Let’s start with some of the difficulties that you faced in your career. What have been some challenges that you’ve learned from and grown through? 

Miriam Fanning: In any career, whether you’re starting out or whether you’re starting or well established and you’ve gone through a whole process of what you’re doing, there’s always difficulties. 

In the beginning, I was working in a large architectural practice. I was on building sites and being an interior designer, or whether you’re an architect or an interior designer, it’s about being taken seriously. 

And that was always a difficulty, because they just thought, the builders always were going to run the projects, just do what they wanted to do, and not adhere by your design vision. Being a female within that building industry trying to get your word across was a difficulty too.  

I think that was overcome very early on by standing my ground and being very serious about how you wanted to achieve something and what it meant to you and what it meant to the project. 

And often it will take an argument with one or two heavy hitting builders to get your way. Some of these builders that I had those arguments with have become very good friends with me. So, it’s a difficulty that you go through to gain respect. 

The difficulty that we’re still having is an understanding of how consumers perceive us within the industry, sometimes they just don’t know what we do. They think we’re all magical creatives. I think architecture is probably a little bit different because people understand what architects do. Interior designers, sometimes they really misconstrued, what we do in our day to-day, is very different from what we deliver. 

And then we have a whole world of other design layers, whether it’s a stylist or a decorator, nobody really understands and consumer lump all of those vocations together. As an industry, that is a difficulty for consumers to actually understand what we all do on a day-day basis. And that’s a really big thing for me that I’ve acknowledged and that I’m working through at the moment with the DIA (Design Institute of Australia) and registration. 

IP is always a difficulty. Your intellectual property is yours and sometimes people want to take advantage of that and to really understand ownership of your design and what that means and how to make sure, it’s appreciated and how people understand what design is about. In a country like, Australia, there is a lot of replication, and a lot of copying. It is really difficult when you’re younger to understand your IP. It’s actually about coming up with your own design, start fresh. 

Time constraints are always a difficulty in running a business, because there’s so much going on. The last sort of difficulty is if your consumers don’t actually understand what you’re doing, your costs and your fees associated with what you deliver. 

Is standing your ground something that’s developed over time or was that a personality trait that was always there for you?

Fanning: As you go through your career, you have more confidence in the decisions you make. You have more information, you’re more experienced. You stand your ground. That comes with knowledge of what you’re doing. You can’t just stand your ground if you can’t back it up. So, you have to have the ability to back up exactly what you’re saying. When you’re young and you’re starting, it’s difficult to back it up without the experience. But you can overcome that by saying, I will investigate that and I’ll come back to you. 

When I started, you’d go to building sites and it was a male dominated field. It was really pretty tough and hardcore. So, standing my ground was something that was really quite unusual. 

How does originality relate to your creative identity?

Fanning: Being an originator, especially with AI, which is coming fast and thick, particularly in the design industry being an originator, is absolutely essential in the way you think on every project. 

It’s not just about rolling out the same thing. It’s always about questioning and saying, have I done this before? And that I’m going to do something I haven’t done before.

For me, being an originator is really important within our team. 

Our team discuss ‘what makes this project special? What gives this project a personality?’ 

With AI coming, having the mentality to be an originator, safeguards all of us, because AI is not going to do that. You’re going to be doing it. 

But at the same time, you don’t have to be distinctive for the sake of being distinctive. It’s got to work with the brief, and it’s got to work for the client. So, it’s about measuring where that distinction is. 

‘Is it a beautiful fine detail?’ Rather than doing something so different for the sake of it. It’s a measured way of being an originator, which I think is important.

How has your creative identity changed over time? 

Fanning: Our creative identity hasn’t always been about Mim Design. The way that we design is project based, and each project is like a child – they’re all completely different. 

Even though there’s a thread of continuity amongst the projects, for each project have its own feeling and its own philosophy. We challenge ourselves on a daily basis, from project to project to make sure they’re all unique. 

I would go absolutely bonkers if I was just churning out the same look every day. And when clients come to you, seeing their face, that you have done something different, that is specifically for them, and has meaning, is really important. 

People come to us and say, ‘what is the Mim Design look?’ I struggle to say what that is because each project does have its own personality. Each of those projects have their own meanings, philosophies and own stories. And that’s what I love about it, storytelling in a way that is interiors and architecture based. 

We always challenge ourselves to not be trend driven, but do design something that is going to be enduring. A project we might have done 20 years ago is still relevant today, which is really important to our creative identity. 

At Mim Design we all make sure the planning of every space is spot on. You cannot do a great job unless you’ve got the best plans of how people are going to use these spaces. That is part of our continuity and art of what we do as a business.

In terms of planning, where does that come into your creative process? 

Fanning: We put a lot of thought into the philosophy of the project, what it means and why we’re doing it. ‘What is the story behind the project?’ from the minute we draw a line to when we finish a project we are considering the whole picture. 

You see beautiful, photographed projects at the end, but there’s always a story for us, which we want to have all the way through.  

Our first phase is always planning. Planning is crucial in our studio, because those plans set everything else up for the rest of the project. As well as philosophy, which is the look and feel and texture, the visual aspects behind the planning as well.  

How would you characterise the core principles that define your practice? 

Fanning: We reassess our core principles every 4 years. And we question, ‘are they still relevant? Do we need to change them?’ 

Our core principles are extremely pragmatic. We want to be approachable, and trustworthy to our clients, because you can be an amazing designer, but if nobody trusts you, it’s not going to go any further. For us, communication, trust and being pragmatic is important to us. Longevity is huge for us, we want a new design, that’s going to stand the test of time, where people can create moments within that space.  

