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Design in the Digital Age

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Design in the Digital Age

HOK's workplace design teams have always worked to solve problems and improve the human experience. That will never change. What is changing—even more so as we reimagine aspects of the built environment in response to COVID-19—is our culture’s heightened awareness of design.

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Introduction
Websites like Apartment Therapy and Houzz, social channels like Instagram and Pinterest, and TV networks like HGTV have given the world 24-7 access to design ideas and inspiration.

This growing interest in design is a welcome, natural development. People have an innate attraction to beauty, and wider participation in the design process only enriches the result. The challenge is that, while everyone may have their own ideas and opinions about design—and, thanks to the plethora of free design apps and inexpensive software, the tools to practice it—not everyone is a designer. Great design doesn’t emerge from a well-curated Pinterest board or hours of binge watching a show. Instead, it’s the product of education and experience, inspiration and rigor.

For this issue of HOK Forward, we asked several HOK workplace strategists and designers to explore the effects of this elevated interest in design across six universal topics.

We start with aesthetics and how to achieve authentic interior design rather than simply chasing trends.

The design influencer culture is most definitely upon us. Christine Vandover writes about designing under the influence, postulating that the most thoughtfully designed spaces eschew outside influences—and noting the radical changes affecting influencers since the COVID-19 outbreak.

Caitlin Turner and Kristina Kamenar delve into stylization, clarifying what they believe is the most misunderstood term in interior design and explaining how, when done right, it can lead to a “return to joy.”

Globalization has made the world a more connected place, where ideas and inspiration are shared and accessible. But Enrico Caruso and Julia Cooper argue that it doesn’t mean our workplaces should look the same.

What’s the anatomy of an authentic experience? Peter Sloan and Bethany Foss asked the world via a survey, and 500+ respondents helped deconstruct it. They crystallized their quantitative and qualitative findings, with help from data visualizations and a video, into lessons all workplace designers can use.

Finally, Mike Goetz examines personalization in an office: What does it mean, why do people do it, what does it look like, how can designers facilitate it, and how are technology, demographics and COVID-19 changing it?

We hope you enjoy this issue of HOK Forward, which, even (especially?) in the midst of a global pandemic, reinforced to us that there has never been a more exhilarating time to be a designer.

Sincerely,

Tom Polucci
tom.polucci@hok.com
Director of Interiors

Kay Sargent
kay.sargent@hok.com
Director of WorkPlace
Introduction
Websites like Apartment Therapy and Houzz, social channels like Instagram and Pinterest, and TV networks like HGTV have given the world 24-7 access to design ideas and inspiration.

This growing interest in design is a welcome, natural development. People have an innate attraction to beauty, and wider participation in the design process only enriches the result. The challenge is that, while everyone may have their own ideas and opinions about design—and, thanks to the plethora of free design apps and inexpensive software, the tools to practice it—not everyone is a designer. Great design doesn’t emerge from a well-curated Pinterest board or hours of binge watching a show. Instead, it’s the product of education and experience, inspiration and rigor.

For this issue of HOK Forward, we asked several HOK workplace strategists and designers to explore the effects of this elevated interest in design across six universal topics.

We start with aesthetics and how to achieve authentic interior design rather than simply chasing trends.

The design influencer culture is most definitely upon us. Christine Vandover writes about designing under the influence, postulating that the most thoughtfully designed spaces eschew outside influences—and noting the radical changes affecting influencers since the COVID-19 outbreak.

Caitlin Turner and Kristina Kamenar delve into stylization, clarifying what they believe is the most misunderstood term in interior design and explaining how, when done right, it can lead to a “return to joy.”

Globalization has made the world a more connected place, where ideas and inspiration are shared and accessible. But Enrico Caruso and Julia Cooper argue that it doesn’t mean our workplaces should look the same.

What’s the anatomy of an authentic experience? Peter Sloan and Bethany Foss asked the world via a survey, and 500+ respondents helped deconstruct it. They crystallized their quantitative and qualitative findings, with help from data visualizations and a video, into lessons all workplace designers can use.

Finally, Mike Goetz examines personalization in an office: What does it mean, why do people do it, what does it look like, how can designers facilitate it, and how are technology, demographics and COVID-19 changing it?

We hope you enjoy this issue of HOK Forward, which, even (especially?) in the midst of a global pandemic, reinforced to us that there has never been a more exhilarating time to be a designer.

Sincerely,

Tom Polucci
tom.polucci@hok.com
Director of Interiors

Kay Sargent
kay.sargent@hok.com
Director of WorkPlace
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