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.

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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!

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Silk Velvet – What makes a great upholstery velvet

Posted: 22 February, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic Fabric, Fabric Tips, home decor, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors, modern homes, modern interiors, Upholstery, Upholstery Fabric | Tags: , , | Leave a comment »
Decorex Logo

Silk Velvet Upholstery with Fine Italian Silk

Silk Velvet really is one of the great upholstery velvets. It looks great, it feels great and it can be up to the job if your upholstery velvet is chosen wisely.

If your last and only experience of a velvet was sitting on one in the cinema then you really haven’t lived!

Firstly let’s look at silk velvet’s suitability for upholstery. It can have a Martindale Rub Test result of over 20,000 – so it CAN be readily suitable for many upholstery uses.

Composition. Just because it is sold as 100% silk can be misleading and not necessarily relevant. Is this 90% silk velvet better than that 100% silk velvet? You just can’t answer that by simply looking at the composition.

A silk velvet that is sold as being 100% silk may in fact be a 100% silk velvet pile and 100% cotton backcloth. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. If it is the look and feel of the silk that you are looking for then maybe it’s best to just consider the pile (assuming the backcloth is up to the job of course). One of our fine silk velvets has a 100% pile and then a backcloth of silk and cotton – with the cotton being added for strength and the overall silk content being 90%. Compare this to our Italian Silk & Cashmere Velvet which has a 70% silk + 30% cashmere pile.

Next look at the silkiness or the shininess. If you are looking for a silk velvet you will usually want a shine.

Consider too the length of the pile. Again, there is nothing inherently good or bad about a long or short pile. A shorter pile may be more rigid and upright and that could be a characteristic that you are looking for. Alternatively a longer pile will probably lay better in one directions – and you may well want that characteristic.

The weight of the fabric in grams per metre is often used as a measure of quality. That is not always true and could, for example, easily be distorted by a heavy and poor quality backcloth.

My personal preference would be to get my hand on a sample; feel it and look at it. What I look for and prefer is a slightly more rigid and consistent pile with a very dense weave. I would look carefully at the country of manufacture. I prefer an Italian velvet (mainly because it sounds better!) but if not Italian then I would certainly only consider a velvet produced in mainland western Europe. But don’t copy me, have the confidence to choose what you like – you are going to have to live with it. I would now choose my upholsterer carefully; many years ago a velvet covered chair came back for me from a local upholsterer and the pile was not running in a consistent direction…it didn’t look great (read ‘awful’). So don’t, like me, assume that all upholsters know what they are doing with velvets, they patently don’t all know. I would then read our guide to upholstering with velvet – a designer’s worksheet and armed with a bit of knowledge quiz your upholsterer carefully.

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How to create a BAD (digital) first Impression? For Interior Designer

Posted: 22 January, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: home decor, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors, modern homes, modern interiors, The Business Of Interior Design | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments »
Editions|Artists’ Book Fair

Editions|Artists’ Book Fair (Photo credit: j-No)

9 Ways for interior designers to create a bad impression – digitally of course!

When you first present to your newest prospect I’m pretty sure that you will be wearing your best ‘business’ clothes. When you first speak to a new client I’m sure you will make a real effort to do your best. When you send out a brochure or some other paper based literature I’m sure you will have it looking good. Hopefully too you take first emails seriously. And yes I’m sure your website looks great as well.

So all is hunky dory right? you can stop reading now and move on :-)

Well firstly, before I get into the meat of the subject matter that drew you here, I suggest that one exercise you can do on a Friday afternoon is to write down EVERY single TYPE of point of contact that you make with clients. I’ve gone through a few of them in the opening to this post. No rocket science there. However what I suggest you do is really think if they all present a coherent view, when taken together, of you and your business. Do they look similar enough and do they say similar things and present similar images?

Click To Read More Interior Design Articles

Click To Read More Interior Design Articles

Just like that fine evening wear you have to impress on really special occasions and turn heads as you walk in the room all these points of contact between your business and your potential client are the same thing FOR YOUR BUSINESS (business? you know that thing that pays for the evening wear).

Well I’m going to talk a little about how to create a BAD digital first impression focussing on your website. So You need to look at the first page that people most often go to. In techie terms these are ‘landing pages’; they might include your home page or any special page that Google Adwords points to on your site or any page of yours that ranks particularly highly and get a lot of ‘hits’.

