Announcing a New Partnership Between ID Studios and ORANGEWALLstudios

ID Studios is excited to announce our alliance with ORANGEWALLstudios. This partnership was formed specifically in response to the increased demand for highly qualified lab planning and cutting-edge workplace design services in the Life Science sector. Over the last 15 years, ID Studios has designed hundreds of facilities that support positive workplace culture and drive innovation. Many of these projects have been in the San Diego Life Science sector. Now, with ORANGEWALLstudios on board, we have expanded our lab planning expertise with the design and planning of wet and dry labs that support immunology, genomics, biochemistry, and neuroscience, as well as support spaces such as vivariums. Combined, our firms are a solid technical and design force on the west coast.

As an example of one of ID Studios’ Life Science projects, we recently completed design and construction for the offices of Neurelis, a company that received FDA approval on a new seizure cluster rescue treatment. Their new workplace is built into a hill overlooking Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve where the views offer a powerful connection to nature, promoting health, happiness, and progress among Neurelis’ staff. The workspace design integrates natural materials to enhance the wellness mission of the company and provides natural light to each person while bringing the outdoors in.

ID Studios also recently designed the new headquarters for Acadia Pharmaceuticals located at the brand-new mixed-use development, One Paseo. Acadia Pharmaceuticals created the first and only medication approved by the FDA for the treatment of hallucinations and delusions associated with Parkinson’s disease psychosis. Their offices integrate the latest technology while maintaining a Southern California loft feeling and planning for new social distancing attributes as well.

Inova Diagnostics is yet another client in the local Life Science industry that ID Studios has worked with on several refresh and expansion projects. Nestled in the eucalyptus groves of Scripps Ranch, Inova is a leader in autoimmune diagnostics, delivering highly accurate reagents and efficient automation to labs throughout the world. The combination of state-of-the-art labs and healthy office space for these innovators, just add to the already successful company output.

With ORANGEWALLstudios’ extensive experience in Lab planning and ID Studios’ expertise in workplace design as well as over 1.5 Million SF of history in this arena combined, it is clear that our approach is what makes us an exceptional choice for companies who care both about their technology solutions as well as their people.

With this new partnership, ID Studios has now expanded its outreach with additional office locations in Oakland, CA and Portland, OR. ID Studios’ headquarters remains in Solana Beach, CA. We look forward to partnering with more life science companies in the future to create environments that support exciting new innovations in Life Science.

ID Studios, Proud Biocom Member

With the Life Sciences being a driving force in the San Diego region, ID Studios is excited to be a part of Biocom, “the largest, most experienced leader and advocate for California’s life science sector.”

We hope that by becoming an active part of this community, we can make better connections, join in education opportunities, share our expertise, and join in activities with others who are similarly focused.

ID Studios: Best Place to Work 2020

ID Studios included in this prestigious list

We’re humbled to be part of the San Diego community’s Top 100 Best Places to Work. This Awards program, sponsored by the San Diego Business Journal, focuses on “outstanding companies whose benefits, policies and practices are among the best in the region.”

As a small, locally owned business we care about our employees and feel like they’re part of our family. Together, we work tirelessly to support our clients so we can continue to enrich their lives through thoughtful design. We’re committed to adapt to the challenges 2020 brings and come out stronger than ever.

We are truly proud to be in the company of our colleagues, clients, and industry partners who have also been named one of an Diego’s Best Places to work in 2020. #MillerHull #CWDriver #CoastalPayroll #tk1sc #DempseyConstruction #IgniteVisibility #SundtConstruction #SheppardMullin #MarshMMA #InnovaSystems #TandemDiabetes #SwinertonBuilders #JLL #BalfourBeatty #DPRConstruction

To read more about the event, please visit the SDBJ Website HERE.

Celebrating 15 Years

In January 2005 Deborah Elliott and Amy Morway founded ID Studios with a singular mission: Providing quality design services through timeless and enduring design principles. Over the last fifteen years, ID Studios has grown by developing long-lasting relationships through our personalized, dedicated service.

We are proud that this personalized service has allowed ID Studios to become recognized as the design firm of choice for many in the San Diego Business Community. The quality of design, commitment to excellence and end user personalized focus has borne a host of landmark projects, both for notable clients and the design community at large.

With sincere appreciation for the dedication of our team, the partnership with our clients, and the support of our industry partners, we look forward to another fifteen years!

ID Studios in the SDBJ Book of Lists

The Book of Lists is a compilation list of hundreds of businesses in San Diego ranked by size and including contact information for easier business-to-business connections.

ID Studios is proud to announce that we’ve again been included in Architecture Book of Lists, published this month. The SDBJ strives to maintain a list “to provide deeper, better and more rigorously researched data than any other national database”.

