Inspiring Blog Award – Interior Design

Posted: 26 March, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Companies, contemporary interiors, Environmental, Fabric Tips, home decor, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors, Market Comment, modern homes, modern interiors, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Inspiring Blog 2013

Interior Design 2013

A big thank you to Kiki for our nomination for the Inspiring Blog Award. It’s always great to know that we are reaching out to new generations of Interior Designers.

Following the rules of this award I have to tell you a little bit about myself.

1. Many years ago I danced with Brad Pitt. Well; I was in the same nightclub and I sort of manoeuvred myself into his general vicinity. That counts right?

2. One of my scariest moments is travelling at over 230kmh in a sports car. I wasn’t driving (luckily someone else was) and you will be relieved to know that we were on a race track.

3. I inadvertently inherited a collection of 1980s vinyl ‘LP’ covers. After years of sitting in a box I discovered that when framed then made a great art installation next to my work area at home.

4. The first paint I chose was for my own bedroom .Dark green. Hmmm.

5. I like people, dogs and cats. In that order.

6. Most interesting party venues: On a roof top in Manhattan and some bizarre, mostly uninhabited, island somewhere near Comodo that even now I can’t quite remember the name of.

7. Most stupid question, “Do you like chocolate?”

Inspirational Blogs (I’d like to nominate!): Here are some that I enjoy:

Pippa Jameson

Kelly Hoppen

The Style Files

Anne Sage

Design Geek

Apartment Therapy

Tevami

There are a few rules to accepting this blog award…

1. Display the award image on your blog page.

2. Link back to the person who nominated you and ‘like’ the post

3. State seven facts about yourself.

4. Nominate 15 other bloggers for the award.

5. Notify your bloggers of their nomination and link to their posts.

Related articles

Pink Linen For Upholstery & Curtains

Posted: 26 February, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: contemporary interiors, Curtain Fabric, Domestic Fabric, home decor, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors, Market Comment, modern homes, modern interiors | Leave a comment »

LinenPinksPink linen is a rather rare and unusual flower. Not often specified in your average interior designer’s scheme. I found this scan that we had emailed someone recently for the client to choose for some curtains. We were even able to introduce different pinks into the warp and weft of the linen for an unusual effect. (We can do that with most of our linen colours).

Anyway, I just thought the pink linen image looked nice and I wanted to share it with you!

Related articles

Who is the best interior designer in London?

Posted: 22 January, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: contemporary interiors, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, The Business Of Interior Design | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment »
London

London (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

I was wondering just “Who is the best interior designer in London?”. I recently wrote about who was the best interior designer in the world and got some rather unexpected results.

You could, and of course probably did, do that same Google search to find London’s “best interior designer”, just like you’ve probably also googled your own name at some point.

And yet here you are.

Maybe you are one of those top interior designers wondering why your name didn’t appear on Google’s first page like Blanchard, Helen Green, Tollgard and Robin Moore Ede did?

Is it really important? For example I’m writing this in 2013 and Victoria and David Beckham have just, apparently, commissioned Kelly Hoppen to do their London pad. Do you think they did that Google search? Probably not, in fact certainly not, as I am sure they were influenced by many other factors. So even if you target ‘rich people’ then you might argue that your target market will never make that search.

Maybe.

Click To Read More Interior Design Articles

Click To Read More Interior Design Articles

I bet some of them do though. I bet some of those responsible for recent influxes of property investment in recent years do as they are based out of London. Perhaps they did have one or two recommendations but perhaps they also wanted a few new faces to present fresh ideas. & you weren’t on that list!

So how do you get on that list? Well this blog page probably did get on or near the top of that list. So you might wonder why? Well if you look at the first paragraph you will see that I use ‘who is the best interior designer in London’ near the start of my article (google likes that) Oooh and look I’ve just included it again in the previous sentence. Google likes that too. But I will stop putting it in as if you do it too many times Google does NOT like that. & now take a look at the title, the name of the page and the excerpt…do you see a pattern emerging? :-)

So the lesson is that you actually have to put the words into your website that people might type (keywords). That’s an art in itself. Covered elsewhere on this blog. Of course now you know the trick you will all do it and I will get bumped further and further down the listing…giving me a reason / excuse for not being on the first page when you finally get around to reading this!

