Co-Creating our Design Process in Tandem with the Evolving Apps of the 21st Century

It’s hard to believe that 15 years have passed since I founded down2earth interior design here in my Elkins Park attic. Right around the time that I started d2e (in 2010), a lot was happening on the internet in the interior design space. Because I was so new at running my own firm, I was very open to introducing new tools into my process. My methodologies were not yet time tested or fixed, so I was curious to see what these new technologies could do for our clients. It turns out, a lot.

D2E Founder and Design Director Amy Cuker and Design Consultant Jillian Moskovitz

I found that in order to get on the same page as a client aesthetically, it was important to ask them to put together an inspiration album. When this process first began, I was exchanging Shutterfly albums back and forth with clients, or people were emailing me disparate web links. I remember making folders in my Internet Explorer bookmark manager containing all the products we were considering for a design project….very time consuming and cumbersome. Enter Houzz.

Houzz

Portfolio Sharing & Inspiration Albums

Once I became aware of Houzz, I began recommending that clients use that as a tool instead to share inspiration images with me in the form of ideabooks.

I also uploaded my interior design portfolio images to Houzz. Occasionally new clients find me this way (although in recent years, Houzz has launched a pay-for-placement model that I don’t participate in, and which clutters the search results).  Here’s the profile that a houzz user would see if searching for an interior designer in our area:

Here at down2earth interior design, we have just won a 2025 Best of Houzz Service award, and this marks the 13th consecutive year we have won in this category. I believe this is also the 13th year the awards have been given. The service award reflects outstanding and plentiful reviews from our customers, so to me this is the highest honor.

Pinterest

Design Inspiration & Product Sourcing

It was also revolutionary to our process when Pinterest came along. We use Pinterest to group visual thumbnails of items together in one place so that we can easily share links with clients. Our clients can use the Pinterest boards we provide as a launching point to get to all the online vendors whose products are incorporated into our furniture or lighting design proposals.

Canva

Mood Boards and Product Links

Similarly, we now use a technique wherein we provide links to products directly in moodboards that we create in Canva. Note in the image below how the pillow that is highlighted has a link that pops up. When we share a moodboard document with a client, we can do it in a way that is interactive so that the client can click on the object and travel directly to its online source.

Another positive thing that came out of using apps like Houzz and Pinterest from almost the very beginning is that it allows me to do much of my work from home. Working from home was key because I started this firm when I had a one year old and a four year old. Most of my work in the early days happened during nap time or late at night, and I could have one ear on the baby monitor while building my business.

The pandemic was a particularly tough time for everyone in our industry, and if not for these apps, and the addition of Zoom and Dropbox, I don’t know how we would have been able to continue working. In fact, not only were we able to continue working throughout 2020 and 2021, we were busier than ever. With people spending more time in their homes during the pandemic, demand surged. Now, at the 15 year mark, we are relieved that much in the industry is returning to normalcy and are grateful for the ways that technology has supported our ability to work remotely when there was no other choice.

Not only that, these apps have removed some of our geographic barriers. Since we couldn’t always visit job sites in person anyway, technology allowed us to collaborate on a design project all the way in Minnesota in 2021.

Photo of our Minnesota collaboration by Corey Gaffer

And of course, as we expanded our operations to the Phoenix area, our digital processes keep our Philadelphia team in close contact with our Phoenix design consultant.

I do want to note that some of our clients are not as comfortable on these platforms as we are. I am proud to say that we try to meet people where they’re at in terms of technology, but for those who have a comfort level with the internet, we have found these tools to be helpful to us AND our clients.

Coming soon: more reflections this year about our 15 years in business, so stay tuned! As always, if you would like to see these tools in action, we’d love to hear more about your design aspirations. Simply complete the Client Contact Form on our website and you will hear back from us.