Kristen Hart

I don't settle. I'm competitive with myself - not with other people, but with myself. I always want to be better and better and better for myself. If you're doing great, that's amazing, I'm happy for you, I'm rooting for you. But for me, I always want the next, and the next, and to get better, to get better, to get better, to sharpen my skills. I think being an old millennial helps too - we're just go-getters, we just do it. We don't give up.

Don't give up trying, because it is really hard. It's hard to get into design right now because design is a luxury, it's non-essential, so jobs are few and far between. You can't give up, you've got to just keep trying. I encourage those getting into the field to, instead of pigeonholing themselves into a type of role that they think they should be doing, expand their search into other design-like opportunities. Don't be afraid to go into sales. A lot of girls and boys that go into design think that they're just gonna sit at a computer and design all day and not have to deal with people, but design is still very much a sales job, even if you're not directly working with clients. So just don't give up, don't pigeonhole yourself into a certain idea of what you think you should be doing, and just keep trying. It's hard out there - there's like a hundred internship applications for like one intern position.

The biggest challenges are the cost of materials and labor - everything is really expensive right now. A lot of materials are coming from overseas, so you can read between the lines with tariffs and oil prices. There's also the issue of sustainability and environmental causes. Another challenge is that larger budgets are being cut down for things like furniture, with people going for cheaper, quicker options like Wayfair instead of sourcing quality furniture. They buy something that falls apart in a year and have to buy it again, when they could have just bought one solid piece that would last. On the opportunity side, there's a lot of potential in environmental sustainability and keeping things out of landfills. We're reupholstering furniture and finding creative ways of working with pieces people already have. For example, if a restaurant has a bunch of booths, instead of throwing them all away and getting new ones, we can re-upholster them. We're also value engineering furniture so we're not using as much material but still giving quality products, and sourcing fabric that is recycled or made out of recycled materials. We're really encouraging our customers to source and buy materials that come from recycled material, so it's a full circle thing.

Honesty, integrity, positivity, and compassion. Those are big for me.