Then of course you actually have to have a good website and I ‘m sure you’ll agree that those companies that come up do have amazing looking websites. We deal with some of them and they certainly ARE at least amongst the very best designers in Europe, let alone London. And yet if you have the time to check their technical google ranking or ‘pagerank’ (I’ve done it for you!) you will find that most are 3 or 4; which is not so great. Certainly no higher than this blog. So you DON’T have to have a really high pageranking to get on that first page. You  have to have the right content (as well as an OK pagerank).

Now here’s how you can cheat. Search instead for a generic “interior designer in London“. Different results. And you will see that maybe your adwords advert for those keywords appears on the right hand side (you don’t use adwords? why not?). You will maybe also see that you need to have a google business/places listing to get put there as well a perhaps a listing in Yell.

So you can cheat by paying for a position on the ads on the right hand side. It might cost you a bit though. And if you get a lot of ad clicks then google will promote you to the ads at the top of the search (because your ad generates more revenue for them). And you will see that those ads at the top don’t always look like ads and they kind of blend into the normal search results. And people kind of think that they are the first results of the search…and click them. Good clicks if you can get them maybe?

Maybe a listing in Yell is a good idea and getting a Google Places/Business listing IS DEFINITELY a good idea.

So who is the Best Interior Designer in London? Well Google’s first page for that search shows designfinder.co.uk and there listing says that www.forsterinc.co.uk are the best designers…so it must be true.

Related articles

Interior Design Buzz Words – Trends and Which Bug You?

Posted: 12 November, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: contemporary interiors, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors, modern interiors | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments »
English: Selection of Danish Modern chairs at ...

English: Selection of Danish Modern chairs at the Danish Design Center, Copenhagen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Modern vs Contemporary: Contemporary is usually something that is modern or recent looking yet which takes something ‘good’ from the past such as, for example, GOOD traditional materials. Modern may sometimes (and probably incorrectly) infer a degree of futuristic design.

Vintage vs Retro vs Reproduction: Something vintage is from its original period. Retro is something that has been recently made in the style of an older piece or period. Reproduction is a copy of an item some time after its original period has finished. A fake is a reproduction that is specifically designed to be passed off as an original.

Selective indulgence: You probably haven’t got the budget to have a fully indulgent design. So instead you choose to be indulgent on certain concept or focus pieces that make a statement.

Organic – This can mean ‘eco’ in modern parlance. But you should also be aware that others use it to mean natural in a very broad sense – for example to how your entire scheme works together and fits to the space.

Energy: This is more about emotions and feelings than the vividness of colours or eye-catchingness of objects.

Re-purpose – this means more than just to re-use something. Yes you re-use it but you re-use it for a different purpose.

Diversified Portfolio: You have more than just taupe in the photos of your past work ;-) Your portfolio will show different types of projects, say, a classic villa and a contemporary restaurant

Collaborative spaces – allow spaces for group work but also allow such spaces to be able to be used and re-used for different functions or groups.

What do you think?or what is your bug bear?

Related articles

Who is the best interior designer in the world? in Europe?

Posted: 9 November, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: contemporary interiors, Fabric Tips, home decor, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors, Market Comment, modern homes, modern interiors, The Business Of Interior Design | Tags: , , , , | 28 Comments »

English: Interior Designer, Tanya Gyani

Who is the best interior designer in the world? blimey that’s a question and a half.

I’m writing this post in wordpress and I use this thing called Zemanta which suggests images and articles to do with the subject as I compose the article. So the first designer that appears will get put in the picture on the right and that will be the person you are looking at now!

I’ll probably not know the person that is suggested (we’ll see it still hasn’t appeared yet!)

Ooops there she is: Tanya Gyani.Congratulations Tanya.

Now of course there probably really is no ‘best interior designer in the world’ that we can all agree on. But the point of my post was to go one of two ways. I was either going to come from the angle of saying that YOU should be the best interior designer in terms of how you market yourself to your target niches OR that whoever comes up and gets put in my picture is the best interior designer in the sense that they are the best at getting their image shown against a generic search for “the best interior designer in the world”.

Click To Read More Interior Design Articles

Click To Read More Interior Design Articles

Maybe Tanya will now go on to global fame? Who knows? If she does I certainly hope she will start specifying some of our fabrics on her projects as she hasn’t done so yet! (as far as I know).

