Archive for May, 2009
Interior Design Network: Photo of the Week
Interior Design Directory
Photo courtesy of EmeraldLight
Interior Design Network: Product of the Week
Interior Design Directory
Stella Platform Bed is attractive and charming bedroom furniture that provides both comfort and relaxation. Transform your room into the elegant sanctuary you have always wanted with the Stella Platform Bed. Indulge yourself, be in total harmony in this elegant, crisp lined platform bed. It features a box frame and a curved headboard for those who like to read or watch TV in bed. This platform bed to be the perfect amalgamation of innovation and quality you can find.
Interior Design Network: Designer of the Week
Interior Design Directory
McDonald & Moore Ltd.
Patricia Borba McDonald and Marcia Moore have developed an interior design philosophy that is progressive, yet timeless. Their designs employ classical art and architecture interpreted to incorporate individual client needs, honoring different cultural traditions. McDonald & Moore achieve interior design of the highest quality: livable and flexible art forms within each client’s financial parameters.
McDonald & Moore Ltd.
408-292-6997
www.mcdonaldmoore.com
Interior Design Network: Reaching Your Dreams
Interior Design Directory
Reaching Your Dreams
Is it your dream to have an interior design career? If so, you need to have a plan to achieve your goal. Where are you going to go to school, should be the first question you ask yourself. Have you done any research on Interior Design schools in your area? If you have found a school, research it thoroughly. What do Professional Interior Designers think of the school? Does it have a good record of accomplishment in graduates getting work in the Interior Design field?
Speak to a Professional Interior Designer; ask them how they got their interior design career started. What school did they attend? Was it difficult in finding work once they graduated? Did they volunteer their services in order to gain experience? Another important aspect to consider is will you be able to attend school in person or do you need to take an online degree program instead. Many Interior Design students keep a full time job and take an online degree program from an accredited Design school. It is something to consider if you need to keep working to pay the bills or support a family. Do not give up on your dream!
We already know that you want an Interior Design career, but do you know what Interior Design is all about? Do not think that this career is all about being creative all day long. It is also not about choosing pretty colors and working with amazing fabric either. Interior Design is about selling the client on your ideas, organizing every detail and making sure that the client is completely happy when the job is finished. An Interior Designer must work with the local municipalities to make sure all building codes are adhered to, and accurate records must be kept regarding the entire job from beginning to end. Other important tasks that the designer is responsible for include negotiating with contractors and making sure they get the job done properly and on time. Dealing with problems is a daily occurrence for Interior Designers, what do you do when the painter does not show up? It is the Designers job to make sure everything comes together smoothly.
Once you have finished your education, your Interior Design career will likely begin as a junior designer or assistant designer. As your career advances, you could end up as a senior designer, a project manager or even a partner in a design firm. Another option for your design career is to become a self-employed interior designer.
To give yourself an advantage over other aspiring interior designers, it would be prudent to learn as much as you about computer aided drafting software. Knowledge of this type of computer program could start you off at a higher pay scale. You can aid your interior design career by taking some marketing or sales courses since interior design is more about selling and marketing than anything else is. If you really want to improve your sales pitch to prospective clients, take some acting classes.
I hope that this information has not dissuaded you from seeking your dream of an interior design career.
Interior Design Network: The Big Idea
Interior Design Directory
The Big Idea
While the abstract expressionists were still the avant-garde ‘Modern art’ was indeed synonymous to ‘contemporary art’. But once abstract expressionism used up its ideas & began dying of old age.
The big question: What is art?
Let’s start by addressing Modern art’s commonly understood misnomer. While the abstract expressionists were still the avant-garde ‘Modern art’ was indeed synonymous to ‘contemporary art’. But once abstract expressionism used up its ideas & began dying of old age. ‘Modern art’ came to describe a stage of art history while contemporary art became, for a short time at least post-modernism.
What epoch are we in right now? While there are many names there are none, we are in the age of recovery.
