Customer Stories > Maja Bacon
INTERIOR DESIGNER
Here at SampleBoard, we have been gushing over Maja's beautiful design boards she's continued to build over the years and wanted to learn more about her design process, her inspiration, the way she structures her e-design service using mood boards, and what is it that makes SampleBoard such a significant part of her e-design business.
"SampleBoard has allowed me to get through projects more quickly. It has also helped me to secure more jobs as potential clients have been able to get a quick read on my design style through these boards".
Maja Bacon is the owner and designer of The Room Co, specializing in nurseries, kids' rooms and family spaces.
Ever since Maja can remember, she's had an eye for design. While she was just a little girl, she used to mentally rearrange the furniture to what she felt would be a much better layout.
She is truly passionate about what she does and enjoys providing every project with an unusual and unique touch. Maja puts her heart and soul into creating dreamy spaces for little ones, yet managing to keep them cool enough for adults to enjoy too. When designing rooms for kids, what Maja finds most inspiring is the opportunity to let your imagination loose and play around with endless possibilities and color palettes. And when designing a nursery, a privilege of being a small part of a family's life just before their precious new member arrives is what Maja considers to be the most rewarding.
Kids' interiors are Maja's biggest passion, but she is also known to design bedrooms, dining rooms, and even man caves!
At SampleBoard, we love Maja's creative philosophy, as clearly represented in her design boards. Based on two simple principles, Maja believes that the space you live in should be an extension of who you are and make you happy and that you should be able to have the space of your dreams regardless of your budget. Maja strongly feels that great design should be fun, light-hearted and accessible, and we tend to agree!
As part of Maja's design process, clients complete an email questionnaire which covers budget, design style, specific needs or requests and provides some pictures for inspiration. She considers Pinterest to be of great help in learning more about the client's preferences, but she also looks for pictures of spaces the client dislikes as they can be an invaluable part of the design process, eliminating potential hours spent heading down the wrong path.
A custom mood board shows the overall feel and design of the space, providing a strong visual, thus helping you to make easy decisions while shopping and decorating
As part of the e-design service, the client receives a floor plan of their space, design boards with a detailed product list, design notes and instructions for pulling everything together and, if needed, ongoing consultations until the room is complete.
"I think the biggest win with SampleBoard is the ability to quickly create such professional looking boards that allow the client to truly visualize their room."
Customized design boards include all the information about selected paint colors, furniture, lighting, rugs, art, bedding, window treatments, and accessories. Maja lets her client know what the items specified in the design board cost and where to find them. She adds no markup, and there are no hidden fees, so customers can shop for the best deals, liaising with Maja until they are enchanted with the result.
Before utilizing SampleBoard as her principal means of mood board creation, Maja was using an interior design app, but she found it limited in its capabilities.
"I realized that there had to be a better alternative to help me create beautiful vision boards."
"It was also super difficult to bring in the exact images I wanted, particularly directly from the web. All in all, it was super time-consuming and wasn't very user-friendly."
It was then that Maja realized there had to be an easier way to create professional design boards for her clients, her e-design business depended on it. After googling different programs, she came across SampleBoard.
"After trying a free trial, I was hooked. I loved the user-friendly interface that made it so simple for me to create such amazing boards in a short amount of time."
Maja found it very easy to get started. A quick review of the help desk articles was all she needed to get cracking on creating beautiful mood boards. She believes SampleBoard helps her create faster, simpler design boards, enables easier client collaboration and always ends up with professional results that delight her clients.
As Maja is one of our Power Users, we were keen to find out what is the feature she couldn't live without.
"I like being able to pull images directly from the web with the bookmarklet and the background clipper - those are key!"
"When I am creating a design board, I am often looking to include a particular item that a client could purchase, so I'm not always searching for a random blue pillow but need to get an image of the exact one that we are using. The bookmarklet is amazing for this. I do use the built-in web search when I have trouble capturing the image I need with the bookmarklet. The background clipper helps to cut out the extra "visual noise" so I can focus on just the image I need."
Maja notes that it takes practice to produce high-quality mood boards like hers and that her boards have improved over time as she started to use more of the features regularly.
Feedback is essential to design creatives, and when fellow designers ask for your guidance after seeing your work, you know you are on the right track. That was exactly what happened to Maja after she presented some of her mood boards made with SampleBoard.
"A colleague of mine asked what I was using for my boards because they looked so amazing and so professional."
The ability to create professional design boards by uploading her images, using the background clipper to remove the background of images, being able to export high-resolution boards to her computer, print great quality design boards onto paper and email revisions to her clients allowed her to save hours of time and money.
And with no time invested in learning a complicated software, she could spend more time restyling homes, solving complex space and design problems for her clients, helping her sell homeowners properties faster, for larger profits.
"I think when my clients see their design boards, it is the first time they get excited about their project - they can see how their room is going to come to life."
When we asked Maja what her biggest reason was why she would recommend SampleBoard, she said: "I have recommended it several times! I love it for its professional results, ease of use and user-friendly interface."
"I recommend SampleBoard for the amazingly professional results that allow you to convey your vision to your clients efficiently."