Honoree Profile

Samantha Rook

Antunovich Associates

Title: Designer Manager / Senior Associate
Tenure at Firm: 1 Years
Nominating Principal: Katherine Putnam, Principal, Director of Interior Design
School: Columbia College Chicago
Major: Interior Architecture

Inspired By:

My team, they are such an amazing group of young designers who are passionate about design and about learning. It is such a joy to be able to collaborate with them and to help them grow to achieve their goals.

Keys to a Successful Project:

The key ingredients to a successful project are communication, collaboration, and time management. You need heaping spoonsful of all of them. Collaboration is inevitable on any project, but it takes skill to be great at it. Accepting that design can’t be done in a bubble by yourself and that you need people to grow a design can be difficult for people to grasp until they get better at it. Communication is key to keeping a project moving forward whether it is within your own firm/design team or with consultants and contractors. When communication isn’t calm, clear and concise a lot can get lost in translation and become an issue further down the road. Time management comes with experience and an understanding of the first two ingredients. When all of these ingredients melt together in harmony that is when projects get completed on time and exceed a client’s expectations.

Interests Outside of Work:

Outside of work I love playing with my 16-month-old daughter and making custom bags, purses, and accessories. I also enjoy reading and so many other hobbies.

“Samantha is an incredible leader in our interiors group; her technical knowledge, design sense, and commitment to our clients is truly exceptional. She is also a working mom to a one-year-old, making her performance all the more impressive. I feel very fortunate to have her as my right-hand woman!”

Katherine Putnam
Principal, Director of Interior Design