Photography by Mark Sacro
Tim Hawkins’ love affair with color began with his earliest memory as a child growing up in Kansas City, Missouri. His bedroom was painted bright tangerine and purple accessorized with matching bedsheets and pillows. It was a bold color choice for a child’s room but as Hawkins fondly remembers, his parents were never ones to stifle his creativity.
Now, with a successful interior design studio in Laguna Beach, surrounded by the muted beachy color palettes of Southern California, Hawkins feels the current trend of neutrals is less than appealing for him. Stepping into his studio, one can visualize his brightly hued projects as told by the various design elements lying around: colorful rolls of printed wallpaper furled on the wall like gift wrapping, grand blueprints, a wired cage-like object centered among a cornucopia of shells seated next to a pair of turquoise Fu dogs, and a corner table filled with colorful ceramic jars and lamps of chinoiserie. It’s a place that inspires his best ideas.
“We’re living through this whole beige white epidemic that real estate agents and home stylists have really terrorized us with,” he jokes, with a smirk.
Stephen Reed Photography
Known for his patterned and colorfully whimsical interiors, his use of color can be interpreted as an accessory or a canvas that sets the tone for the space. One can immediately see the infused colors carry a statement, one of belonging, giving it a sense of place. Picking a color for Hawkins is intentional and decisive, used to create moments of vignettes in each of the homes he designs. In one noted project, he considered the changing light throughout the day within the house before deciding on a color palette for the space.
If one detects a flair for the theatrical in seeing his work, it’s a nod to Hawkins’ time in the film industry, where he worked as a Production and Set Designer. It’s a period in his life that he refers to affectionately and attributes it with an educational process that still serves him in his role as a designer today. He describes the cinematic process as the art of creating “magic” from a series of laboriously repetitive tasks. In film, every set must instantly communicate a consistent story, from the first visual. It serves as a supporting role in the movie. Hawkins created that “magic” with the keen ability to fabricate authentic sets that stylistically and consistently carried the theme throughout the film.
Photography by Mark Sacro
“It might be set in a ghetto in Brooklyn, or it might be in a mansion in Atlanta. You have to know the diversity of being able to create and stay with the story, ” he explains.
The ability to “adapt” a story became the cornerstone of his design approach. He views each of his clients’ projects as a sanctuary to inhabit and helps them articulate their own aesthetics rather than impose his own. He emphasizes his ability to meticulously listen and quietly observe how his clients move through their homes, what their routines entails, and the various colors and patterns that resonate.
In spite of the outwardly playfulness of Hawkins’ designs, he adheres to a strict design formula introduced by a previous colleague at Universal Studios, Monte Westmore, a legendary make up artist in the past era of glamorous Hollywood movie stars. He refers to the “60-30-10” framework as his “algebra for design” and it has yet to fail him.
Stephen Reed Photography
Hawkins explains that when determining the distribution of color and pattern, applying this formula creates an atmosphere of intentional balance rather than overwhelming fatigue. The formula is structured around specific percentage allocations:
60% Dominant Color -The main background color which could include the walls or a large rug. 30% Secondary Color- The supporting color which provides contrast, such as curtains or furniture.
10% Accent Color-The pop of color which could be pillows or artwork, which draws your eye to the focal points.
Westmore’s own father, who worked with Max Factor during the golden era of Hollywood, would use the same proportion of makeup on some of cinema’s most famous actresses. Legendary designers, Tony Duquette and Dorothy Draper, were also known to apply this formula to both fashion and interiors.
Its impressive high brow names like these, to whom Hawkins references in casual conversation, that demonstrate his volume of knowledge and love of design history. Although he never completed a formal training in design, he cultivated his education as a life long learner with various classes and specialized workshops, one of which included a white gold-leafing class in Venice. He describes his educational journey as a “modular approach” where he would learn a specific skill, and once completed, move on to the next on his own terms, rather than the pursuit of a diploma. His artistic journey included time spent at the Kansas City Art Institute and Otis College of Art and Design in LA.
Stephen Reed Photography
A stint at film school, where he studied the creation of miniatures – model building, forced perspective, and specialized lighting to achieve realistic scale – ultimately proved invaluable when a client approached him with an unusual commission.
She had recently returned from her visit to Amsterdam, where she picked up a seven foot tall antique cabinet. Inspired by an exhibition she viewed at Rijksmuseum, she commissioned Hawkins to build a dollhouse to scale inside the cabinet. Hawkins was bemused by the project and immediately began sketching ideas on paper.
“It’s about scale.The miniature’s scale is one-inch equals one-foot in designing miniatures,” Hawkins explains about the precision and rigor with which he will proceed with this project of creating an intricate world at a very small scale. He refers to his hand drawn drawings and sketches, preferring the tactility of taking pencil to paper than to a digital rendering.
Beyond his private practice, Hawkins is dedicated to mentoring the next generation of creatives. In a recent project for the Marriott Autograph Hotel in Indiana, he collaborated with 50 Laguna art school students to curate fifty original paintings on the theme of the American Songbook. He hopes the interactions with the next generation of artists may help stem the use of “beige” in the future.
In Hawkins’ latest pursuit to evangelize his love of color, he has written a book. Eight years in the making, “No More Beige: Diary of a Mad Interior Designer” is finally completed and is in the process of being published. For him, design is not merely a profession, it’s his lifelong mission to ensure that the environments that one inhabits are as vibrant and nuanced as the lives themselves.
Tim Hawkins Interiors
1178 N Coast Hwy
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
@timhawkinsinteriors
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