Faculty
Interior Design Instructor Sandra Mitchell Co-Designed GUESS Headquarters in LA
Award winning interior designer Sandra Mitchell became acquainted with FIDM when she was creating the designer office headquarters of GUESS in Los Angeles. Students fortunate enough to enroll in one of Sandra’s interior design classes benefit from her more than 24 years of experience in the industry with clients including Stella McCartney, 7 For All Mankind, Alexander McQueen. This is her industry story.
Tell us how you became acquainted with FIDM: I learned about FIDM from Maurice Marciano. I was in a meeting with him and his brother Paul when he mentioned he had to leave early to go to the FIDM DEBUT Runway Show. He had to present that evening, as a board member and sponsor of the GUESS Scholarship, an award to one of the fashion students. Maurice encouraged me to learn more about FIDM as he was so excited about the talent within the fantastic student body. Due to Maurice’s enthusiasm and as teaching has always been a joy in my career, I mailed an introduction letter to Interior Design Chairperson Dina Morgan immediately. Very shortly after, Dina graciously called to invite me to join an Interior Design thesis class as a guest critic. Meeting her was a delight and I became an instant FIDM fan!
Tell us about your career in interior design: With more than 24+ years of design leadership in architecture and interiors of corporate, commercial, luxury retail and private residential projects, my acumen in bringing pinpoint design clarity to a client’s programmatic brief and design visioning as well as material sourcing has garnered me multiple awards and numerous repeat clients around the globe. Throughout my career in working within large firms and now my own company M+M Creative Studio, I specialize in providing bespoke interior design services with additional services such as custom furniture design.
I have been very lucky to work on designs over the years for retail stores and with brands like Stella McCartney, 7 For All Mankind, and Alexander McQueen in locations such as Los Angeles, Aspen, and Las Vegas to name a few. My husband, Chris Mitchell, and I also had great fun and success in creating the designer office headquarters of GUESS here in LA. We were invited to tour the existing designer spaces, and after a weekend charrette, we presented an “all open” studio concept to Maurice and Paul Marciano. The designers would work out their ideas in open-desk studios complete with walls and walls of pin up area, storage and “treehouse” conference rooms—the 120,000 SF warehouse would also include a huge red logo G reception desk, a full-service Wolfgang Puck cafe and multipurpose runway room. Our design won the project!
See the M+M Creative Studio web site for more photos: mmcreativestudio.com/web/projects/guess-corporate-hq.
Tell us about the project you’re working on in China: Currently I am working with an architect/partner in Shanghai, China, on an interior design for an elementary school in Chengdu, China. The concept is “Learn by Play” so it involves lots of wonderful shapes, variations of spaces, and colors. Lots of the nature themed classrooms have indoor/outdoor features so the children spend part of their day learning outdoors. Here are a few renderings as part of the Schematic Design Concept Phase completed in July.
You mentioned that you run your class rather like the students were working with a client: Yes, the system of learning in my class is basically about the “pin-up.” All of the students tape up their work on the walls each week and we do mock critiques as practice just like they will need to do in front of colleagues and clients once they start their careers in a firm environment. Each student in a random order each week stands up and presents their projects to the class. All of us talk one by one and offer a “crit” and “praise” comment (nomenclature made-up by one of my students in this quarter, Caitly Balthazar). We think about design together and they see my process in action—how I come up with ideas to move projects along through each phase to completion.
What is your teaching philosophy? At FIDM, I strive to have my students learn by doing. I ask them to synthesize skills such as sketching, brand research and the Elements of Design to develop their mechanism of communicating their ideas. My feedback as a weekly critic is to help them forge their design process so they can learn how to grow their own successful project. Design requires constant assessment at each stage and my students learn by examples.
Any advice for someone considering applying to FIDM's Interior Design program? My suggestion would be to take as many art program classes as possible even if on Saturdays or during the summers during your early school years. The classes do not need to be interior design related—just take drawing, sculpture, photography—anything that will start you down the path of talking and thinking like an artist/designer in the world.
Categories: Interior Design Los Angeles Campus Faculty
