San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Designer Profile
Interior designer Jay Jeffers details inspirations for projects all across the country
Style, sensibility and serendipity played crucial roles in getting Jay Jeffers to where he is today, about to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his eponymously named interior design firm. Raised in Dallas, Jeffers harbored no aspirations of being a designer. He much preferred the business world, sorting out logistics and branding.
“I thought I would open up an advertising agency,” said Jeffers, who earned degrees in business and marketing from the University of Texas in the early ’90s. “I moved out to San Francisco because that’s where all the creative campaigns were coming from.”
Jeffers landed a corporate job with Gap, where he was tasked with overseeing the brand’s mall advertising campaigns—making sure the clothing being advertised was actually available in stores. After a short stint performing media relations for Old Navy, Jeffers wanted to pursue more creative endeavors.
UC Berkeley happened to have an extension campus in the Castro District near where Jeffers was living at the time, so he enrolled in night classes. He initially intended to take a course on painting, but a class on interior design caught his attention instead.
“That class is when I fell in love with design,” he said.
Jeffers made contact with an interior designer through the class, and wound up working for them. Fortune again favored Jeffers, who became familiar with a drapery company that was just down the hall from where he was apprenticing as an interior designer. After some time working with the drapery company and absorbing the lessons from his mentor, Jeffers opened his firm on July 15, 1999.
In this interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Jeffers talks about his need for instant feedback, his favorite places to design and how he fell into a deal to design an entire line of premium hardware for doors.
Q: What aspects of design are most appealing to you?
A: I love something with a history. And I love rejuvenating history. I’m a fan of design from the 1920s and prewar buildings, like Georgians. But I wouldn’t say I have a specific favorite style of architecture. I can find elements I like about every style.
Q: What’s a piece of technology you can’t imagine doing business without?
A: I would say any technology that enables us access to instant feedback. Whether it’s sharing design ideas with our team or a client, the ability to get realtime feedback is invaluable. And so much can be done from a smartphone. I can access files to open up drawings, create my own drawings or create inspiration folders on Pinterest.
Q: Is your designer’s brain always “on”? Can you turn it off, or are you always critiquing spaces or finding inspiration from them?
A: I tell people that I can turn it off. I do that because people say they won’t invite me over, for fear I will be silently critiquing their home. I tell them I’m not on duty, but, honestly, it’s always on. When I walk into a space I’m thinking about the lighting, the use of color and its architectural finishes.
My favorite feeling is walking into a space like a beautiful hotel lobby that you know is stunning but you don’t know
why. I love that instantaneous feeling of knowing something is amazing, but not being able to put my finger exactly on why. I want my designs to give people that same reaction. Is it the scale? Is it the artwork? Is it the use of color or light?
Q: What’s your favorite San Francisco neighborhood to work in? What’s another city you enjoy designing in?
A: In San Francisco, the answer is Presidio Heights. It’s beautiful and historic and still has important, stunning homes. I love working in that area, especially for a younger couple who purchases a historic home and rejuvenates it.
My favorite city to work in is New York. What’s exciting about New York’s design and architecture is that the outside of a building may not reflect what’s going on on the inside. The facade could be prewar with ornate moldings, while the inside might have sleek lines, no millwork and all these ultramodern elements.
Q: Where do you get inspiration for your product lines?
A: A lot of it comes from simply being a gatherer of information. When I made the switch to interior designer, I bought every design and architecture magazine I could. I assembled binders with tear sheets of things that inspired me. But much of it comes from traveling. You’ll see historic houses in a beach town and notice how different material finishes handle the weather there. And that leads to something like repurposing metal from a beach town being reinterpreted as a material used to make a lamp.
Q: How did you enter the architectural hardware design market?
A: It chose me. It was a very odd happenstance. Accurate Lock & Hardware wanted to enter the market of highend door hardware, like handles and locks. The company’s marketing director was having dinner with Realtor friend of mine from Los Angeles one day and mentioned the company’s intention to craft premium, designer hardware. My Realtor friend mentioned my name and the company reached out to me. Some people from their headquarters in Connecticut flew out and we met for dinner. It’s funny how things always seem to happen over dinner and a few glasses of wine. I made them some sketches and flew crosscountry to look at their factory. That developed into what’s now an entire product line of interior and exterior door hardware in a variety of styles and finishes.