It’s easy to spot a graphic designer’s home: Everything fits just so. Colors naturally complement each other; furniture is arranged organically and with optimal use of space; pieces of art are clustered to create a pleasing symmetry; tiny objects displayed harmonize rather than clutter.

Talla Wesely’s home is no exception. The San Francisco-based textile and fashion designer’s Mission District loft is one huge, satisfying dose of eye candy. Just as with her line of clothing and textiles, there’s copious representation of nature, color, and graphic pattern in her sunny 1,000-square foot space, where grownup furnishings and accessories live alongside thrift-store scores and Ikea basics. And thanks to her architect brother, George, she’s now got enough space to house her goods discreetly, and with flair.

As with most lofts, Wesely’s closet and storage space was dismal when she moved in. It was built in 1989, when San Francisco housing rules prohibited more than one closet in live/work lofts – the ultimate affront to a fashion designer. “I’ve accumulated a great deal of clothing, so my first priority was building closets and creating storage,” she says.

The siblings first tackled the upstairs bedroom area, where a three-foot-wide ledge cantilevered over the downstairs entryway sat unused. George, principal architect at 2vDesign in San Francisco, punched out the wall in her bedroom that led to the ledge, then built out the 12-foot-long area into a closet, where Wesely stores her shoes, coats, and off-season clothing and accessories. Using stanchions and ½-inch-wide white, semi-translucent Plexiglas, George built a guardrail for the ledge. “The [point] was to keep it open and light while at the same time screening her closet from view below,” George says.

Next, Wesely’s prized wardrobe needed a dignified space of its own. The bedroom was large enough to surrender about two feet, and the Ikea PAX closet system made a perfect fit. “I’ve lived in so many hole-in-the-walls over the years, and shared closets in tiny spaces with people, and I could never see where anything was,” she says. “Now I have a solid system in place, and I can be organized. And when you’re organized, it’s easy to be neat.”

George used the remaining 18 inches on the wall leftover from the end of the closet system to build display shelves flush with the corner of the wall. “This gave the entire ensemble an even more custom built-in look for not much more cost,” George says. They painted the back wall a dark, smoky gray and added recessed rope lights that exhibit her collections in museum-quality style.

Downstairs, in the large entryway that also serves as her office, the existing closets were cramped, dark, and nearly unusable with the accordion doors that covered them. George replaced those with sliding barn doors that hinge on a rolling casters-and-railing system, painted and mounted on the outside of the wall.

Behind one of the doors is a space designated as her pantry, which looks like a prop stylist’s dream: vases of varying styles and colors, metal baskets, colorful tea tins, platters and glasses, all of them artfully arranged. “I’m a collector, so I’ve got a lot of little things that I can put in this closet, and switch out when I’m ready to replace something else for a while,” she says.

Wesley applied her designer eye to the makeshift office, as well. Magazines are arranged by title and spine hue, creating equally proportioned, color-coded blocks. A simple table, used as a desk, is placed against a gray-and-white wallpaper forest, which accentuates the high ceiling. “In a space that’s high, I wanted something vertical,” she says of the wallpaper that also camouflages the breaker box. At night, the Moooi Random Light fixture casts shadows on the wall, making it appear as if the branches are moving.

Though Wesley displays a few of her own textile designs in the form of pillows or wood block prints, most of her wall space is taken up by two people’s art – Evan Hecox and Cody Hudson, whose silkscreen prints she’s collected over the years and arranged in vignettes in each room (usually by trade with their wives for pieces from her clothing line). Hecox’s silhouetted streetscapes of Los Angeles, New York, and Tokyo complement Hudson’s graphic, colorful shapes and patterns. “Artists tend to work in the same palates,” she says. “Evan and Cody happen to have the same type of aesthetic, and they mix well together. And when I hang art, I try to put little stories together.”

Though good taste can’t be taught, the rest of us can certainly take cues from the professionals. “Graphic design teaches you visual balance, symmetry, and how things work together,” she says. “We’re visual organizers.” Though good taste can’t be taught, the rest of us can certainly take some cues.