Why and How I became an Interior Designer – Chapter 2
Why and how I became an interior designer – Chapter 2
The Interior Dispatch continues to unpack the professional origin stories of two CMID creative team members.
Chapter one looks at studio founder Charlotte Minty, who has wide industry experience in New Zealand and in the United Kingdom. This chapter explores the promising career of interior designer Emilia Brown, who is much newer to the profession.
Read on to learn why and how Emilia started her career, and what impressions and lessons she has collected along the way.
Emilia’s story might also provide useful pointers for those aspiring to be interior designers.
THE FRENCH CONNECTION
For CMID interior designer Emilia Brown, her backstory bears little resemblance to that of her boss. Whereas the immediate family of CMID founder Charlotte Minty is steeped in architecture and design, neither Emilia’s parents nor siblings are in any way connected to that same world.
The closest Emilia comes to drawing on reliable design genes is a distant relative named Louis Marie Cordonnier. A leading French civil architect in the early part of the 20th century, Monsieur Cordonnier — whose father Jean-Baptiste was also an architect — was prominent in the Northern France and the Flanders region. The works of the younger Cordonnier can be seen today in Lille and The Hague.
French pedigree aside, Emilia is a professional outlier within her family. And that suits her just fine, as Emilia’s independent streak and innate curiosity led her to chart a separate path toward an interior design career.
According to Emilia, she drifted early in the direction of the creative arts with her parents nurturing her interest.
“At my school [Wellington’s Samuel Marsden Collegiate], I always sought out art and design-related classes she tells The Interior Dispatch.
Architecture had initially held the strongest professional attraction for Emilia. However, she dispensed with that idea following a school careers day in which a visiting architect explained the industry had not only moved away from her much loved hand-drawing, but also entry required an understanding of subjects that held little appeal for her – namely physics and engineering.
“It seemed to me at the time that the fun had been taken out of architecture,” she quips.
The pull towards the design field remained, however, especially in textiles and fashion. Such was her determination to pursue her interest she considered moving to Wellington High School, which has a strong creative arts curriculum. But Emilia stayed at Samuel Marsden and before long her final year had dawned, and she had to decide her next step.
Whereas the bulk of her classmates opted for traditional university pursuits – law or medicine, for example – Emilia bucked convention and headed to Dunedin to start an interior design course at the Otago Polytechnic.
Emilia sailed through her three-year Bachelor of Design program and with a good grounding in the discipline achieved, she headed back home to undertake a Masters in Interior Architecture at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington.
“Understanding the human value of design – culture, and context – and how that translates into form and function was a key part of my undergraduate and masters programs”
The VUW postgraduate degree is a two-year program, with the first dedicated to coursework and the second to develop a thesis. Emilia’s research focused on the social good of interior design, a notion that is still dear to her. Emilia’s thesis examined how transitional housing for released prisoners can improve their mental health. She explored how materiality, lighting, and how one connects with interior architecture can positively impact a released prisoner’s sense of wellbeing.
As CMID founder Charlotte Minty noted in chapter one:
“The environmental impact of a person’s wellbeing is well documented and CMID is committed to this philosophy.”
The human value of interior design is the beating heart of CMID, says Charlotte.
That same human-centric approach registers in modern academic study of interior architecture and design, says Emilia.
“Understanding the human value of design – culture, and context – and how that translates into form and function was a key part of my undergraduate and masters programs,” she says.
Emilia’s masters presentation in 2019
Emilia’s graduation with her parents in 2020
Emilia can freely trace the real benefits of her master’s degree. “Doing a masters degree is not a necessity to gain entry to the interior design industry. But what it did do for me was significantly expand my skills from my undergraduate study,” she says.
“People also tended to take me more seriously having completed my masters degree.”
During her postgraduate study, Emilia was an intern at the Wellington-based interior design studio formerly known as ESdesign (now operating as Kurio).
Under the mentorship of Eleanor Steel, Emilia spent a fruitful couple of years at ESdesign learning the trade, and acquiring new skills and techniques.
“My advice for design students is to jump into work experience opportunities as soon as you are able to. Working for Eleanor provided a valuable foot in the door, and it was a superb practical education,” says Emilia.
That experience led Emilia to CMID, where she became the studio’s first interior designer hire.
“I equally enjoy the technical and analytical side of interior design as I do the purely creative aspects. At university, I researched ways to solve problems through good design, and now I can do the same in practice. That is a big drawcard for me – it’s never boring”
It is the variety of the work that appeals most, says Emilia: “I equally enjoy the technical and analytical side of interior design as I do the purely creative aspects. At university, I researched ways to solve problems through good design, and now I can do the same in practice. That is a big drawcard for me – it’s never boring.”
Emilia says her studies and her own work experience have helped form a number of impressions about contemporary interior design.
“Sustainable design – be it in materials or attribute of design – is an industry benchmark nowadays. I have also noticed that, especially in Wellington, there appears to be a rejection of design trends. Rather, lasting styles and subtlety are more commonplace,” she says.
Finally, she shares with Charlotte an appreciation of interior design’s evolution to the front end of the design process, rather than an afterthought.
“This inside-out approach is really gratifying to see as it elevates the importance of the work interior designers do,” says Emilia.
Words: Craig Greaves