Want to know how great designs are done?
Posted on February 6, 2020
Today, Nicole will walk you behind the scenes of her design process!
All designers at Lotus start their design process with a client survey. Clients fill out a survey about what needs to be done, their style preferences, what plants they like, and etc. This gives designers a framework on what clients are looking for and during the meeting they can focus more ondesign ideas then on note taking.
Meeting the client.
Here comes Nicole’s personal way of working her way through the design process. During a meeting she will start working on a concept so that when she presents a design to clients for the first time it is not a total surprise for them. She usually works on one concept that she feels will work best based on the clients needs and wants while taking into consideration all aspects of the site and design principles. Her experience has shown that taking one concept and making it work is less overwhelming for clients and seems to work better than presenting several different concepts. It almost always takes two meetings after the initial visit to come to a final design and the average design ranges from 10 to 20 hours of work.
Design favorites.
When we asked Nicole, what is her favorite type of landscape to design, she laughed and said ‘It is like asking me about my favorite plant…. I love them all’ (There is no such thing as a favorite plant for a landscape designer ☺). When it comes to working from scratch or redesigning, Nicole says there are benefits to both sides. New designs are great, because you have a blank slate, while redesigning allows her to take advantage of mature plants, or enhancing an already existing landscape. She especially loves planting designs! Usually, she creates a theme, like modern or traditional landscape, to work with based on the architecture of the house and client’s preferences.
Here are some of Nicole’s favorite designs. As you can see, she is absolutely amazing at creating clean modern elements in hardscape and accompany them with soft, low maintenance planting.