After the prettifying dissolution of the High Renaissance ideal that made so many painter’s work indistinguishable from each other’s by mid-nineteenth century, the revolutionary aesthetics & techniques of the Impressionists, the advent of photography & Modern art, (then installations, performance art, video art, dead animals in formaldehyde etc.) we find ourselves in a period of self-search. Who knows? Maybe with the perspective of temporal distance a pattern & a category may be found to label this period of art history. At the moment, however, like other directionless moments in art history, what the average patron of the arts is qualified to judge is technique over artistic expression & we therefore get a trend toward hyperrealism.
Though hyperrealism (especially with the aid of the overhead projector- in common use today) is a mere craft that creates comfortable if emotionally sterile pictures, any painter who learns this craft has a relatively easy time selling his canvases. Today’s average buyer mistrusts his own taste too much to gamble on something more expressive & many make the mistake of thinking a looser more impressionistic style is easier to accomplish- a shortcut, instead of the far more difficult & sophisticated skill it is. What skill am I referring to? I can answer that using the photograph as reference. We have all looked at a beautiful scene & photographed it in order to capture its beauty in a still image but then been disappointed by the results. The reason, as often as not, is that our brains make the interpretation of the visual subjective, while the camera is objective. In other words: when we notice the beauty of say, a bend in the river with trees on either side topped by a sky filled with majestic clouds, we don’t ‘see’ as the camera does, the telephone poles or overflowing garbage cans in the foreground that rob the big picture of its focal beauty.
An impressionistic technique (for example) chooses & directs the viewer’s eye to those expressive qualities in a way hyperrealism & camera cannot. The former translates through a trained eye, the latter merely copies what it sees. The proof of what I say is in the fact that a great painting like one of Rembrandt’s psychological tour de forces holds the mystery of the undefined that makes his painting more fascinating over time. One of his canvases lives & breathes on the wall & over time becomes a friend that invites greater attention. The canvas that pays attention to every detail equally, if exactly, can be more fascinating the first time you see it but dies a quick death & is soon walked past without notice by its owner because it has already been seen thoroughly that first time it fascinated- there is simply nothing left to look at.
Painters using overhead projectors are, to me, no better than frauds, not only because anyone who has taken the trouble to learn how to draw can usually distinguish between the painting that involves interpretive draughtsmanship & that which is nothing but a projected image that was later ‘coloured in’, i.e. the painter doesn’t deserve the respect as artist because he hasn’t taken the time necessary to learn the tools of his trade; but also because he skips the step which I have described as the one where the ‘art’ enters into the painting: the personal translation from three dimensions to two. It shows the average painting buyer today is more interested in subject than how that subject is painted.
If you pick up almost any issue of the popular magazine American Artist you will find many pleasant, nicely crafted, carefully composed & sensitively lit still lifes, landscapes & occasionally, portraits or figurative paintings, in standard, run-of-the-mill realist, hyperrealist or impressionist techniques. These clear representations of the realities they depict are harmless & decorative but in many cases if you shuffled the images from a few issues & redistributed them at random to the articles they illustrated no-one would notice. At the other end of the spectrum you might pick up an issue of another popular magazine: Art News & you will find it filled with things so original you may not encounter a single image you recognize as art!
The post revolution time we live in has taught us that all the rules in place throughout art history from early Greek lessons in the golden section or contraposto, to the demands of the paying client, have been tying the hands of the creative genius. A true artist paints only for himself, audience be damned. What has come of this attitude? A lot of original work from- Jasper Johns’ encaustic flags to Andy Warhol’s soup cans, canvases painted black, white, torn or with things glued to them.
Personally I fail to appreciate most of this work though I recognize great qualities in some abstract paintings- mood, colour/spatial composition, application of paint etc & yet most do not have all the qualities that make great art in a single canvas, like one of Rembrandt’s or Van Gogh’s. Yet there are always exceptions, for me Jackson Pollock is one of them, great complex paintings that are valid, fascinating, expressive & above all: live.
