OUR APPROACH
Alan Design Studio, led by Ruthie Alan, possesses creative DNA that reaches back decades. A legacy designer, Ruthie’s expertise is founded on her art school education, combined with her mom, Jean’s, expertise in TV, movie, and set design, her father’s architecture practice, and a passion for creating ideal living spaces that work precisely for the people who inhabit them.
A lifelong Chicagoan, Ruthie was raised in a creative family and atmosphere that valued all forms of artistic expression. This openness to the beautiful potential that exists within every built space infuses her work with unmistakable vitality.
Today, Ruthie draws on her lifetime experience with the intersection of art, design, and business to define the precise visual approaches that lead to the creation of residential spaces that celebrate the individuality of the owner. The success of each project is directly related to the substantial creative partnership that develops between Ruthie and her clients. The personal connection between client and designer informs the process and finished projects completely and delightfully.
In a world where cookie-cutter design is omnipresent, Alan Design Studio’s empathic, warm approach toward projects is refreshing and invariably leads to captivating results. When clients love every square foot of their home, the project has been a brilliant success. This client-centered, full-service interior design process is particularly well-suited to Chicago’s mix of historic architecture, modern condos, and eclectic family homes.
ABOUT JEAN ALAN
Jean Alan’s creative path was shaped long before design offered clear professional avenues. Growing up in 1950s Chicago, she developed an early sensitivity to art, culture, and the quiet power of well-chosen objects. Drawn to antiques, textiles, and the stories they carry, she instinctively understood how spaces communicate feeling and character.
Jean’s career evolved through hands-on experience, from styling and visual storytelling to set decorating for film and television. Her intuitive eye for mood and composition led her to work within Chicago’s commercial production scene, where she crafted environments that felt authentic and lived-in. A defining chapter came with her work on the movie The Blues Brothers which led to a long career in film and television including memorable work on the series The Untouchables. Jean’s set design work solidified her reputation as an expert designer with a deep understanding of period and place.
With decades of experience, Jean later opened a boutique specializing in curated antiques, textiles, and custom pieces, attracting clients who valued homes rich in history and personality. Today, she brings a lifetime of creative knowledge and cultural perspective to Alan Design Studio, offering clients a rare depth of experience grounded in intuition, craftsmanship, and enduring style.
ABOUT RUTHIE ALAN
Alan Design Studio, led by Ruthie Alan, possesses creative DNA that reaches back decades. A legacy designer, Ruthie’s expertise is founded on her art school education, combined with her mom, Jean’s, expertise in TV, movie, and set design, her father’s architecture practice, and a passion for creating ideal living spaces that work precisely for the people who inhabit them.
A lifelong Chicagoan, Ruthie was raised in a creative family and atmosphere that valued all forms of artistic expression. This openness to the beautiful potential that exists within every built space infuses her work with unmistakable vitality.
Today, Ruthie draws on her lifetime experience with the intersection of art, design, and business to define the precise visual approaches that lead to the creation of residential spaces that celebrate the individuality of the owner. The success of each project is directly related to the substantial creative partnership that develops between Ruthie and her clients. The personal connection between client and designer informs the process and finished projects completely and delightfully.
In a world where cookie-cutter design is omnipresent, Alan Design Studio’s empathic, warm approach toward projects is refreshing and invariably leads to captivating results. When clients love every square foot of their home, the project has been a brilliant success. This client-centered, full-service interior design process is particularly well-suited to Chicago’s mix of historic architecture, modern condos, and eclectic family homes.
TEAM PARTNERSHIP
Teamwork pays off in design. Ruthie Alan personally partners with each client to define the best possible approach for each project. The human connection that develops between client and designer is the seedling of the team that grows and ultimately ensures each project is realized to its fullest potential.
Ruthie maintains substantial professional relationships with service providers who contribute to each phase of a project. From architects, engineers, restorers, painters, woodworkers, to master craftspeople, Ruthie prioritizes these professional relationships meaningfully. Every space she designs shines thanks to her expert focus. Bespoke creative team partnerships lead to design success. These long-standing relationships within the trusted Chicago trade network and artisan partners are a core part of how Alan Design Studio delivers truly turnkey, full-service interior design experiences.
DAVID BOWIE
What does David Bowie have to do with Alan Design Studio? Bowie knew how to shape-shift, but more than that, he knew how to hold everything at once. He could read a room, read a person, read the moment, and operate on all of those frequencies simultaneously without losing himself in any one of them. It was never personal, never precious. For Bowie, life and art were a kind of expansive game, and that lightness was what gave him room to be endlessly inventive.
Ruthie sees her own creative process in exactly that. Design isn’t linear. It’s multidimensional. At any given moment, she is thinking about the person who will live in a space, the light that will move through it, the emotion it should carry, the materials, the history, the surprise. All of it at once. That kind of thinking isn’t chaos. It’s a particular kind of intelligence, the same one Bowie brought to every stage, every interview, every reinvention.
A lifelong Bowie fan, Ruthie draws from his ethos the belief that creativity is transformative, emotionally resonant, and fearless, and that the best work comes not from narrowing your focus, but from being fully present to everything at the same time.
Her broader sources of inspiration include design icons such as Eileen Gray and auteur filmmakers like Pedro Almodóvar and Wes Anderson, whose sense of color, composition, and storytelling is reflected in many of her interiors.