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Becky Zoellner is a Senior Designer at Fluid Interiors in Minnesota, USA.
With a decade of experience in the commercial interiors industry, Becky has been a Senior Project Designer for the last four years. At an early age, her grandmother encouraged her to think about the world of design. In high school, an interior design class inspired Becky to pursue a career in architecture. But in time, she realized that instead of designing buildings, she wanted to design their interiors.
“I love how the way you place products and colors can make people’s moods change,” said Becky. “I believe how people feel within a space is very dependent on how the furnishings in that space are placed.”
We recently caught up with Becky to learn about her design experience and use of CET Commercial Interiors in her work. Plus, we asked Becky to complete a CET design challenge—giving her 10 minutes or less to create an indoor-outdoor space from a blank digital canvas and convert it into a 3D rendering. To make the experience a little harder, she was asked to answer additional questions while drawing in CET Commercial Interiors. Check it out:
Configura: In your career, what project are you most proud of and how did CET Commercial Interiors help support your design process?
Becky: I work on Fluid Interiors’ Request for Proposals (RFPs). In my role, I collaborate heavily with our leadership team to respond to small and large competitive projects. To do my work, I begin by reading through an entire RFP where I highlight key words or phrases. I then bring that document into CET, so I have it to reference as I am designing. I don’t have to flip back and forth between programs when I do this, and I can even point out how the design matches the RFP in real-time with the client or A&D firm.
CET Commercial Interiors is everything! I use CET to do our drawings, renderings and pricing. It’s a little unique at our dealership because we do rely on CET to help support pricing and discounting. We use the software from beginning to end.
We recently won a big law firm project based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. To earn that business, our response to the RFP went above and beyond in many ways. Our ability to come up with different solutions in a quick timeframe set us apart from our competition. I am proud that we not only provide solid RFP responses but that we do so in a highly collaborative environment, with great attention to detail and impeccable visuals.
Configura: What are your go-to CET tools?
Becky: I always use the Edit Graphics option. I also like the ability to put everything into Blocks. When I am working with a lot of visuals, my go-to is SketchUp and PhotoLab for rendering. In March of this year, we purchased a Twinmotion license. Everything I know about it makes me really excited to use it! I need to play around with it, but I bet I’ll do more of my rendering work in that tool in the future.
Configura: How did you get into this line of work?
Becky: I’ve worked in the commercial interiors furniture industry for a decade. I graduated from the Art Institute International in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, and started my career at a Steelcase dealership. After a short while, I stepped away to work at an A&D firm. It was a good experience, but after seven months it made me realize I had more of a passion for furniture, so I made my way back to the dealership world!
In my role, we are encouraged to engage in continuous learning. CEUs are an important part of our development. Outside of CET Commercial Interiors, we also use Spec heavily. Everyone at Fluid goes through the beginner and advanced CET training webinars or self-paced training option. For my own learning, I visit the Academy website or MyConfigura often to watch videos and tutorials.
Configura: What do you enjoy about your day-to-day responsibilities?
Becky: I enjoy the fast-paced environment of working on RFPs. RFPs often come with very quick turnarounds and with 1–2-week window of time to design, it’s a bit of a race. Teaming with leadership is really important to me. RFPs are essential to doing business and I like having that sort of visibility within our company.
I most enjoy working on engaging renderings that feel like walkthroughs or movies. It’s my favorite part of this job. I get to be creative and showcase my skills while meeting the clients’ needs. I won the movie competition for the 2020 CET Awards at CET Experience that year, which was neat.
Configura: What are your goals for the next five years?
Becky: In the next five years, I see myself transitioning to more of a leadership role. I’d like to help train and manage our designer teams and support big picture initiatives and planning.
Configura has already helped me in so many ways. I have had the honor to present at several CET Experience conferences—which always pushes me out of my comfort zone. In doing so, I have gained confidence and a new level of comfort presenting to larger groups of people. The User Community is really strong, and I always learn so much when we get to collaborate and explore with one another during CET Experience.
To read additional CET User of the Month profiles, see the Community tab on Configura's blog page.
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