So to create  a BAD first impression here’s what your landing pages need to do:

  1. No Graphics: No logo, no head-shot of a smiley-you and certainly NOT clickable.
  2. Poor Content: Be sure to include waffle and irrelevance to the reason that drew the click..
  3. Lots of words and certainly no Bullet Points as bullet points are too easy to read.
  4. No Call to Action – an even better bad impression can be created if you make it as obscure as possible for the visitor to know what to do next. Perhaps presenting a beautiful image but making it as annoying as possible by adding some music and not making it obvious how to proceed to ANYWHERE else – Designers’ websites are OFTEN like this!
  5. White Papers, Videos, Registrations, etc: OK you might have accidentally put some of these on your website to be helpful but you can soon change any good impression that that might make by giving them away without even getting the visitor’s email.
  6. Confirmation/Thank You Pages: How rude! you forgot to add one of these and to make matters worse it didn’t offer the visitor another idea of what they could do on your site.
  7. Testing changes you make might improve a visitor’s experience to your site. So you certainly don’t want to do that..
  8. Google: create a bad impression with google as well. Ideally you will name your pages PAGE01, PAGE02 and so on. Never include keywords in the name of a page as that might help Mr Google do his job.
  9. Speling mstakes. Sme ppl really hate splling mistakes and abbreviations. Include a few to enrich their day.
  10. Always fail to deliver. Like by having 10 reasons rather than the advertised 9 reasons. Laugh! We might but our client’s probably won’t.

Am I perfect? No! Do I make these mistakes? Yes of course. It does provide some food for thought though.

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Interior Designers – How Good Is Your Brand’s Colour?

Posted: 18 December, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors, The Business Of Interior Design | Tags: , , , | 7 Comments »
Source: Marketo

Source: Marketo

Colour (color) really does matter. As an interior designer you don’t need me to tell you that. I think sometimes though we know what good colours are and what good colour combinations are and we know what feels right to us and to our clients in the spaces we inhabit.

However…

Many of us are not graphic designers and perhaps our own branding may have suffered because of colour choices we would make in our day job.

Apparently if you look more closely at the infographic on the right then you will see that their research shows that more than 90% of the world’s top 100 brands use either red, blue or grey as the primary branding colour and more than 90% of those same companies use at most 2 colours. So there’s very much a ‘keep it simple’ line coming out for brand colours. No big surprise there I suppose.

41% only use text – so that will be the brand name and/or ‘strap line’ ie there will probably be no logo as such.

Colours considered suitable for companies in ‘the home’ are green and yellow. This doesn’t necessarily apply to the colour YOU should have for your branding as an interior designer.

Indeed their research shows that ORANGE & BROWN are questionable colours for companies in the interiors space. With our Pantone 464 I suppose we fall foul of that.

Then again it is interesting to read that people associate ‘vibrant and fun’ with Orange. It is also interesting to read that the colour is the first thing that potential clients perceive about your brand.

Yet the safest choice appears to be shades of grey. If we all had grey houses and grey business and grey clothes I guess the world would necessarily be a greyer place. And I’m not sure it would be a better place for that.

Summary: Conform or stand out. It’s up to you. You can probably make most colours work as a brand but maybe a myriad of colours won’t work. Is this all stating the obvious?

 

 

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Interior Designers: Must Blog Better – But How?

Posted: 11 December, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: home decor, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors, modern homes, modern interiors, The Business Of Interior Design | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »
Content Mix: Content Marketing Institute

Content Mix: Content Marketing Institute

The content Marketing Institute created that nice little image up there that  shows what a content mix might be.

This image has been bandied about on various websites as THE correct mix. It isn’t THE correct mix but it’s a good starter to make you think. It might make you think you are entertaining your potential clients too much or it might make you think you are being a bit boring talking about kitchen worksurfaces a little too much.

Click To Read More Interior Design Articles

Click To Read More Interior Design Articles

For a start it’s saying that you should blog 6 times a week or at least create content 6 times a week. For small businesses that just ain’t gonna happen in the real world.

However it certainly DOES give you ideas about what to write next.

Provide relevant information: Perhaps contribute to a thread somewhere telling people about some of the great things you learnt with a particular product on your last project.

Teach: Show you really know what you are talking about. Share some knowledge in an authoritative way on how you do your job.