The question arises: If there are painters painting wonderful & enduring objects of beauty using the tenets of the Renaissance, others doing great work in what is essentially impressionistic technique (Lucian Freud comes to mind) even today, what happened to the work of the abstract expressionists? Why is no one painting in Jack the Dripper’s style? Or doing paintings of supermarket shelves lined with ‘Tide’ soap boxes the way Warhol painted his soup cans? Or painting cubism? (Whose early twentieth century examples by Braque, Gris & Picasso are worth fortunes today). The answer is simple: someone dripping paint on canvas the way Pollock did (even given the same unique skills) would not be following a painterly school of thought but just copying the master. The artist who painted ‘Tide’ boxes would do even worse, he would simply be re-using an idea someone else came up with, as would the contemporary cubist.
That is the reason abstract art hasn’t changed the way painters paint permanently, it is the illustration of an idea & not (as I argued the true purpose of art is in part 1 of this essay) the creation of a beautiful object that will move the sensitive viewer emotionally. For most abstract artists once the ideas were converted to visuals the examination was over; while Monet painted twenty-seven paintings of the same haystack, from the same point of view, & made each of them beautiful in unique ways.
What about limitations on artistic expression imposed by the patron of the arts? In some cases the patrons that controlled to some extent the artist’s means of expression such as the Catholic church during the Renaissance, (by requiring the subject be religious, or that the Madonna be dressed in blue or look younger than her son et. al.) were largely aristocratic connoisseurs with excellent & discriminating taste- without whose patronage the Renaissance would have been a far poorer thing. While at other times, like the seventeenth century Netherlanders, art patronage was taken over by the bourgeois (hence a greater interest in genre than the grandiose themes of religion) & yet that was the time of Vermeer, Rembrandt & Frans Halls, among others…
So now that our hands have been freed we painters should be pleased, no? No longer fettered, repressed, oppressed, no longer subjugated to rules of any kind, no limits to subject matter, composition, materials or even the constraints of beauty for that matter, we are free, FREE! Our patrons & audience should also celebrate the new depth the work created under such conditions must produce, yes? Well, if you ask me, I must say: no. The rules that tied our hands gave us Michelangelo’s Pieta (actually more than one, a rougher & stronger Pieta by his hand marks the spot he is buried) Bach’s concertos & Shakespeare’s poetry; while ridding ourselves of the rules gave us dead cows suspended in formaldehyde, pornography parading as eroticism, poetry that doesn’t rhyme (isn’t that actually the definition of prose?) & hip-hop which after more than thirty years has not produced one poet with the sense to use the beauty of iambic pentameter!
(1) The many art-sites I see that describe their own work as ‘contemporary’ are just plain silly- if one is alive to say so then of course he is contemporary! Contemporary is not a description of style but of one time period relative to another…
Paul Herman
Interior Design Network: A Story Book Finish
Interior Design Directory
A Story Book Finish
With financial markets in their current state, expanding your client base may prove to be a bit more difficult and yet the opportunity to up sell finishes for other areas in the homes of current or previous clients is often overlooked. I believe many people will continue “nesting” and are looking to create a comfortable personal environment and are willing to discuss options to dress the entire space.
So, when meeting with previous, current or new clients don’t miss the opportunity to up sell, remember to suggest finishes and architectural coatings for furnishings, floors, cabinets, lamps, outlet covers, fireplace mantles and surrounds, glass. With all the wonderful products available today, almost anything can be your canvas.
Coordinating a whole room “package” of finishes for, not only walls and ceilings, but also moldings and furniture is an excellent, and now more convenient way to up-sell. In the past I found this type of sale to be very tedious and time consuming, mainly because I couldn’t physically haul around all my beautiful samples. This is why Cindy Everett and I have designed the Cabinet/Furniture Sample Blank ring. Nothing makes a sale like putting it all together in a story board format for the client to see and having those add on samples is essential to close the deal. Not only will you save time having a complete design library of finishes for multiple surfaces to propose right there with you, you will make more money.
When you finish these sample blank rings with your personal custom finishes, they are a beautiful addition to your professional presentation. They are light weight and very convenient to take on consultations. Each set contains 12- 5.5X5.5 unfinished wood samples with a nicely routed edge, raised center panel, strung on nickel ball chain.
