One of my favorite fashion designers of all time is Karl Lagerfeld. I admire his work but I also love his character or at least the one that he created for the public.

The other day I was thinking about spreadsheet design and pondering, how would Karl Lagerfeld design a spreadsheet?

 “There is nothing worse than bringing up the ‘good old days. ‘ To me, that’s the ultimate acknowledgment of failure.” Karl Lagerfeld

I imagined that were Karl Lagerfeld a financial modeler, he would avoid using templates. He would always start building his models from scratch, while keeping the basic rules of financial modeling in mind.

“The clothes don’t have to suit you, you have to suit the cloths” Karl Lagerfeld

He would use color codes to differentiate between cells and tabs, but he would apply customized color codes for each project and added his own touch to the design and structure of the spreadsheets.

“There was once a designer in Paris who said, ‘My dresses are only for intelligent women.’ She went out of business…”Karl Lagerfeld

If Karl Lagerfeld were a financial modeler, he would create simple and user-friendly financial models so that even non-Excel experts could work with his models.

“Change is the healthiest way to survive.” Karl Lagerfeld

He would build flexibility into his models, thinking about the immediate project needs as well as those of the longer term.

“I deeply admire those who have the patience to work one thousand hours on an embroidered piece. As I, myself, don’t have any!” Karl Lagerfeld

If Karl Lagerfeld were a financial modeler, he would avoid working with models that take longer than five seconds to run. He would work with Professor Edward Bodmer to devise new ways of doing things.

“Stuff your brain with knowledge ” Karl Lagerfeld

Karl Lagerfeld the financial modeler would read all project documents, attend all meetings and be up to date with all project details while building and maintaining his financial models.

What about you? How do you design your spreadsheets? Do you take time to beautify your models and make them user friendly?

If you want to learn more about financial model spreadsheet design, check out my online course. You’ll get the A to Z of how to design a spreadsheet for your project finance model — one that is both beautiful and future-proofed.

https://courses.finexmod.com/spreadsheet-design-course