severine secret

I attribute my success to being passionate about design. I do design for my clients and not for myself. I'm a very good listener. I love the psychology that goes behind design, and creating a story for your client and developing that story, and making basically the best space to reflect their own culture, their story, their definition.

Don't take things personally.

This is a profession where every project is different, and you learn each time on a project. If you keep learning and you're working in a firm, this is great for you. But if you get stuck doing the same thing, or you stop learning, you need to move forward with going in another field, or talking to the senior designer to give you different projects so you can learn. It's really a matter of learning, and it's a constant evolving with the codes, with the trends, with all sorts of components in that industry. Basically, try to learn as much as you can, and if you stop learning, move on. Otherwise, it's gonna be stagnant.

The biggest challenge right now is I closed my office after COVID and I've been working from home, so it's very isolating. I don't like it. The biggest opportunities is being able to work on a large project with a strong team of people, with an architect and some designers under your wing, and teaching the younger designers the ropes of the design and challenging them to push themselves and the project. And then, collaborating with the architects when it comes to a design solution, a design idea that we had that we never realized, having their help with all the technical aspects of how to build it and how to draw it, and how to detail it. I really love the collaborative aspect, I think, of our field. That's my biggest reward.

Integrity is most important to me. Being able to use my gift as a designer to be in service to my clients is a very strong value for me. I want to be able to serve and give back to my communities, and I do that by providing design services, because I'm good at it.