brand sponsors another brand's products or events. For example, SBID Events are sponsored by numerous brands like Vectorworks, Lalique, and Bloomsart.

Benefits of brand partnerships for interior designers

A brand partnership is a great method of marketing your interior design business to new clients and increasing your credibility as a brand. Here are the top three reasons you should pursue a brand partnership for your interior design business...

Increase brand visibility

A brand partnership lets you tap into your interior design business partner's clientele. This introduces you to new potential clients, drives traffic to your website, and improves your brand visibility and reputation altogether.

Attract a larger pool of clients

An interior design collaboration creates buzz for your brand in many ways. One, it generates public interest and brand recognition. And two, it adds value to your brand through exclusive discounts, products, or services. For example, if you have a product partnership with a furniture retailer, you can offer an exclusive discount to clients who wish to purchase from your brand partner.

Improve your credibility

When your interior design partner is a well-known brand, they vouch for your expertise. That connection establishes your business as of an equal calibre, which will in turn boost your credibility in the industry. Prospective clients will be impressed by your connections and have high expectations for working with you.

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How to choose the right brand partnership opportunity

Choosing the right brand to partner with is essential. Your compatibility as both brands and as individuals will determine your project's success. It's important to do your share of research before forwarding a business collaboration proposal. 4 steps in choosing the right partnership for your interior design firm...

Step 1. Define your vision and goals

Before choosing the right business partner, you have to know your goals. Ahead of searching for your ideal collaborator, ask yourself this question: What do I want to achieve with a brand partnership? For example, you might want to reposition your brand to a more high-end clientele, in which case you could consider partnering with a luxury furniture company that would expose you to that market. Determining what you want to gain from the brand partnership is crucial in keeping the collaboration on track and ensuring you are happy with the end result.

Step 2. Identify suitable partners

Once you have defined your personal aims for the brand partnership, you need to identify brands/individuals who can help you to fulfil these goals. Questions to think about...

• What type of partnership are you looking for?
• What skills should your ideal business partner have?
• Does this brand share my target audience?
• Does this brand have a positive industry reputation?

List down as many brands and professionals that come to mind while answering these questions and slowly scratch off brands that don't quite fit your criteria. You can also browse through online networking platforms like LinkedIn, or the Design and Construction Network to find potential interior design partners.

Step 3. Assess compatibility

Values are just as important as expertise. You'll find a lot of skilled experts in the interior design industry however, not everyone will share the same perspectives and ethos'. This is particularly important if you offer niche services such as sustainable interior design.

Run a background check on potential business partners to assess their brand identity and practices. You can also invite the owner or key contact to a meeting online or in person to get to know them better. Ideally, the right interior design partner should be a match on both a professional and personal level.

How to craft an interior design partnership proposal

A successful partnership takes careful planning and commitment from both parties, but it all starts with a well-crafted partnership proposal. There is no one size fits all approach to an interior design partnership proposal. More often than not, it depends on the nature of the brand you want to reach out to. Some brands prefer to conduct professional matters via email, whilst others might suit a more relaxed Instagram DM. Use the following steps as a brand partnership proposal template five steps to help you craft the perfect interior design brand partnership pitch...

Step 1. Write a compelling introduction

The first step: grab their attention. Write an impactful introduction that outlines your background, purpose, and why you believe the collaboration should happen. The first line should be enough to make the recipient want to read more. To write a good introduction, research your potential partner's company. Highlight any shared values and goals and generously incorporate them into your proposal.

Brand partnership pitch introduction template

Dear [Brand Partner's Name],

I am writing to explore the possibility of a strategic interior design partnership between our brands, [Your company name] and [Brand partner's name].

At [Your Company Name], our mission is to [your brand ethos here]. Our portfolio (linked) speaks to this mission, and I take particular pride in our recent work [share examples of a recent project(s)]. I believe that our mutual commitment to/understanding of [shared values here] make us ideal partners. I admire [Brand Partner's Company Name] for [share why you admire the brand/recent work you loved].

Step 2. Discuss partnership objectives and plan

Once you have made a stellar introduction and outlined why you make a perfect pair, it is time to break down your objectives and ideas for the next steps. In this section, you need to identify key areas of synergy and explain how your interior design collaboration efforts can create unique opportunities and value. Keep it realistic and achievable. Key details to include in your interior design partnership proposal:

• Your proposed activities, initiatives, or projects
• Benefits of these projects to your potential interior design partner
• A timeline of events or projects

Step 3. Highlight your portfolio and credentials

The third step is perhaps the hardest part of writing a brand partnership pitch, selling yourself. Highlight what makes you a good potential partner. Showcase your relevant experiences, certifications, and track record that will drive your partnership to success. Attach your design portfolio and include client testimonials that highlight the positive impact of your work.