Start a conversation: Perhaps on a LinkedIn group or your Facebook business page.

Inspire: others to do better. This could be on a forum or your could write something.

Entertain: Never hurts to make someone laugh.

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The Business Bible For Interior Designers

Posted: 7 December, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors, Market Comment, modern homes, modern interiors, The Business Of Interior Design | Tags: , , , , , | 54 Comments »

Interior Design

Interior Design (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here are all (most) of our articles on “the business” of interior design. Sales and marketing resources for a modern digital world.

  1. business-tips-for-interior-designers
  2. 9-common-interior-design-mistakes-marketing
  3. 9.5-ways-for-interior-designers-to-make-more-money-profit
  4. interior-designers-get-more-customers-on-your-website
  5. Interior-designers-boosting-your-position-in-google-search-results
  6. the-proactive-interior-designer-1-0-1
  7. 6-things-that-interior-designers-do-wrong-on-their-web-sites
  8. interior-designers-5-and-a-half-ways-to-twitter-badly
  9. pitching-winning-managing-business-for-interior-designers
  10. facebook-interior-designers-10-steps-to-setup
  11. retail-interior-designers-8-ways-to-sell-more
  12. bad-things-they-say-about-interior-designers
  13. interior-designers-facebook-4-ways-to-correctly-use-it
  14. 7-facebook-mistakes-interior-designers-make
  15. designers-twitter-is-rubbish-use-twitter
  16. interior-design-marketing-2010-predictions
  17. designers-what-to-blog-about
  18. spying-on-competitors-staying-ahead
  19. interior-designer-did-your-web-site-just-popp-up-in-my-search
  20. interior-design-marketing-strategies
  21. facebook-adwords-effective-ad-writing-for-interior-designers
  22. interior-designers-facebook-key-elements-for-your-fan-page
  23. designers-interior-design-links-how-to-get-them
  24. target-markets-for-interior-designers-interior-design-marketing-strategy-2012
  25. interior-designers-an-update-on-using-facebook-linkedin-wordpress-blogs-and-twitter
  26. interior-designers-in-2012-how-do-people-find-you-on-the-web
  27. interior-designers-how-to-specify-a-luxury-cashmere-throw-for-your-client-projects
  28. an-interior-designer-gets-lots-of-web-visitors-but-few-leads-enquiries
  29. interior-designers-ipad-essential-apps
  30. interior-designers-to-houzz-or-not-to-houzz
  31. who-is-the-best-interior-designer-in-the-world
  32. interior-designers-and-their-financially-lucrative-bit-on-the-side
  33. interior-design-marketing-strategy-business-strategies-plan-for-designers-2012
  34. interior-designers-what-should-i-write-about-on-my-blog
  35. pinterest-and-customer-interest-interior-designers-pin-their-boards-to-the-wall
  36. interior-designers-why-does-no-one-visit-your-web-site
  37. marketing-strategies-interior-designers-consider-these-areas
  38. interior-designers-how-good-is-your-brands-colour/
  39. how-to-create-a-bad-digital-first-impression-for-interior-designer/
  40. sponsored-blog-post-by-interior-designers-charge-fair-rates-stop-getting-conned/

For more information on luxury cashmere throws or to request cuttings please visit www.kothea.com.  For black faux leather upholstery fabrics try <here> and for mohair velvet and mohair velvet upholstery fabric please follow the links.  Upholstery Linen is also one of our specialities as are luxury  silk velvet  fabrics.

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How do you explain INTERIOR DESIGN to a 6 year old boy?

Posted: 6 December, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors | Tags: , , , , | 35 Comments »

“How do you explain Interior Design to a 6 year old boy?”

That is the question.

I’ve posted the same question and a link to this (evolving) article on LinkedIn. You can take the question literally, if you wish. As a reward I will link back to you from this page for any noteworthy (good or bad!) answers that I might paraphrase for the sake of brevity. The more ‘sensibly’ creative your answer the more likely I will include you and your answer. Go create.

Designcouncil.org.uk describes interior design as “Interior design isn’t just about home decoration. It is concerned with creating functional and beautiful to look at interior spaces in all sorts of places including houses, public buildings and commercial properties such as shops, restaurants, leisure venues and offices. Interior design can also be applied to temporary environments, whether that’s pop-up shops that are in existence for just a few months at a time, or show homes and exhibition stands that may simply last days. Anything that has an interior can be designed, redesigned or refurbished.”