Interior Design Network: Turning Green to Blue
Interior Design Directory
Turning Green to Blue
According to color supplier Pantone®, the color of 2008 is Blue Iris. The blue is a radiant, calming hue, dark, but not dark enough to be in the realm of navy, and is a sharp contrast to the 2007 choice, Chili Pepper Red.
Is Blue The New Green?
Other professionals disagree with Pantone’s choice. Margaret Walsh, director of the Color Association, says her color of 2008 is bamboo. She believes the strong green, hinted with yellow, represents the changing social desire to be more environmentally clean.
The continued trend of ecological awareness has caused many companies to re-brand themselves as “green”, changing their logos and advertisements to suggest an earth-friendly business design. All of this green loving may have turned customers off to the color. After all, familiarity breeds contempt.
Blue Makes A Fashion Statement
Pantone certainly believes customers are tired of green. But this reaction may or may not be true among consumers. According to the New York Times, fashion designers also seem to be using a fair amount of blues recently in their recent runway work.
There has indeed been a surge of blue on the runways in the last year, beginning last February with Raf Simons’s dresses and pantsuits, in an Yves Klein blue, for Jil Sander and extending into the spring 2008 collections with Nicolas Ghesquiere’s explosive floral prints for Balenciaga. Mr. Elbaz used a deep lagoon blue in his spring Lanvin show, and one found lighter but no less robust shades in collections by Marni and Chloé, and in the men’s lines of Prada and Alexander McQueen. Dolce & Gabbana called its new fragrance Light Blue. And JWT, the advertising and marketing company, just named blue as one of the top 10 trends for 2008, saying that “blue is the new green,” particularly as it denotes ecological concerns.
So, perhaps, Pantone is correct and Blue Iris will be the color of 2008. But, it’s hard to believe a company that’s worked so hard to copyright most of its palettes is announcing Color of the Year for purely artistic reasons.
Trends are just that. Even though Pantone has chosen a shade of blue, each one darker than the last, four out of the last eight years, there’s no reason to focus on the varying shades of blue unless the artistic message would concretely benefit from those colors.
Earth Tones
Ecological concern is becoming more mainstream in our culture, and this increased global awareness has lead several designers to use greens and blues to convey a sense of nature. With so many logos adopting these colors, it has become difficult to stand out of the crowd, or even know which brands are sincere in their efforts.
Interior Design Network: An Unexpected Passion For Home Furnishings
Interior Design Directory
An Unexpected Passion For Home Furnishings
The subject of home furnishings has never really registered on my radar. It’s not that I’ve ever consciously tried to avoid the subject or even given it much thought either way; you could say I’ve been indifferent to it, agnostic even. I’ve been aware of it but it’s never occupied a space in my life where I’ve had to give it any great attention; until now.
I’ve recently moved house and it wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve ever had to do. Anyone who’s ever moved house will understand what I mean. There are solicitors to deal with who speak a different language from the rest of us, there are estate agents who not only speak a different language but also appear to come from another planet or dimension where normal rules do not apply! And then there are the logistics involved; gas suppliers, water, electric, the telephone company, removal men . . . the list goes on. So it came as some surprise to me when home furnishings supplied welcome relief from what was turning into a nightmare experience.
I wouldn’t describe myself as particularly creative or inventive when it comes to interior design and picking out home furnishings to fill a room, or at least I wouldn’t have until a few weeks ago. After this recent house move, which was from a small rented flat into a house with two bedrooms, a living room, dining room and separate kitchen, I realized I didn’t own much furniture. I had the basics; bed, sofa, a few chairs but little else. I realized that the only things I’d actually added to the rented flat were a few badly constructed shelves and I’d left those behind.
So I stood in my new house, a blank canvas, wondering what other people do when they have so much space to play with. For a few days I just stared at the bare walls, vast spaces and did nothing. Where should I start? But just as the enormity of the task of decorating and furnishing the house became too much for me to take I had a stroke of luck. A home furnishings brochure was posted through the letter box and I was on my way.
