Vern Yip - Vern Yips Design Wise

To my mom, Vera, for dedicating her life to making me the man that I am.

To my sister, Katherine, for being the best example of a supportive sibling.

To our children, Gavin and Vera, for making me laugh and beam with pride.

And to my husband, Craig, for never failing to lead my cheering section.

2016 by Vern Yip

Photography 2016 by David A. Land

Published by Running Press,

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016938275

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Table of Contents

CONTENTS

I took a fairly unusual route to become an interior designer. Like many Asian Americans of my generation, my parents made huge sacrifices to come to the United States so that my sister and I could be afforded the best education and the most number of life and career opportunities possible. As immigrants who had to start over in a new and unfamiliar country, my parents saw a great deal of value in a stable profession, and that is what they wanted for me. Specifically, they wanted their only son to be a doctor. The Chinese culture holds medical professionals in very high regard, so they encouraged me in that direction. My mother always said that if she gave me a room full of puppies to choose from, I would pick the sickest one. So perhaps she felt that I had the kind of temperament a doctor needs to be successful. I did my best to honor their wishes and I was, in fact, a pre-med student at the University of Virginia, where I focused on both chemistry and economics. But my heart simply wasnt in it.

When I was at the National Institutes of Health, working in the Transmitted and Transfused Viruses Laboratory, I would find myself looking around the lab thinking, why do the walls have to be this terrible yellow, why is the fluorescent lighting so harsh and unattractive? This made me realize my passion for design was quite strong, and that perhaps I should follow that road.

Two weeks before I was to start medical school, I decided that I had better start listening to what my heart (and my mind) were telling mewhich was to pursue what I really felt I was put on earth to doarchitecture and design. My mom already knew about my interest, but she hoped that it would become a hobby Id engage in on the side. When I told her of my decision to change career paths, she was concerned. However, she quickly came to support my choice. I went on to further my studies and earned an MBA and Master of Architecture from the Georgia Institute of Technology. The MBA was likely a relief to her; it offered a practical alternative to design. She also saw that I applied myself to everything I did. Having such a supportive and encouraging mom has been a big part of my success.

My mom would also have to admit she had a hand in my passion for design. She raised me to have the same deep appreciation for craftsmanship as she did. She understood the difference between something that was well made and a masterpiece, and shared that knowledge with me. Her highly developed aesthetic sense was reflected in how she dressed and presented herself and how she kept the house. All of that had an impact on me and my sister, Katherine. To this day we both still have our hands deep in the world of design. In many ways, my mom was also a rebelparticularly daring for a traditional Chinese woman. She was the first woman to ride a motorcycle through her town, which was not looked upon kindly. She got in trouble for that. During her time at university, pursuing studies to become a psychiatrist and educator, there were far more men than women, perhaps one woman for every hundred men.

It took particular courage for my parents to leave China and come to America, where my mother and father did not speak the language well or understand the culture. My father, a biochemist, took a job as a busboy at a Marriott in Virginia, and my mother washed floors in a bank. These sacrifices were worth it to them in order to give my sister and me a better life. So perhaps my non-traditional path to design is not so surprising.

Eventually, my parents opened retail stores that sold furniture and home dcor items imported from Asia. Like so many kids of immigrants, I worked in the family business. After school, on the weekends, I would pitch in. This is where I really observed and absorbed my mothers artistic bent. She gave me a lot of leeway to explore my own creative interests. I created the jewelry displays for the store starting at a very young age; by the time I was nine, I was creating window displays. Some of them were pretty bad, but she gave me that freedom to learn from my failuresdespite the fact that the store was in a very nice part of town, right next to Neiman Marcus. She had faith in me, and that is an amazing feeling.

My unusual educational background (for an interior designer, at least) has given me a great gift in terms of how I work with interior spaces and clients. While I certainly express emotions, whimsy, and creativity in my work, I also bring a deep analytical understanding of structure, scale, and proportion that directs my designs toward being both aesthetically pleasing and practical for the people living in those spaces. I like to explain to a client exactly how I arrive at my decisions, and in the process, teach them information they can use in the future. Its useful to absorb the basic principles of good design that have stood the test of time, regardless of the style you choose. Such knowledge saves money because you know what to ask about and look for when making a major purchase; it saves time because you dont have to agonize about where to put the sofa or place a coffee table. It frees you up to concentrate on developing your eye and your own personal style.