Step 4. Conclude with a call to action

Wrap up the proposal with a clear and concise call to action. A call to action can be anything from a simple email response to an in-person meeting. What's important is that you simplify the next steps by providing your contact information and availability.

Brand partnership pitch CTA template

I'm excited to discuss the potential of this partnership further. We can schedule a meeting at your convenience, reach me here: [insert contact information]

Thank you for your time. I look forward to the exciting possibilities that lie ahead.

Step 5. Follow up on the proposal

Don't miss out on a partnership opportunity by neglecting to follow up on an email! Remember, your proposal doesn't end as soon as you hit send. It ends with an agreement or a rejection.

When do you follow up on a partnership proposal? It's best to send a follow-up no later than 10 days after sending your initial pitch. This gives the recipient ample time to review your proposal and express continued interest in the partnership. In your follow-up message, always be mindful of their time and in the event of receiving a "no", respect their decision and respond cordially and professionally.

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TLDR: A successful interior design brand partnership looks like...

Brand partnerships are an effective marketing strategy for interior designers looking to increase brand visibility, attract new customers and improve their reputation in the interior design industry. Your interior design business will grow from collaborating with businesses and brands that align with your aesthetic, ethos and goals. It is important to pursue a brand partnership with companies that you align with on a personal and professional level.

When reaching out to potential brand partners, be sure to communicate your expertise, your ideas (and passion for them) and why this partnership will be mutually beneficial for you both.

Creativity thrives in diverse, inclusive spaces. As a creative entrepreneur, you have a responsibility to create a safe, inclusive space for your employees as well as use your platform to champion inclusive practices. Creating an inclusive workplace is highly rewarding for both you and your employees. By collaborating with people with varied backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, you discover more ways to solve problems, innovate, and serve clients.

To build a truly inclusive workplace you must be committed, consistent, and open to learning. This article is a first step in teaching you how to foster an inclusive environment for both your employees and your customers.

What is an inclusive business?

An inclusive business provides equal opportunities and access to people from all backgrounds, especially those who have historically been excluded from the narrative such as low-income communities, global majority persons, women and non-binary people, persons with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations. Inclusive businesses foster an inclusive workplace culture and are also committed to making their products/services accessible to all.

5 Ways to Make Your Creative Business More Inclusive

You can't create an inclusive workplace overnight, it takes genuine commitment and a willingness to improve. Follow these steps to start building a truly inclusive workplace...

Hire a diverse workforce

Your recruitment process should be open to all and special care should be taken to ensure you are avoiding biases related to a candidate's age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or other personal characteristics that are unrelated to their job performance. A diverse staff creates a more positive work culture and allows you to explore new ideas fuelled by diverse perspectives. Studies have also proven that diversity in the workplace leads to greater profits and better staff retention.

Consider your accessibility

We all experience the world differently and there are certain digital practices you can follow to make your business more accessible to all. For example, you can design your website so that it is accessible to those who rely on assistive technology. Websites like WordPress and Wix even have accessible templates that you can follow.

Host educational seminars

To build an inclusive workplace, your whole team need to be engaged and on board. Hosting educational seminars on diversity and inclusion is a good way to open up conversations and allow your team to voice their concerns and suggestions for improvement. To ensure you are providing quality education, invite experts and professional groups that offer educational workshops and seminars. Remember: addressing your internal bias can be uncomfortable, but it is necessary in order to grow and improve your commitment to inclusivity.

Support grassroots projects

What you do outside of your workplace is just as important as what you do inside. Your commitment to diversity and inclusivity should span your industry as a whole—starting from the bottom up. How can your business support people from underrepresented backgrounds to find a career in the creative industries? Consider offering mentorship programmes for young creatives from underrepresented backgrounds or hosting fundraising events for charities that champion diversity in creative work.

Listen to feedback

Last, but not least, listen to the people around you. Regularly conduct surveys, interviews, and polls to give your employees and community a chance to share their experiences and offer ideas as to how to improve your inclusive practices. Be prepared to take critique and work hard to continually improve. The road to true a truly inclusive workplace may be bumpy but it's all worth it!