Wendy Smith

Interiors Practice Lead

Wendy leads the firm’s interiors practice and oversees the Clayton Korte brand. She also leads Experience Design, a process that aligns project stakeholders around a shared vision and sets the direction for both architecture and interiors. Through this work, she ensures that interiors are integral to a project’s core narrative, where strategy, brand, and experience converge. Experience Design establishes the guiding principles for interiors, shaping environments that are intentional, cohesive, and reflective of each client.

A native Texan, Wendy followed an atypical path into architecture and interiors; first she taught high school English and then studied graphic design at California College of the Arts. Teaching fostered her instinct for empathy and her ability to see the world through others’ perspectives. Her studies at CCA ignited her passion for beauty and craft and provided her with a solid foundation in universal design principles.

Prior to joining Clayton Korte, Wendy spent more than a decade at brand design firms in San Francisco and New York, and ran her own brand design consultancy.