Since 2019, Design Elements has provided interior design services, particularly for kitchens and concept development.
Recently, my husband Shawn has joined Design Elements so that we can offer even more interior design services. Shawn is a qualified and experienced interior designer with a background in architectural projects. In recent years he has diverted to Environment Concept design for video games, which has only improved his CGi skills.
Design Elements creates within functional popular design styles, and we’d love to help make your home dreams come true. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for your kitchen or interior design projects. Or check out what we do on the link below:
Read the Design Elements blog for oodles of free home improvement advice
A bit more about Team Looyen
We met at University in 2004 and have since enjoyed many milestones together. From projects and study dates in the Uni days, to cheering each other on in separate careers, to marriage and parenting, we’ve always worked well together. Our home is in the Helderberg Basin, Cape Town and between our own skills, and some trusty contractors, Team Looyen has completed a few renovation projects on it.
If you want to see what we’ve done so far in our fixer-upper house, check out the blog. It’s actually our second fixer-upper and we’ve learned a lot through our projects.
Our perfect day always starts with a morning walk at the dog park as a family with our beloved female boxer, and ends with a sunset ice cream at the beach with our son.
We look forward to helping you with a project to transform your home into a haven for YOUR family.
About Chantal
Chantal G. Looyen is an interior designer and the founder of Design Elements.
With over 14 years of residential interior design experience and a BTECH/BA in Interior Design, Chantal specialises in kitchen and cabinetry design. She is passionate about helping homeowners to transform their spaces into nurturing homes. As a creative, she also enjoys graphic design and writing. Chantal loves to blog about all things home improvement. As a complete word nerd, she is an avid reader and also the secretary of a book club. Chantal is also a PTA mom at her son’s primary school and puts project management skills to good use in helping with fundraising events.
Chantal love’s holistic interior design, and enjoys creating a biophilic home. Besides making her home as beautiful and function as possible, her hobbies include bullet journaling, genealogy research and consuming information on civilizations long past, especially megalithic architecture and ancient tech.
About Shawn
Shawn Looyen is a versatile 3D artist specializing in creating virtual environments. Before transitioning into the digital art world, Shawn built a successful career in interior design, where his eye for spatial arrangement and aesthetics laid the foundation for his mastery of virtual environments. His previous experience in designing physical spaces now informs his ability to create immersive, visually stunning 3D worlds.
With a strong foundation in both traditional interior design and digital concept art, he brings a unique blend of technical skill and creativity to his work. Shawn’s digital creations, ranging from industrial landscapes to natural terrains, are crafted with high attention to detail. In addition to his digital artistry, Shawn is proficient in CAD drawing and has extensive experience drafting residential floor plans.
In his spare time, Shawn does Brazillian Jiu Jitsu, enjoys playing D & D with good friends, or immerses himself in video games with excellent graphics.
To see his 3D CGi skills in action, Shawn’s Artstation Portfolio can be found here.
Our Mission
It is our mission to create aesthetic and functional designs for family homes.
Our Vision
Design Elements is dedicated to creating designs that play a part in making homes functional and beautiful. This may be by designing optimal layouts for homes or by creating blog posts bursting with valuable home improvement knowledge.
Testimonials
Problem solving
“Chantal has helped me with multiple projects. She is great with space planning and always thinks about function AND how it will look. It is wonderful to work with her.”
~ Lauren O’Donnell, Homeowner (Roodepoort, Gauteng)
Out of the box solutions
“Chantal came up with a few different options for our kitchen, some of which were options we hadn’t even thought of. In the end, we went with one of these additional options, because it worked that much better. The 3D render process was particularly nice and allowed us to visualize how things would look. With this we saw that a new window that we had planned was actually unnecessary. During the building phase (in which the entire house was redone), Chantal was quick to respond to the many queries we had. In addition, she also advised me on finishings unrelated to the kitchen and kept her eyes open for items she thought would work in the house.”
~ Evan Knox-Davies, Homeowner (Betty’s Bay, WC)
Attention to detail
“Chantal was an absolute pleasure to work with. She did an outstanding job with a great turnaround time! She gave me everything that I wanted with superb attention to detail – going that extra mile. 10/10 would recommend for creative solutions.”
~ Brent Ferreira, Homeowner (Gillits, KZN)
