How I learned to Design
- Yeva 101
- Jun 19, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 30, 2025
Design is not something I studied.
It’s something I started seeing everywhere. It didn’t begin in a classroom or a studio. It started in the quiet rituals of my life. In the way I moved through space and how space moved through me. Throughout college, I became obsessed with design as concept, not just form. I would find it while sipping coffee in my favourite shop or standing in a crowded nightclub.
In heartbreak, in stillness, in overstimulation, design was always there,
speaking in fragments:
The way light pierced through dancing bodies
The cracks in a weathered wooden table
The exact moment someone shifts their weight, unsure of whether to leave
These weren’t just observations. They were micro-atmospheres-each one altering how I felt, how I remembered, how I belonged to a space.
The Art of Feeling Through Space
Over time, I began to realise: Every action could be a design moment!
How does someone feel when they are:
Standing still
Getting dressed
speaking on the phone
Sitting with their sadness
Laughing in a rush
Each posture, pause, or transition holds the potential to be designed for. Not just for comfort or function, but for feeling. The way a back leans, a shadow lands, a surface touches skin, a hallway narrows-this is where design begins to speak.
And the language it uses is emotion.
From Emotion to Spatial Strategy
This is how I learned to design. Not just with software or homework, but with paying attention to paused moments.
I learned to translate emotion into spatial choices:
Stillness became soft ambient light
Calmness became sunlight entering a room
Intimacy became lowered ceilings and warm textures
Confidence became open sightlines and solid thresholds
I was designing from the inside out. Starting with feeling, ending with form.
Design isn’t only what we see-it’s what we sense when we aren’t looking.
The feeling that a room understands you before anyone else does.
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