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When I rang Jake Arnold, the AD100 designer was in LA traffic en route to a site visit. The distant car horns seemed like a fitting backdrop for our conversation, a sound-off on his current industry pet-peeves. The ever-candid Arnold opened up about workflow frustrations and client boundaries, as well as the processes his firm has implemented to help navigate them. Buckle up, busy readers, and prepare to take notes!
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Mel: To say youâre busy is an understatement. Shuffling between A-list client projects, numerous product collaborations, and helming The Expert, you make it look easy! At the end of the day, whatâs causing you the biggest headache right now?
Jake: I think the biggest pet peeve for meâI mean, there are so manyâis the constant need to pivot and be flexible. With clients, their lives change: One minute they are ready to move forward with the renovation, and the next minute they want to pause. Youâve designed a full house and then all of a sudden you need to pivot, and thatâs very challenging.
I can almost hear Ross Geller yelling about it. Is this a pattern youâre noticing more now?
Itâs recent, and more so with the clients who have multiple homes, so there are more options of where they want to spend most of their time. Itâs not that the projects are on holdâitâs that thereâs this time crunch mixed in with it. The design process becomes a challenge. I think that the pandemic allowed vendors to have more pushback on timelines than they’ve ever had before, understandably. But those delays require us to be a little less flexible. And our project timelines have naturally become longer to allow for the contingency in case we have to pivot really fast.
And your contracts reflect that?
Yes, all our contracts were updated at the beginning of the year to give us that flexibilityâbecause even a few years ago, it was a lot easier to set a precedent and have some type of forecast. Whereas now, there are so many moving pieces that are outside of our control. I also now have a more robust kick-off with clients to set healthy expectations for everyone. The selection process becomes, âHere are options based on the timeline.â And sometimes, having the project on such a strict timeline can have the potential to take some of the magic out of the process. But healthy expectations are the key.