We appreciate the time and effort the Journal takes to compile and maintain this list which can be accessed here: or https://sdbj.com/sdlists/

Strategic Planning for a Return to Work

Are you working on your “Back to Work” strategy? ID Studios stands ready to work with you to address your immediate challenges of preparing the workplace for a safe “return to work” environment. Let us help you make the right design decisions in both the short term and the long term by assisting you with your return-to-work strategy.

Contact us for more info.

ID Studios response to COVID-19

To all of our valued Clients and Colleagues,

As we navigate through the ever-changing circumstances related to COVID-19 we, at ID Studios are continuing to focus on your project needs. Although most of us are working remotely, we have put measures in place to allow all of our staff to conduct business “as usual”. Barring any new developments, we are prepared to fulfill our project responsibilities while maintaining a healthy work environment. Although we may be working differently for the next few weeks and beyond, our team is fully committed to providing the same high level of professional service that our clients have grown accustomed to.

As of March 16, 2020, please be aware of the following:

Work from Home

ID Studios is allowing all employees to work-from-home as needed for the next several weeks. We are constantly monitoring information provided by the CDC and World Health Organization to actively assess the threat to our employees and customers. We stand ready to move to longer-term work-from-home operations in order to minimize community spread and continue business as usual.

Closed Office Visitation

Please avoid visits to ID Studios offices, except for small in-person meetings that are deemed necessary for the continuation of business operations. We ask this with the goal of limiting person-to-person exposure. We are relying on technology such as Zoom and Microsoft Office Teams to conduct meetings and maintain collaboration across our remote employees, clients, and partners.

CREATE Event:

We are postponing our CREATE event, previously scheduled for May 13. New details will follow.

We are reminded in challenging times that generations of families have come before us to face times like this and more. Our lineage, our training, our practice, and our hard work have all prepared us for this. We have the best clients and colleagues and we will get through this together!

Take the helm.
Help others.
Give confidence.
Share support.
Offer kindness.
Employ empathy.
Be generous with your heart.
Tap the wisdom of your experience.

And, take care of yourself in the meantime.

From the Design Team at ID Studios.

The Lytx Experience: A physical space tells a story of passion

The Lytx Experience was originally conceived when ID Studios helped design the company’s corporate headquarters several years ago. Founded in 1998, Lytx is the world’s leading provider of video telematics, analytics, safety and productivity solutions for commercial, public sector, and field services fleets. Dedicated to saving lives and reducing risk on the road, their vision is that no commercial driver will ever be the cause of a collision. Their clients represent the biggest brand names in for-hire and long-haul trucking, distribution, passenger transit, waste and recycling collection.

The Lytx San Diego campus is comprised of two buildings and is home to over 500 employees. Designed to foster Lytx’s team-oriented, casual, startup culture, the space is bright and welcoming, and includes a cafeteria and gym, collaboration spaces, focus rooms, and a game room. “During our original design and build-out for Lytx in 2015, the company’s focus was to create an environment to support their rapid growth and strong, positive employee culture. Appropriate at the time, their first Experience Center was an enclosed area with flatscreens and podiums displaying products. It was functional in terms of showing the evolution of the company’s product offerings, but it wasn’t an engaging and immersive brand experience,” says Kelsey Held, senior designer for ID Studios.

In 2019 Lytx reached out to ID Studios to transform the room into an interactive space to capture the spirit of the company’s culture of customer-centered innovation and employee engagement, and to convey the company’s industry leadership and brand positioning. The redesigned room would function as the foundation for any client or prospect visit to the Lytx campus. Lytx now hosts visitors in a tour through the Experience Center, showcasing the company’s mission, values, vision, technology, clients and employees. Spanning everything from a touchscreen that highlights the latest data on how many clients Lytx supports, to key areas of driving risk in the U.S., to videos about Lytx’s clients and their safety cultures, to overviews of Lytx employee volunteerism and community support, the space provides a panoramic view of the company.

ID Studios worked closely with the team at Lytx to design the flow of the room. “We dedicated quite a bit of time to establishing the narrative they wanted to convey,” says Jill Russell-Layman, associate principal at ID Studios. “Safety is at the heart of everything they do. Their clients work with Lytx to help keep their drivers and employees safe and their businesses operating more efficiently.”

“In the redesign, we removed an existing glass partition that enclosed the space and opened the area to the main path of travel. We added graphics on the front glass to draw attention to the company’s focus on “Video for Good,” says Held. “We were able to incorporate a lot of customer infographics and content from Lytx’s in-house marketing and communications team – taking materials they developed and working them into the overall theme of the space to tell their story in a cohesive and engaging way.”

The story unfolds

In the new space, the history of Lytx unfolds across interactive panels. It starts where Lytx began – with the story of a road-rage incident that ricocheted into the invention of a whole new product category for transportation safety: Video telematics. Stemming from the origin story is a timeline of their products from the very first physical prototype to their most current model.

