Red Dot Studio

I've worked with Karen and the Red Dot team to help document several of his projects. They're always a pleasure to work with and I look forward to collaborating with them in the future. Good people.

Karen Curtiss and the entire Red Dot Studio team are amazing! Karen listened to what we wanted and how we live our daily lives so she could create a design that fits our needs, rather than pushing her own agenda. At the same time, she offered great suggestions to improve on our dreams. She is responsive and really creative. She stayed within our budget and worked really well with our contractor. She's a great communicator and has an inspiring vision and style. We would definitely work with Karen and her team again on our next project!

I am working with Karen and Red Dot Studio on a full condo renovation which we will complete early in March of this year and I am very impressed with the overall experience. Not only is the design work top notch with a real attention to detail, Karen and Red Dot Studio are extremely easy to work with and always have a very positive attitude. From a personal point of view Karen has great respect for all good tradespeople right down to the guy cleaning the job. In summary, Red Dot Studio are easy to get along with, provide creative and exciting designs, and have timely responses to questions. I'm looking forward to the next project Red Dot Studio and I can work on together.

I have worked with Karen and the Red Dot team on several projects and am amazed at not only their talent, but also their ease to work with. Countless referrals later, I am constantly thanked for the introduction. I would recommend Red Dot to anyone looking for great vision, execution and dynamic design.

Red Dot Studio and Karen Curtiss have been fantastic in helping me completely remodel my condo in San Francisco. The property was damaged in a fire, and literally every single wall, floor and ceiling was torn out. I chose Red Dot because they could help me realize my vision for the place — maintaining some of the period details and materials while updating the floor plan to better accommodate modern living. I'm really excited by how the project is turning out. Karen was really patient with me while we figured out the best floor plan. She ended up proposing two totally different layouts, and I brought in the basics of a third, and we discussed all three in detail before settling on her first layout. Sure we ended up with one of the original plans, but laying out a condo is like a puzzle with tons of tradeoffs, and I feel comfortable that we really explored the possibilities and maximized the use of the space. Through the entire process she's done a great job both in considering my input and providing her own creative vision. To be honest I don't want to play armchair architect, and I believe that the place will turn out better if I give Red Dot more creative control. All the time I decline to provide opinions, and in all of these cases Karen comes up with something better than I would or could have. I would definitely hire Red Dot Studio for a project again.

Working with Karen Curtis and the Red Dot Studio team is like meeting a long lost family member; the quirky one that you hit it off with right away and realize you may share a lobe or two across your collective brains. Now working with Karen, well that's a whole other story. To call Karen meticulous is an understatement; she's focused on microscopic details, minutia that would probably slip by the unaided eye, and many trained eyes for that matter. Our project wasn't easy, it wasn't straight forward, nor was it run of the mill. I don't mind telling you what we had in mind was eccentric and off the beaten path: think tin ceiling, old pine walls, a vintage bar, and more problems than you can imagine. When we told Karen our vision, which probably sounded like a couple 5 year olds documenting the fort they would one day build in the living room, she didn't try to convince us otherwise, rather she said I'm in. Karen helped us navigate numerous obstacles from design, to budget, to personnel, she can advise you on the whole process from inception, to drafting, to permitting, to building and finally design and decoration. To give you an idea of how dedicated and accessible she was: one night, after finally receiving a shipment of tiles, she came over to help us 'randomize' the tiles by hand. The process took nearly four hours of unpakcing 200+ square feet of tiling, mixing them, randomly, and then repacking them so that the installers didn't have to look but rather grab and go. My wife and I are eagerly looking forward to the day when we can work with Karen again, it was truly a process, and in that process we met a tremendous talented artist that approaches her work with care, compassion, a philosophically curious mind and exacting standards.