Meet Amanda Jackson, NCIDQ | Partner & Designer, Hospitality Design Guild

We had the good fortune of connecting with Amanda Jackson, NCIDQ and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Amanda, why did you pursue a creative career?
While so many interior designers always knew their calling, I have to say that I was not one of them. I thought pursuing the creative arts would never lead to a career, and I just imagined ending up as a starving artist. So, I studied neuroscience at the University of Texas at Austin instead. My roommate and I decided we wanted to spend our summer backpacking through Europe, so I worked and saved my money waiting tables, and traveled overseas on a shoestring budget for two months. When we arrived in Barcelona, I utterly fell in love with the city, and after visiting La Sagrada Familia, I immediately realized that architecture and design could be a career pursuit that I could truly be passionate about. I came back home and changed my major to architecture and interior design, and I’ve never looked back. From that point, I devoured books on Antoni Gaudi, Dorothy Draper, Louis Kahn, Frank Lloyd Wright, and other well-known architects, and studied various furniture movements as well as set designs in old films I watched. I started my career at a historic preservation firm and was involved in the restoration of the historic Driskill Hotel in Austin. I was amazed at the idea of working on a space that had so much history and held such a special place in people’s hearts…it’s actually where locals honeymooned, where they were engaged, had their first date, and created memories. The history and the romance of a hotel is intoxicating and addictive! Luckily, from there, I moved back to Dallas and joined a firm and started designing country clubs and hotels, which cemented my passion for hospitality design.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
My business partner Katherine and I met over 20 years ago towards the beginning of our careers in hospitality and became friends. For years we talked about forming our own company someday. After years of experience on the Design, Ownership, Developer and Brand side of hospitality, we noticed how clients weren’t always given the senior talent they were promised up front and that money and time wasn’t being invested in junior staff to properly train and mentor them. We decided to take our lessons learned and do what was promised for our clients and also deliver a product that wasn’t just beautiful, but was also thoughtful and functional, and took ROI and longevity into consideration. We established a hospitality design company that works with clients of all sizes and scales to bring the right aesthetic and team to every client we serve. As a result, instead of starting off hiring junior staff and later filling in with senior talent, we did it the other way around and hired our senior talent first. We also have a vast global network of trusted people we have worked with over the years and with whom we have formed close alliances and partnerships, so we can easily customize a team to suit our client’s deadlines and needs. This network, or ‘guild’, ensures that we consistently execute custom, high-quality work for each and every client and project.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
As designers, we’re bestowed with the exciting and challenging journey of sculpting evocative spaces intended to create lasting memories and experiences. This especially rings true in residential and hospitality design, where the designer tells the story of the client’s life or gives a hotel a sense of place from the locale or the history. Ultimately, design is never about one person’s vision. I see myself as a facilitator, making the client’s vision come to life and sharing their story. As a designer, I feel privileged to create stories within spaces that serve as the backdrop for monumental life celebrations and memories.

Website: https://hdesignguild.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hospitality_design_guild

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hospitality-design-guild/

Image Credits
Amanda Tower Zane Cooper