7 of the Best Business Tips Design Stars Gave Us This Year—From Not Texting Clients to Taking Better Photos

“Connecting to people is so important to growth, and without that connection, no one’s going to know about you and what you’re doing,” Toogood says. “But you have to do it in a way that doesn’t swing too far, which involves some discipline.”

For her, that discipline isn’t achieved by imposing order, but by emphasizing the value of real, physical connection. That’s why she moved her practice into a new North London studio, which offers more open space for creative experimentation and greater opportunities for spontaneous collaboration.

That concept further extends to her audience, as well. “A few times per year in the studio, we host days where we open up the studio and anyone can visit and see what we’re doing,” she says. “It’s a small thing, but it’s a nod to the tangible being just as important as the virtual.”

What you’re getting wrong with your scouting photos, according to Mieke ten Have.

The work of former magazine editor turned interior stylist Mieke ten Have often celebrates the imperfections that liven up a room. But when it comes to assessing scouting photos, a key part of her client-vetting process, there are more definitive distinctions between right and wrong.

“The best pictures are the more pulled-back shots where you can understand the whole room. The tight detail shots are less important—zeroing in on the millwork isn’t particularly helpful,” she told AD PRO, shortly after styling a Reath Design project in Los Feliz for AD’s July/August issue. “I can tell enough from those [pulled-back] pictures what the story of the project is and what needs to be added to it to be fully executed.”

While predictable, reliable scouting photos help streamline her process, ten Have still encourages a little bit of unpredictability when it comes to the space itself. “I always find that having something unexpected goes a very long way in a room.”

Try the two mantras that keep Martha Stewart learning.

Today, Martha Stewart needs no introduction. But along the road of her surprising rise, fall, and rebirth over a career now spanning 100 books and more than four decades, this living icon of living well has held onto two mantras that anyone—designer or not—can put into practice.

“There are two sayings that I [repeat] over and over again. One is: Learn something new every day and incorporate that into what you’re doing. And the other one is: Change is good,” Stewart told AD PRO. “I think everybody can learn and everybody wants to learn. The more people that you can share your knowledge and your ideas with, the better.”

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