Edmonton interior designer wins emerging designer award

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Edmonton interior designer Brianna Hughes has been honoured by Western Living magazine as the recipient of the Robert Ledingham Memorial Award.

Hughes won the award at the Western Living Designers of the Year Awards event, which took place Sept. 12 in Vancouver. Hughes was previously a finalist for the award in 2023. She said winning the award meant a great deal to her and was a huge motivator.

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“It just really encourages me to keep going forward,” Hughes said. “And, I love what I do. I’m super passionate about design. It can be a bit of a tough industry sometimes. So, I think it just really encourages me to continue moving forward and creating unique spaces for my clients.”

Hughes’ work was selected from a submission with accompanying images and bio. Out of hundreds of submissions, Hughes said the magazine selected hers for the Robert Ledingham Memorial Award, which highlights exceptional emerging designers.

Hughes has been in interior design for eight years, and her company, Brianna Hughes Interiors, is creeping up on its third year of being open in October. While she was previously an interior designer with a different company, Hughes got her start as a photographer.

Working behind the camera for 15 years, Hughes’ website biography said she became “known for unique, emotional family portraiture.” The inspiration to step into interior design struck when she renovated her own home.

“When I renovated my own home I fell in love with the design process and realized I could translate the mood of my photography into the 3D,” Huges said.

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Although her business has only been open for a few years, Hughes said it took almost all that time to develop a strong portfolio that could compete for the award. The design process is long and arduous and an organizational behemoth to navigate. When she found out that she’d won, she was excited but momentarily conflicted because of what it meant.

“I just submitted, and then I won,” Hughes said. “And then I was like, ‘What the hell did I do? Now I have to go and make a speech?’,” she said.

While Hughes is grateful to win the award, she admits there are still many talented designers in Edmonton who have gone unrecognized. She believes the interior design scene in Edmonton is growing.

“We don’t get a lot of recognition in Edmonton, but I think that there are a lot of really good designers in Edmonton, and I think Calgary gets a lot more recognition. But I think we’re starting to get more recognition for the work that we do,” she said.

Hughes said that the Calgarian clientele is often perceived as more “risk-taking”, which attracts designers, whereas Edmonton’s clientele might be less inclined to spend the extra money on an interior designer. But she said that’s changing.

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The commitment to a design process is dependent on the scope of the project, but Hughes said it can take years.

“Working with the architectural plans and creating a concept for the client that they’ll usually sign off on and approve. And then you go into your design phase, so it’s picking all the materials and things like flooring, plumbing, lighting, doors, baseboards. There’s just a lot of details that go into it.”

Once the construction is underway, Hughes said that’s when the furniture, drapery, and the rest of the finishing touches get ordered to complete the project.

Going forward, she said she hopes to be more selective about the projects she takes on to avoid the pitfalls of burnout.

“Sometimes it’s easy to say yes to too many things, and then you can get a little bit bogged down.”

She said she’s had as many as 15 projects going at one time, but that the work generally ebbs and flows.

zdelaney@postmedia.com

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