No more frustration or inefficiency for the team at Design Studio 15

You’ve heard the old saying: many hands make light work. And it’s true. In theory.

But if you’ve ever worked on a team you know it can sometimes feel like more work, not less. Especially if information silos develop or if there’s a breakdown in communication.

Christine Freese, Design Expeditor at Design Studio 15 in Winter Park, Florida has experienced these silos and communication breakdowns before—and she never wants to go back.

“We have a team of four, plus the studio owner and then interns who are design assistants that come here to help us. We design high-end residential and commercial across the country.”

Christine says with this many people working on their large-scale projects it’s a challenge to keep track without an organized system.

“In the past I don't know how many times we'd look for a sofa and then we wouldn’t remember where it came from, or who found it. Or we’d put a presentation together and forget to add where it's from. By the time it came to pull a proposal together, we would have to backtrack and try to find all this information again.”

The duplication of work created frustration and inefficiency.

They tried different software programs to help, but it seemed to create more problems than solutions.

“With the program we used we were having to input information like copying pasting all the time, and it's kind of like a game of telephone. As many times as you're trying to translate the same piece of information, the more room there is for error.

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The team at Design Studio 15 knew something had to change

Christine was tasked with finding a tool that would help the team with time management and keeping organized.

After some searching Christine found Gather...and it didn’t take long to realize it was the answer her and her team were looking for.

“I remember just diving in and learning as much as possible to share with the team. It was so easy to use. Then within a couple of weeks everyone was on board, and it's just been a life changer ever since. I don't know how I could do my job without Gather now.”

Christine says anyone can start using Gather within a few minutes—it’s that easy to figure out.

“The interface is simple--unlike other programs. It's just very straightforward. It’s also easy to enter information, and then find that information when you need it again.”

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Christine says she doesn’t have to worry about losing or forgetting about furniture because the library keeps everything organized and easy to find.

“I use the library all the time. I don't know how many times our team would look at five chairs and try to figure out which one fits a certain project the best, or a particular design that we're trying to build.

Once we make our decision, we can archive the rest of the chairs. Or, if we need it right away, we can put it in another folder or area of that project. Then we use it like a bank. We're constantly going back and forth in the library.

What's awesome about the library is you can easily search whatever word is associated to that item, and pull it up. You don't have to be very specific about a model number, you can literally just put chair or side table and it would pull up anything that has to do with that keyword. That makes it very helpful. It makes it really easy to use.

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It’s especially helpful working as a team. For instance, our owner principal will send us pieces she really likes, and we just plug it in and keep it there.

So when she’s looking for that armchair, we simply go to the library and search for it. We browse for the image she sent us, then we pull it from the library, and then we add to the project she's using it for.”

Christine and the team at Design Studio 15 were so impressed with Gather that they didn’t need to look for anything else.

“It just checked off all those boxes that we were looking for.”
All photos copyright: Design Studio 15