Interior designer Katie Hodges went from making the pages of Architectural Digest with her first project to nearly leaving the profession for good just a few years later. The thing that brought her back: getting clearer in her contract.
Katie Hodges’s first big client felt like a dream come true—a gorgeous luxury home, flexible clients and a project that ultimately landed a glossy feature in a major magazine. The same structure, it turned out, was a nightmare with one of her next clients. Though the experience was bad enough to make the Los Angeles designer consider quitting, she instead took a long hard look at her contract and fee structure—a process that transformed the way she now runs her firm.