No; really YOU should be positioning yourself as the best interior designer at what you do. But rather than saying you are “the best at XYZ” it is probably more appealing and more humble for you to phrase it as “I am the only Interior Designer In XXX who does YYY”. Use that sort of angle A LOT in your client communications (written or verbal) and you give your potential clients A REASON TO CHOOSE YOU and a REASON FOR YOU TO JUSTIFY YOUR PRICING. Make sure it’s true of course. For uniqueness is priceless (well almost!!)

Remember of course that it should not all be about price. Your client wants a great job most of all. Cost might be a factor but so also is the risk of who the client chooses. Find a way of exuding confidence and competence to lower that perceived risk.

Good luck you and good luck Tanya (there she even gets a link to her website).

Related articles

Interior Designers’ iPAD essential apps

Posted: 17 April, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: contemporary interiors, home decor, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors, modern homes, News, The Business Of Interior Design | Tags: , , , | 9 Comments »

interior design oxford rogue designs

I’ve just got my new iPAD 3…yeah! Whilst it has obvious limitations and is a tad expensive, it is also ‘obviously’ a great creativity productivity tool for interior designers. You can benefit a lot from all the stuff that’s already built in when you buy it but what about those pesky apps? You know, the ones that are a few pounds/dollars but are rubbish and the ones that are free and awesome…it’s a bit of a minefield sorting through them all to find a useful gem to help you with productivity and creativity at work.

Here’s a bit of help for you with my list of iPAD essential apps for interior designers. Some are specifically useful to designers other more generally useful to your business usage of an iPAD. Please feel free to suggest some more I certainly haven’t used them all.

  1. Houzz: The “Wikipedia of interior and exterior design” by CNN,  Houzz has the largest database of home design ideas on the net, with over 200,000 high resolution photos. Watch out tho it can show TRADE PRICES in many places..not great for your client to see. **Free**
  2. AutoCAD WS: View, edit, and share your DWG™ files with anyone, anywhere. AutoCAD WS mobile app enables you to work with AutoCAD® drawings directly: Free
  3.  iHome HD: Many free interior pictures. Cost: Free but a more extensive version is available at an additional cost.
  4. Home Interior Ideas HD: the best app in AppStore for discovering home interior designs and decorating ideas. $1.99
  5. Interior 2011 – Sweet Home (HD): find your perfect House Design. With Interior 2012 you can enjoy a wide variety of manufacturers in the area of Home Decoration and Interior Design. $0.99
  6. Dream home HD:  integrate the latest interior design trends into your home.  Explore the immense variety of decor solutions from professional designers for your entire home, browse through hundreds of real photos and navigate through the extensive menu of colors, styles and room types. From tiny efficient accents to the most sophisticated interiors, Dream Home HD contains a top class collection of ideas for the home of your dream. $4.99
  7. Remodelista: Get your daily deco fix with the new Home Design App from Remodelista, the online sourcebook: $2.99
  8. Phaidon Design Classics: comprehensive collection of general design classics including interiors: $19.99
  9. Sensopia : Create visual instant floor plans – I like it anyway!
  10. Moodboard: Creates a Moodboard! Does what it says. $15.

Secret Bit

Additional info and a link to:

Target Markets For Interior Designers

Oooooh!

Click To Read More Interior Design Articles

Click To Read More Interior Design Articles

Some more…
  1. SktechBook Pro: Capture design ideas no matter where you are. A professional-grade paint and drawing application: $4.99
  2. Color Wheel: An OK but basic application that allows you to experiment with different colour schemes: $0.99
  3. Penultimate: Can’t be bothered to use a pen and paper but want that same look…this is the one. It can also do graph/lined paper…cool $1.99
  4. Peppermint, NCS Color: If you frequently work with color and need an incredibly accurate tool for making choices or purchases, the Peppermint app is one for you: $3.99
  5. Quill: is a vector art drawing program, a bit limited but OK: $0.99
  6. Freeform: is a vector drawing tool for your iPad perhaps worth a bit of research before spending: $9.99
  7. Adobe Ideas: Digital sketchbook that you will probably get if you already use Adobe stuff. Reports of quite a few bugs in this app tho: $5.99
  8. Brushes: A painting app for experimentation and drawing, a snip at $7.99 but is it as good as the INSPIRE app?
  9. PhotoPad: Change the look of a photo for some FREE inspiration.
Here are some really great ones starting with DROPBOX (Free) and some other great BUT expensive ones.
  1. Dropbox: A FREE MUST-HAVE app and the first that I installed. An iPAD is essentially a glorified phone rather than a simplified MAC/PC. One of the downsides is that you can’t always get files to and from the iPAD so easily. DROPBOX lets you do this and backs them up for free on the net. Similar in some ways to iCLOUD probably best to use if you have PCs as well. $Free
  2. Evernote: Take notes, save clips, cost: Free
  3. Simplenote: Take notes, save clips, cost: Free
  4. OmniFocus: Expensive at $39.99 Task management, scheduling and projects.
  5. MindNode: Mind Mapping …like but shame it’s not free! $5.99
  6. Things: Scheduling, tasks and assignments, OUCH $19.99
  7. Task Cards: Task management and organisation all for: $2.99
  8. Week Calendar: View your week and you can integrate with project phases and scheduling all at $1.99
Related articles

