Interview with Sheila Milani: Using Architectural Principles in Experience Design
“The spaces that inspire us start from a single idea”
Essentique: A natural skin care, hair care, and aromatherapy boutique. Palo Alto, California | 2016
BY DEVIN FINNERAN | COPYWRITER
This is the first segment of our Make it Better series, where we showcase the work of our team as they employ their diverse skill sets and broad areas of expertise to consistently produce strategic creative solutions for our clients and partners, adding imaginative innovation and value to any initiative.
For our inaugural interview, we met with Sheila Milani, Associate Creative Director of the San Francisco office, to chat about all things environmental design, specifically what principles she brings from the architectural discipline into the myriad brand experiences we design. Our conversation explored the various strands of her design processes, as well as the foundational inspirations in her career.
The Spark
With over 19 years of design industry experience specializing in brand experience, brand management, and interior architecture, Sheila has worked with forward-thinking clients including Adobe, Microsoft, Google, NetApp, SurveyMonkey and Oracle NetSuite. She’s also designed retail spaces and full brand systems for boutique businesses like natural skincare outfit Essentique.
NetApp: On campus corporate retail store. Sunnyvale, California | 2019
Born in Berkeley, California, Sheila is first-generation American, and was raised in the Bay Area by her parents who immigrated from Iran in 1979, just as the Iranian revolution began. Her father is an architect, and her mother an avid reader and teacher of French literature, so it was only natural that Sheila would walk her own eclectic path. Although photography was her discipline of choice growing up, she soon made the transition to graphic design, earning her BFA in 2005.
After years in the corporate world, she left in 2012 to pursue a masters in Interior Architecture and Design. In 2015, with an MFA in hand, she started her own business, working primarily in event and environmental design, as well as working with clients to design retail stores. She joined the Cogs & Marvel team in 2020, and has proven to be an invaluable asset to our team; her architectural expertise informs myriad areas of our experiential journeys.
“Our house was always swimming with classical music on weekends. The ideas of art, culture, and design have always been part of my vocabulary from a very young age.”
Concept renderings for a skincare company’s office design. San Francisco, California | 2018
Inspiration in Black and White
Known for her clean and streamlined style, she gravitates towards using black and white for its’ stark graphic language; she believes this is inspired by her love of classic films and especially film noir, where sharp contrast and chiaroscuro light frame each scene masterfully.
“I’m inspired by years past. Classic films from Alfred Hitchcock to Charlie Chaplin. Typography that surrounds us almost entirely. Bookstores. Travel. Museums. Jazz from the 1940s and ‘50s.”
From left to right: Gilda, Limelight, North by Northwest
On the rare occasion she found herself in a creative dip pre-pandemic, she sought out Stout Books in Jackson Square, San Francisco for inspiration. She misses the shelves which are lined with weighty tomes on architecture and design, the familiar smell, and the creak of the floorboards.
A firm believer in keeping things square and simple, she explained that “stripping away the noise is when we start to see the beauty in a simple shape—its most singular form.”
Sheila’s Top 5 Architectural Principles for Experience Design
1. Start With Emotion: How Should We feel?
Employing the concepts of spatial design allows us to give greater consideration to human needs, whilst also integrating simultaneous multisensory activations to stimulate emotional connection. Looking at the built environment, spatial designers develop a deep understanding of their location, thinking from the outside in, about how the spaces feel, how they are organized, and how they could enhance the lives of those exploring or inhabiting them in any given moment. Sheila uses a number of design principles to construct inviting environments by considering materiality and sensory inputs (think textures, layers, variety, rhythm, asymmetry).
“The spaces that inspire us start from a single idea. One wouldn’t think to pair storytelling with interior spaces, but it’s such a big part of how ideas form. Stories give life to the rich juicy bits that get layered into the design.”
2. Accessibility, Always
Our surroundings play a significant role in our psychological behaviour; they have huge impacts on our moods, and on our sense of well-being. Sheila directs the design of our purpose-built environments, and strives to create functional spaces that are accessible for all, and that foster a sense of safety for those who interact with them.
3. Biophilia: Bring the Outside In
As the world population grows, our urban areas sprawl, and day-to-day exposure with true nature decreases. This goes against humankind’s innate connection to the outdoors, and underscores the reason why biophilic design has grown in popularity in recent years. Integrating natural elements into our built environments is proven to trigger a strong positive impact on our health and well-being, and it’s known to improve both cognitive function and creativity.
Concept rendering for brand activation pop up space. Dublin, Ireland | 2020
Earlier this year, Sheila worked with a client that wanted to repurpose vacant city centre locations into sustainable meeting points where they could both educate, and connect with their community. Understanding the programming, as well as how the viewers should interact with different touchpoints on their journey, greatly informed her design. Biophilic elements were ingrained, and the introduction of one main wall represented an animal spine that wrapped around the internal area, framing the space.
The user began their journey at a slatted wall - beaming with AR activated content. From there they moved along the spinal wall, enveloped by greenery and interactive content as they made their way to the centre of the installation. Subtle soft furniture hugging the exterior of this space was used to create a shell, the idea being that once seated, users would feel safe to engage with the space, and each other, whole-heartedly.
Biophilic design integrated into a modular space with safety and air ventilation in mind
4. Sustainability is the Future
We always work to integrate sustainable thinking into our creative conceptualization phase rather than treating it as an afterthought, and we have previously spoken about designing eco-conscious brand experiences. Sustainability is important in every project, and Sheila carries out extensive research on both biophilic design, and the materials making up a space, in order to find solutions that reduce waste from the start.
“Our team has the widest range of talent that I’ve had the pleasure of being a part of, and that leads to unexpected ideas and inspired storytelling”
5. Varied Perspectives: Tap a Multidisciplinary Team
After working on her own for so many years, Sheila enjoys the collaborative process that runs throughout everything we do at Cogs & Marvel. With a multidisciplinary team like ours, we never know what expertise or experiences someone could uncover, and alongside each brainstorming session, we also learn quite a lot about our colleagues.
When asked about her ultimate goal when creating work for clients she answered simply, “I hope to find that the work I do means something to the audience. That it may inspire”.
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