The business of building and supplying swimming pools is an interesting one for a designer. Some people are happy picking out a fiberglass mold from a magazine or website and then surrounding it with landscaping to create their backyard oasis. Other people can get a custom pool built by on-site. Some of these custom pool builders provide high-design pools built specifically for that location while other builders are content to rebuild the same “better than average” pools repeatedly. Serenity Pools in Baton Rouge, falls somewhere between those two operations. On occasion they would contract me to design custom pools for their more difficult to sell clients. Swimming pools do not typically require a permit so owners will pursue all sorts of interesting designs. Couple that freedom with southern Louisiana’s climate and a growing trend of houses with outdoor kitchens and rooms and my role as a home designer moves into the backyard.

When Highland Custom Homes, a Baton Rouge custom residential housing contractor group, was looking to subdivide some land for development, I worked with them to come up with several proposals to take to the department of public works office. The final plot plan resulted in four parcels of land available for new residence. Two of the lots would be claimed from the get go; one of the lots would go to HCH figure head, Al Nauck, and the other, more difficult lot would be used to design my father’s house. With two lots left to be sold, HCH asked me to produce sample designs for new houses to be built on the vacant property.

To see my father's house, click here.

Occasionally I get the opportunity to do graphics. When that chance presents itself I use techniques similar to my architectural design process. While the disciplines of design are different, the principles are universal. The major difference between the logo and a building is that a logo is a singular composition, supporting itself without context. It has a graphic language instead of a materials language. It has form, both relative to the overarching whole and the disparate components. And perhaps most critical to a successful design composition, the logo can carry a communicative intent. Highland Custom Homes wanted there logo to embody the selling points of there company. The logo should be solid, able to stand on its own. The logo should be easy to relate to, which I translated as being easy to understand. The design should not be too complicated, but should not boring either. And finally, the logo should be adaptable.

A designer’s work surface can be the most limiting component when working. More surface allows more things to be accessible at one time. We see this in productivity studies that result in employees being issued 17” monitors instead of 15” monitors, dual monitors, larger cubicles, and so on. We see this in the workplace when upper management gets a huge office with a ‘C’ shaped multi-desk arrangement, while the journeyman employee gets a 4’x6’ cubicle. A busy desk makes for a messy employee or an overloaded student. At school in DC, I created a non-invasive, ergonomic addition for my desk that would increase my productivity.

To kickoff the spring semester of fourth year design school, an Arbor Day competition was held where students were asked to design something to enhance Frady Park, a small green space in a nearby neighborhood. Students could design whatever they wanted so long as it cost less than a thousand hundred dollars to make and that it drew on the traditions of Arbor Day for its inspiration.

Design is almost always a process of problem solving. Architects, planners, product designers, and artists start with some subject matter and they work to produce a composition that engages the viewer with the subject. A good design is one that evokes a feeling from the user of certainty, as if its solution is meant to be, and that any alternative design would be less effective than the design they are seeing. When my school found itself the recipient of a few hundred pounds of donated concrete, of course we had a concrete design competition. My roommate and I teamed up to join in the fun.