Learning to design with the best: Why having a design mentor is so important

Mentorship gives a professional an opportunity to understand how the industry, whatever industry you are in, works from the inside.

A mentor teaches you lessons and shortcuts and helps you reach greater heights than you could imagine, faster than would be possible, while granting you the fortune to avoid some, if not all, of the pitfalls.

Mentorship means seeing further than anyone has before you because you get to stand on the shoulders
of giants.

Giants who have experience far beyond yours, have learnt hard lessons and practised and honed skills that took years to acquire. If you find the right mentor they can share this wealth of knowledge and skills with you.

I found my mentors by chance. A lovely gentlemen asked me to make a website for his beach house when I was still graphic designing. Through this, I got to see the beach house, but also the most amazing family home I’ve seen in my career thus far.

The houses each had a sense of ease and charm. Layout, inclusions, proportions and materials were all chosen with a balanced sense of how they would add to the substance of the entire home – everything perfect for the space but nothing fussy or contrived – qualities I embraced and hold dear to this day.

The beach house became the source of lessons on how to create simple interiors on a budget for huge impact; the main house an exercise in luxury design and grand proportions, and how I was introduced to the style by architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright whose work was one of the influences on their home.

There were several reasons I became an interior designer: a trip to the Hamptons; a friend who showed me what a passionate work life looked like, and my mentors, the two men who showed me the ropes.

When I started in interiors, I took on a modest project, designing and renovating my own two-bedroom apartment. Towards the end, I asked one of my mentors to see the result and pick his brain on a few outstanding details.

Usually he, Dayne, worked with his partner, John, not on the same projects but giving each other assistance where they could. Their aesthetics are not the same so they were a good complement to each other, but they operated two different consultancies with different style and clients. They were there to help each other out when they needed it, when a job required another set of hands or eyes.

At this time, and in a pivotal bit of luck for me, John was away in their house in France, working on a renovation they’d started there. Dayne was in Sydney without John so I put my inexperienced hand up, asking if I could tag along on some projects and assist Dayne. He happily agreed, teaching me important lessons along the way.

What followed were years of trips to their house, many conversations about design, fundamentals and a few hands-on experiences helping them put John’s home office together.

Over the years John and Dayne both layered their knowledge into my consciousness, giving me invaluable shortcuts and insights for my career. Without these skills and information I wouldn’t be writing today. I wouldn’t have the information in my mind or the expertise I have now to be able to do the things I do daily.

Having a mentor is a sure-fire way to get better, fast. It’s an excellent way to learn lessons from other people’s successes and less than successful ventures, and shortcut your way to the front of the line. I’m only as good as the information I was able to glean from my mentors, gents who outstrip my skill by a long shot.

I lost one of my mentors recently. John Pegrum, a man without whom my life would not be as amazing as it is today. I owe a great deal of gratitude to them both – to Dayne, who remains a dear friend to this day, and to John, who I adored and to whom I will be eternally and deeply grateful for his kindness, talent and generosity.