The journey of a creative is never a straightforward path, and Mark Smith knows this well. As the head of design of Studio Mark Smith, he draws on experience from studying design at Auburn University, designing textiles in NYC for urban apparel brands like Avirex, and serving as the head of idea and innovation for Swarovski. Talk about inspiration!

Mark and I talked about his current project — a collection of jewelry — and spoke about his time working in Austria and Denmark. We also discussed his time at Pratt Institute in the 1990s and how that brought him to southern Alabama and the creation of DesignSeed, a project to help leverage local resources to create design-based startups. Mark also spoke about redefining the concept of luxury, the challenges of designing for an international audience, and what success looks like for him now at this stage of his career. From the country to Copenhagen, Mark Smith is a design visionary!