A Chat With Verity du Sautoy – Her Thoughts On Winter Fabrics

Posted: 7 February, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Companies, Press Releases, Upholstery, Contract Fabric, Domestic Fabric, Upholstery Fabric, interior design, interior designer, home decor, interiors, interior, contemporary interiors, interiordesign | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »
Luxury Silk velvet From KOTHEA

Truly beautiful Cashmere Silk Velvet by KOTHEA

KOTHEA Fabric Picks For A Chilly Winter’s Day
With Verity du Sautoy of KOTHEA.

We love the seasons. All have their beauties and all have touched our senses in memorable ways over the years. Winter is no exception: lower, more balanced light; quietness and chaos with both the shopping and the weather; festive celebrations; the cuddle of a loved one; the hope and expectation of early spring flowers grasping for rare and tiny glimmers of light; and, perhaps, the welcomed warmth of a beautiful fabric.

Some of my best memories are centred on family: a warm fire; a little baby; or a bouncing toddler. Then an old children’s classic on the iPlayer watched on my Mac as it balances precariously on an elegant coffee table. I stroke my children’s hair with one hand and rest my other hand on my sofa. A generous cushion is warm, encapsulating and a bit of fun for the little ones to hide under. The curtains are not yet fully drawn but they smooth the boundary to the cold outside and give us tantalising glimpses of the world beyond – should we venture too close to the sheers that offer the final, soft protection from the elements.

Liberty Art Fabrics Collection £21.00/m

Dominika B Tana Lawn

I work for a fabric company. I love fabric. I can’t pretend that it (fabric) is a be-all and end-all to life and that somehow it will make your life complete. It can’t. But what it clearly can do is complete the sensory experiences in the parts of life that, if you choose, you have control over…the parts of your home. Memories are not just photo-like snapshots in your brain; they are stored, multi-sensory splashes of emotion.

Here are my Winter picks. They are actual ‘picks’ that I’ve recently purchased or are about to purchase.

Take my sofa as an example. My sofa isn’t Read the rest of this entry »

Interior Designers – An Update On using Facebook, LinkedIn WordPress blogs and Twitter

Posted: 17 January, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: contemporary interiors, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiors, modern homes, modern interiors, The Business Of Interior Design | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments »

heather buckley Follow me on Twitter I have a ...

Interior Designers have been moving much of their sales and marketing into the digital world over the last few years. Maybe this was because of great looking Apple products or maybe just because as new, young designers come into larger business they bring in with them the gadget trends of youth. Or maybe because all this digital e-stuff actually can work and can work quite cost effectively if done right.

I’ve written a few articles on this general subject over the years (I’ll reference some of them at the end of this post. However things have moved on in the real world and some of what I’ve PREVIOUSLY written has been superceded or improved.

1. Blogs, Twitter, Web sites, LinkedIn and Facebook – linking them

It’s still mostly true that you will use your web site as your show case for your business. Your blog will be a part of your website and, unless you sell products that require an up-to-date online catalogue, it is your blog that will contain the information that CAN AND SHOULD be regularly updated. (That will boost your google position). Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook come in as networks you are building. All good stuff.

Click To Read More Interior Design Articles

Click To Read More Interior Design Articles

The problem used to come in  how you would simultaneously update all these networks without having to manually re-submit the information. That would obviously be time consuming as would installing and keeping working additional pieces of software that glued all the bits of your marketing together.

Well now it is relatively straightforward to have your wordpress blog update your twitter account, your LinkedIn presence and your facebook business page. Similarly twitter can also update your facebook page automatically. Lots of these automatic links now exist within the main software websites (wordpress, twitter, etc) so you only have to write new information (blog posts or tweets or on your wall) once and then the software you use automates the distribution of that information across lots of different web site and online communities. Sorted, no mystery any more.