Opposite these panels, is an entire wall showcasing Lytx’s 140 patents. The next grouping of panels highlights the connection Lytx has with its clients. “Wrapping the outside of the room, there is a panel dedicated to their Driver of the Year and Coach of the Year award winners. We worked out a detail with the signage vendor so that the plaque with the winners’ photo could be swapped out each year without replacing the entire panel,” says Held. Flanking the other side of the space, visitors will find a large interactive touchscreen panel called the “Lytx Engine” and a “ticker” which virtually counts the number of miles of data collected per second by their software.

The heart of the company

Company culture is central to the employee experience at Lytx, so it’s only fitting that the three podiums at the center of the Lytx Experience are dedicated to the company culture. “Just as their culture is the heart of their company, these podiums showcasing their culture are the heart of the Lytx Experience. We showcase their mission as a company, their dedication to giving back, and photos of staff and company events to communicate that the employees are part of something bigger,” says Held. The podiums were designed and custom-built for the room with the intention of avoiding too much construction disturbance and cost. The podiums were able to house carefully concealed battery-powered LED lighting without needing to add costly power cores to the floor.

Shining the light

Lighting helps guide visitors through the room. “We brought in backlighting on the panels which accentuates the layering effect that they have jutting forward and back from the wall. The podiums have a ring of light around the top. The lights are wired with a motion sensor and are set to turn off after the area is inactive for a period of time,” says Kelsey.

Powering the next decade

“It’s very rewarding working with a company like Lytx. Their culture is incredibly important to them and they’re deeply committed to what they do and their broader role in making our communities and roadways safer. When we presented the initial design, the Lytx team literally jumped out of their chairs in excitement to see something that reflected who they were,” says Held.

Congratulations to our new Associate Principals

ID Studios is happy to announce the promotion of Jill Russell-Layman CID NCIDQ, and Rich Guerena AIA LEED AP to Associate Principals. “In addition to directing some of ID Studios’ most significant projects, both Rich and Jill will participate in the day- to- day business operations of the firm. We are thrilled that both Jill and Rich have expanded their leadership roles at ID Studios, and we can already see the positive impact they have made,” says Principal Amy Morway.

Jill Russell-Layman graduated from the Design Institute of San Diego with a BFA in Interior Design in 2003. Jill has been with ID Studios since 2006, just one year after our inception. She has continuously exhibited her commitment to the success of the firm and to the happiness of our staff. Her inspiration comes from being in the outdoors, whether it’s camping in the summer or skiing in the winter, she says, “being in the outdoors buoys my imagination and prepares me to take on the next big challenge.”

Rich Guerena joined ID Studios in 2014 after a successful 18-year start to his architectural career. He graduated from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Architecture. Through his positive interactions with clients, dedication to mentorship, and consistent drive for improvement, Rich has demonstrated a consistent level of professionalism. He and his college sweetheart moved to San Diego soon after graduating in 2002 and have now, “gained an appreciation for good tacos.”

“Jill and Rich have proven their value to ID Studios,” says President, Deborah Elliott, “through their strategic client leadership as well as being on the ground floor of the amazing internal culture of ID Studios – something that sets us apart from the everyday design firm in San Diego.”

We would like to extend sincere congratulations to them both!

Congratulate our new Associates

Growth from within 

Jeni Champion graduated from San Diego State University with a BA in Art/Interior Design in 2011. Since joining ID Studios in 2013, she has brought a unique joy to her projects that shines through into the final design. Jeni has committed to learn and give back by joining the NAIOP Developing Leaders program and as an instructor at the San Diego Design Institute. Jeni loves camping with friends and family with June Lake as her life-long favorite place in the great outdoors. Her most recent completed project is the West Coast office of Marsh & McLennan which has received excellent feedback from the Marsh & McLennan team.

Annie Wilson joined ID Studios in 2013 after relocating from Washington DC. She has a BS in Interior Design from East Carolina University. Not only does she bring beautiful design to the table, but her determination to get the job done right has earned her the title of Senior Project Manager. She recently completed Brain Corp, which consisted of 100,000 s.f. over 5-floors, including two cafes, a game room, and an outdoor patio. Outside of her project workload, she makes it a priority to network and continues her professional growth by being actively involved in organizations such as CREW and SAME. In her free time, one of the things she enjoys is watching football and is excited that her team, the Green Bay Packers, are in the playoffs. 

Maegen Curry joined ID Studios in 2014 with experience in both commercial and hospitality design. After receiving a BA from the University of Washington, Maegen received a BFA from the Design Institute of San Diego in 2010. Her fresh take on design and attention to detail make her a perfect fit for the ongoing renovation of ResMed’s headquarters. She has joined CREW as a way to network and keep connected with like-minded professionals. With two young boys, her weekends often consist of designing and building complicated Lego creations.

Each of these key team-members have proven their design and leadership ability and are of great value to ID Studios. Congratulations to them all!