Here, we ask designers to take a selfie and give us an inside look at their life.
Age: Timeless.
Occupation: Interior and furniture designer.
Instagram: @mhilal
Hometown: San Francisco.
Studio location: San Francisco.
Describe what you make: Interesting furniture and beautiful spaces for beautiful people.
The most important thing you’ve designed to date: My Kips Bay Showcase. It allowed me to explore both my creativity in interiors and furniture in an uninhibited manner. There was no input from anyone else—it was just me. While you have freedom as a designer, I still needed to stay measured. It also gave me the confidence to say “hey, the furniture I made was actually pretty great and it caught the eye of St Vincents, so let’s put together a furniture line!”
Describe the problem your work solves: In interiors, we’re constantly solving for how to make something feel unique while still current. I’m constantly thinking five years in advance. I hate using the term “timeless” because it’s trite as fuck. It’s more dependent on the client’s attention span, and it often means safe or boring. We use pieces with provenance that have a more timeless appeal. We like to funk up the design a little bit. I want spaces to feel effortless and I want the clients’ friends to think they’re very chic and have excellent taste versus hiring a designer. I tell clients if you can’t use the space everyday, I didn’t do my job.
For my furniture, I just wanted to design something cool. Furniture is usually up against a wall, so I want to create a more circular flow. People often assume you must have a large space to do this, but that’s not true if a space is planned properly. My furniture helps solve this problem. Over the next year, you’ll see varying versions of my pieces that address this issue.
Describe the project you are working on now: A midcentury modern home in Monterey that we restored. The client jokes about spending a mint to make it look like it was before. We’re installing a lot of custom work but we also worked with the client to choose very select pieces. We designed a two-sided version of my Big Sur sofa that’s 15 feet long for the main massive living room. I can’t wait to photograph this project.
We’re also wrapping up a medical spa in San Francisco over the next month. It’s very calming and has some wabi-sabi vibes and references, but we wanted to keep it more modern in tone. I didn’t want to see an ancient stool anywhere that looked like it was ready to topple over.
A new or forthcoming project we should know about: I’m launching my first furniture line with St Vincents in Antwerp. It consists of my Big Sur Seating and Judd Bar, but I’m already working on the second addition to the collection as we speak. I can’t wait for this to come sooner—it’s been about a year in the making. Henri Delbarre and Geraldine Jackman [the gallery owners] have been so supportive. I can’t think of better partners.
What you absolutely must have in your studio: I’m sort of bratty about my creature comforts and try to quell the chaos that comes with working with so many clients and vendors on projects. This is really probably just an excuse of a spoiled adult? I worked in Corporate America and it was always funny to watch people play office, so I always aim for a relaxed yet hard-working environment. It’s not difficult to balance hard work with keeping things light.
Anyway, the list is endless, but here are a few: I need music (currently listening to the new SZA or constantly waiting for 2 Many DJs/Soulwax drops); Diet Coke; Jelly Belly and Sour Patch Kids; Ruffles; cucumber slices with a little lemon and sea salt; Nespresso; an Aarke water carbonator; and my Bottega Veneta leather desk pad. I have so many books in our library that we reference for projects. Old publications too—we actually have quite a few issues of Surface and other design publications that we pull inspiration from.
What you do when you’re not working: Go to museums and walk around my city for inspiration… Not true at all! I primarily sleep. I can’t seem to get enough. Since we’ve been back in circulation as a society, I’ve been making it to the gym regularly and have started getting out socially a bit more. Anytime I can see music, I’ll go.
Sources of creative envy: Virgil Abloh. He showed us little brown boys that we can push into a career that maybe wasn’t meant for us. We just had to work that much harder. Aside from anything racial, he changed the definition of what it means to be a creative and how a creative interacts with commerce. He worked on so many creative endeavors that spanned so many categories. He showed us that the smallest thing can have a cool design and be engaging to a consumer at any level. I have his IKEA bags; he wasn’t concerned it would dilute his brand. He thought about how it would engage consumers who couldn’t afford his Louis Vuitton fit.
The distraction you want to eliminate: Time and money.
Concrete or marble? Louis Kahn.
High-rise or townhouse? Townhouse.
Remember or forget? Remember.
Aliens or ghosts? Aliens, duh. I don’t want to see translucent people in raggedy garb floating around.
Dark or light? Dark for the most part, but light if I have to go to the DMV.