Accountability is one of our core principles, we are accountable for every line that we draw, to make sure things work and that they have meaning and purpose.  

Every line you draw can affect somebody’s life. You’ve got to think about everything you’re putting on paper, and that’s someone that we proudly do as a studio.  

Creativity is part of our pillars. We wouldn’t be a design studio without it. But it comes hand  in hand with being an ‘originator’, rather than replicator. We want to make sure with each design we do for each client that we make sure that it is theirs. We want our clients to have ownership over what we do and feel like it’s theirs. This leads into the relationship part. 

Having a business that’s now 26 years old, commerciality is a really important pillar behind what we do. We’re really conscious of the commerciality behind our business and how we divide the types of projects, and we look at that in a very strategic manner.

Could you share advice and practicalities of running your own business for 26 years? What are the crucial parts of your client relationships? 

Fanning: To sum it up in a few words, ‘trust’, you’re not going to have a client if they don’t trust you, being able to balance through programming the amount of work and being able to make sure people are happy throughout. 

Being able to acknowledge that you will not know everything, we are all still learning. I love the fact that we are investigators. As our industry evolved, we’re never going to know everything, we’re always learning new products and different things. It’s not cut and dry.

How do you stay humble and approachable in what you do?

Fanning: You do your job really well, and you recognise that without that client who has chosen you to work with their property, you wouldn’t be there. I think a lot of amazing people are humble in what they do because they’re respectful of why they’re doing what they’re doing. If you can maintain that respect, even if you’ve got difficult clients, but you acknowledge that you’re on this journey together, you’re going to realise you need to get to the end, is a humbling experience. Not everything is always perfect. 

What are you looking toward to find inspiration in your practice? 

Fanning: It’s the little things. When we get an inquiry, we’re like super sleuths. We ask ourselves, ‘Who is this person? What is the project?’ 

It’s gaining knowledge about something that might come is really inspiring. For me, gaining knowledge is inspiring, and there’s nothing more satisfying than when a client is from a completely different sector, we get opportunities to learn new things. I think that’s inspiring and I never take that for granted.  

Provenance is important and inspires me, to find out there thing have come from in the past, who has had them, where did they originate and where’s it gone? Our current project has so much history, the whole thing is inspiring because you can just imagine all of these things happening over time.  

Sensory reaction really inspires me. If you’re presenting to a client, to watch their face and sense their reaction or my reaction to a space and how I feel is quite inspiring. If I want to feel like that again, I ask myself ‘what do I need to do to recreate that space?’ 

I’m also really attracted to overscale and large proportion, architectural elements and shape and form.

I could look at a building from a pure form point of view and try to understand why I love it so much, it’s the sheer volume and thought behind it. 

What do you look for when you’re looking to expand your team? 

Fanning: Everybody is different, but I look for people who are really passionate about what they do, people who have an energy, people who are different, and people who really just lovely human beings and want to be there. 

I think that’s really important. Obviously, being able to understand how you do your job, all of those mechanics are important when you’re looking at team members to join you, but you’ve got to remember all of us, spend a lot of time at work and we want to be around people that are enjoyable and we want to be around people that want to be here and there. It’s all those extra aspects that come along with it, that is really important to us as a family. 

What is your challenging client and your rewarding client? 

Fanning: We have a few challenging clients. There could be projects where the builder is not the right builder and that makes it a challenge. It’s important to understand why that client is challenging. 

We have had clients before that we haven’t seen eye to eye with, but usually we like to pick those at the very beginning and we’re very honest in a very nice way to say, ‘look, I don’t think we’re the right people for you.’ 

A lot of clients do become more friends and that’s really important because it’s a relationship that you’re going to have. 

Do you have any advice on trying to get into the industry? 

Fanning: Our industry is so large, with architecture, material design, interior decoration, styling. It’s really important to know what our design industry is, to understand what avenue you want to go down. Once you figure that out, break it down further, what type of firm, what type of work. That gives you a sense of knowledge and shows that you’re driven. 

Do you have a client project that really sticks with you? 

Fanning: We have so many of them. We have a client who is a whole family. They’re an amazing family that own the most amazing supermarket in Balwyn.

We originally met with the client for some retail work but unfortunately didn’t get the project. Years later, Anthony came back to us, and we ended up doing the restaurant above the IGA, which is Enoteca Boccacio, and the food there is incredible. The level of detail we went through with the family was a beautiful experience. And then from that point on, we were invited back to do Anthony’s house, and then his mum’s house, and his brother’s house and  now, we’re doing his sister’s house. So we’ve worked with the whole family, and we’ve worked through different dynamics, and knowing that we were working with them as a whole, was a beautiful story. 

You get so many great stories about project we’ve worked on, all of these individual homes. We should write a book about the stories we have, we get the chance to have a lot of great experiences. A lot of the stories are synonymous with an individual project, which is really lovely. 

How did you start your company? 

Fanning: I worked in a large architectural practice for 13 years prior to starting Mim Design. I was really lucky working there, because I did a lot of things interior designers don’t usually get to do, like master planning and development plans.  

Then I had my first child in 2000, and at that point my father-in-law said you should do your own thing. 

So that’s when Mim Design started. 

Within 2.5 weeks, I had 2 years of contracts. That was purely from where I had come from and relationships, I had built. 

So that was the start.

This article originally featured in Indesign Live