2. Vanity URLs on Facebook

This area used to be horrendously complicated and thankfully facebook have now simplified how to create a venity URL. What I mean by this is how do you create and use www.facebook.com/kothea …or of course you would have your business name at the end of that.

Essentially you can now just create a PAGE and give it a name (eg KOTHEA in our case) straight away. Gone are the ridiculous but well intentioned rules about having a certain number of fans.

3. Building networks with Facebook

You probably already know that once you have created you PAGE in facebook then you can use facebook as if YOU are the ‘page’. Rather than the person you really are. So rather than having your facebook activities in the name of ‘Joan Smith’ you make comments as if they are coming instead from your business ‘Smith Interior Design’.

google are also trying to “do a facebook”. This is their Google plus network. You can ignore that for the time being.When was the last time you or your kids used it?

Much better for your branding. Remember to be nice ad say sensible things and don’t get carried away!

4. Gadgets

Especially in the Interior Design and Architecture industry lots of people use Apple iphones and ipads. Of course your clients may well also use these devices but perhaps are also quite likely to use other ‘tablet’ devices and other smart phones like Blackberries.

Like you, your clients lead hectic lives. They are on the go and people are increasingly looking for  information on the move. So all the electronic marketing you do needs also to work on these devices so your potential clients can read it and find it.

This is not so hard to achieve. Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn will automatically do it. WordPress blogs will do it if you check a box in one of the admin features. It might be harder for your web site to do it properly so have a word with your web page designers.

You can use something like http://marketing.grader.com/ to tell you for free some of the more technical things (like working with mobile/cell phones)

Here are some of the posts I previously wrote or you can find them all in one go by <clicking here>

1. How to get links to your web site 

2. Interior Designers: Why does no-one visit your web site 

3. Interior Design Marketing Strategies 

4. Effective Ad Writing For Interior Designers on Facebook

5. Five Crucial Bits For Your Facebook Business Page

6. Seven Facebook Mistakes Interior Designers Make

Related articles

Luxury Cashmere Throws

Posted: 2 November, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: contemporary interiors, Domestic Fabric, modern homes, modern interiors, News | Tags: , , | 2 Comments »
Luxury Cashmere Throw

Luxury Cashmere Throw

We’ve added some new designs and qualities to our luxury cashmere throw range. If you click on the main image to the right you will get taken to our main website where there are further designers’ resources for specifying cashmere throws.

We also have downloadable pdfs on the same site giving scanned colourways of our luxury cashmere throws as well as detailed images of  each design and fringe options.

All our cashmere throws are 100% pure cashmere. They are the best quality and most luxurious you can buy. You should specifically look at our higher ply cashmere throws which almost all other UK based cashmere throw companies are unable to source and sell. The higher ply gives a thicker and more luxurious feel. when combined with the quality of the yarn and the attention to detail of our weavers the difference in quality can be very easily seen and felt.

Please <click here> to email us for further information. 

Please note that we only sell to the trade.

Related articles

Chevron 66-501-11 Tundra

Posted: 8 September, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: contemporary interiors, Domestic Fabric, modern interiors, Panelling & Wallcovering, Stuff We're Doing, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment »
Chevron 66-501-11 Tundra by KOTHEA
Chevron 66-501-11 Tundra, a photo by KOTHEA on Flickr.

We all love wallpaper but surely, just for at least one room, it’s time to move into 2011; or 2012 for that matter. Remember that wallcoverings come in many foms not just paper. KOTHEA are now releasing 7 Raffia Wallcovering Designs each in a range of colourways.

KOTHEA’s ‘Chevron’ design is a classic weave of natural cellulose with an approximate 15cm horizontal pattern repeat. At 106cm wide each standard roll is 36m long with a cut-length service available.

Via Flickr:
We all love wallpaper but surely, just for at least one room, it’s time to move into 2011; or 2012 for that matter. Remember that wallcoverings come in many foms not just paper. KOTHEA are now releasing 7 Raffia Wallcovering Designs each in a range of colourways.

KOTHEA’s ‘Chevron’ design is a classic weave of natural cellulose with an approximate 15cm horizontal pattern repeat. At 106cm wide each standard roll is 36m long with a cut-length service available.

← Older Entries
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 719 other followers