Whenever I meet with aspiring design professionals, I ask them what excites them about the industry and what drew them to it as a career. The answers usually range from an interest in materials and creating beautiful spaces to a passion for sustainability and creating healthy environments for the future.

And then, with as much charm as I can evoke, I start talking with them about math and spreadsheets.

Creativity is an exciting and engaging component of the design profession. Strong design professionals truly have an inexhaustible well of ideas and can iterate until an ideal resolution is developed. However, that creativity is only the start of the process and is often the least challenging phase of a project.

In order to bring those creative ideas to fruition, design professionals focus on math and spreadsheets and databases; sketches and plans; sourcing and re–sourcing; and project management and solving problems.

For the client:

• Math is about dimensions and square footage. How can we use the space available to achieve your goals? Often, people ask me if an idea is possible, and I suspect that all of my clients have heard me respond “it’s about the math” as I smile. At a base level, we have to consider what fits in the space.

• Spreadsheets are about the budget. Whether the materials budget is $1,000 or more than $1,000,000, understanding how the dollars are being allocated is always valuable. I require clients to set a budget that we can work against track both the estimates and the final costs of each selection, allowing clients to assess the value of each decision throughout the process.