Whereas Wikipedia suggests: “… a group of various yet related projects that involve turning an interior space into an ‘effective setting for the range of human activities’ that are to take place there”

Rebecca at RHA Interiors: “[if all else]…fails I always go for the football analogy,  ‘why choose red over blue?’”

Terry Maurer makes interesting comments noting that kids are increasingly influencers in the interior design purchasing and commissioning process in families.

Mark Randall at 1901 Design would ask the boy to learn what interior design means by “doing”  And the boy would be asked to create his perfect den. Sharon Kaper suggests a similar “show-and-tell” approach.

Mike Major suggests it should be no different to explaining it to a potential client.

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More Black Faux Leather Upholstery

Posted: 4 December, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Contract Fabric, Domestic Fabric, home decor, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors, modern homes, Re-Blogs, Upholstery, Upholstery Fabric | Tags: , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Faux Leather is great for upholstery. Here is a time lapse video of the full process if you want to know how it is done. We would be happy to point you to a local upholsterer but please remember that we only sell the faux leather upholstery fabric. If you would like samples please drop us an email request <here> (trade only). We have several collections of faux leather in most colourways including base colours (black, brown, green, blue, red, yellow, gold) muted neutrals and metallic finishes.

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Pinterest and Customer Interest : Interior Designers Pin their Boards to the Wall

Posted: 12 November, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: home decor, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors, modern homes, modern interiors, The Business Of Interior Design | Tags: , , , , , | 23 Comments »
Pinterest featue in Metro - 27th February 2012

Pinterest featue in Metro – 27th February 2012 (Photo credit: Great British Chefs)

Many Interior Designers have Pinterest accounts and quite a few of us use them. Here are my thoughts on whether or not interior designers should use Pinterest and HOW they should best use Pinterest.

<Here> for example is Paula Ovalle Vicuña’s beautiful pinboard of colors. Now, this and similar boards are great sources of imagery for colours for interior designers and of course there are other pins showing styles and colour themes and so on. If you had a board like this you could show your clients on your iPAD as part of your presentations.

Click To Read More Interior Design Articles

Click To Read More Interior Design Articles

BUT think carefully about how you are going to use this as a tool to win more business. How are your potential clients going to be driven to you and/or your web site. Why is your potential client going to be looking on pinterest for work by interior designers. They MIGHT be using it as a means of selecting designers but IMHO I doubt that many potential customers will be doing that – some, for sure, but not many.

Now, your competitors may be using it to get some inspiration. So you’ve done a bit of work to help your competitors. That’s all well and good as others will reciprocate and you will benefit from that potentially. But that hasn’t got you any more sales has it?

If you are going to use pinterest for collecting and presenting images then it may be great as a productivity tool.

You have the option with pinterest of creating secret/hidden boards – that may be a good way forwards for those of you conscious NOT to help out your competitors!

So you have to answer this question: “Do my clients hang out on Pinterest so making them more likely to find out about my interior design skills from my Pinterest account?”.

IF you can answer that question positively then read on…

Effective Pinterest Marketing

1. Fill-in the Form! Setup You Account Properly – Gets the Basics Sorted Out

Your name (first and last), username, logo, About, Location and Website information should all be properly included. PLEASE if you can make sure that, for example, you use the same name as you do across all media – printed and electronic. It’s good for your ‘branding’. Verify your website and put your blog address in your ‘About’ section.

2. Be a digital stalker! Follow People – You build a following, which looks good to potential new followers, if you follow people. They often reciprocate. It’s a bit like Twitter in that respect. Perhaps look for people or boards with certain of your keywords on them and then follow those people.

3. In the Digital World, Content is King! Get content. Regularly seek out and add new relevant content. To be truly amazing you will, of course, add your own original content. Content may be the king but creativity rules the Empire of Design.

More?

Create a board and use it (link to it) on facebook or twitter to invite your other followers to discuss it.

When you blog you always add at least one great image right? Well make a collection of those great images on pinterest. That way you save a little time by using one piece of content twice.

Focus on the right content. Think always about your target customer. Only post what they are going to be interested in.

Put a url in your comments on pins to link back to the original content (your blog), Ibelieve I am right in saying that this URL is made clickable by pinterest.

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