Looking through the brochure I was amazed at how much was on offer. I was bowled over by the things that I could buy. In the back of my mind I had vision of the 70′s house I was brought up in and the awful ornaments and accessories that sat on the shelves like kitsch artworks; completely out of context but in tune with the times. Home furnishings in the 70′s tried so hard to look modern but ended up looking like they were designed by children with a palette full of colors who still manage to make everything a muddy brown color.
I ordered more home furnishings catalogues and threw myself into the task of decorating the house. I found I was able to indulge my love of movies and music in the choices I made and I was even able to buy things that I know my parents would never have allowed into their 70′s abode.
The living room I turned into a cross between an art gallery and a home cinema or entertainment centre. I had one home furnishings brochure that had large art canvas prints of scenes from my favorite films and musicians that I admired. I decorated the walls with those and bought some large shelving units that held all my CDs and DVDs.
My bedroom I filled with cushions and mirrors, all with a hint of red to them and of course more prints of movies and musicians. I was even able to turn the second bedroom into a space age looking office space with clever use of angle poise lamps and other home furnishings. I’d say I’m half way to finishing the job now, next task is the kitchen. I’m thinking the Mos Eisley canteen from Star Wars!
Interior Design Network: Creating Balance in Design
Interior Design Directory
Creating Balance in Design
Simply said, balance is the equal distribution of weight. In interior design, it is the arrangement of objects, both large and small, high and low, and heavy and light by varying the placement of the objects according to weight. In any composition, balance must be achieved [to] insure order and to please the eye. Imagine a fireplace with a mantel. A mirror or portrait is mounted dead center
over the fireplace with candlesticks or porcelain collectibles on either side. This is an example of formal balance. When objects, equal in shape, size, variety and weight are placed on either side at equal distances from the center point, symmetrical balance is achieved. This is often the most easily attainable example of balance and one which most people are comfortable with.
Now picture a gilt framed oil painting of an ancestor hung over an antique chest of drawers. Sitting atop it, from left to right, a pair of Depression glass candlesticks, three small books stacked flat, a porcelain water bowl and a clear glass vase filled with wild flowers. This is also a balanced arrangement of the informal type. Although the objects are not the same or even symmetrical in shape or size, each side gives the feeling of balance.
Another aspect of balancing is horizontal balance. This may be achieved with large objects, sets of smaller objects, paint or architectural elements. Horizontal balance is taking into consideration the horizontal line which exists in every composition. There should be interest above the line and below the line. If two club chairs were used with a side table between them, horizontal balance would be achieved using three framed prints over the area. Window treatments and built-in bookcases are also great ways to achieve horizontal balance.
Occult balance is usually seen in abstract art, gardens and Asian floral designs. The background is dominant and plays an important roll in overall composition with varying shapes and sizes which are used to create movement and a meandering effect. This type of balance may not seem apparent on first sight, but usually an axis is found from which everything else stems. Oppositional balance is when two independent objects are balanced by their unity. Think of yin yang, male/female, white/black Oppositional balance is often used in choosing colors. The color wheel is the best tool for determining colors of opposite hue to create harmony. Red/Green, Orange/Blue, Yellow/Lavender, are all used to create balance in objects, furnishings and wall and floor selections.
When balancing objects and furnishings in a room, pay more attention to the actual weight than size. Heavy bronze lamps aren’t suitable for delicate antique tables, just as miniature collectibles disappear on heavy rustic tables. Be aware of scale which is the size something is and how it relates to everything else in the room. If you wanted to balance a room which has a large sofa on one side, two arm chairs with a table between would balance it. Also use balance in choosing objects for display. On a table, place tall items in the back with varying heights down to the lowest in front. Items on a bookcase should be light on top and heavy on the bottom. Things placed on stands, whatever they are made of, give a sense of importance to your item. Don’t forget color in choosing objects and furnishings for balance. Dark colors give the sense of weight and significance. See through objects and glass top tables fall on the light side.
A final word. Buy things you really love and don’t worry about current trends and fads. Educate yourself and collect things that are within your budget and that are uniquely you. Buy the best you can with what you have and remember…best doesn’t always mean the most expensive.
Interior Design Network: Color and Mood
Interior Design Directory
Color and Mood
The world is made up of color. It does not matter whether you are looking at a blooming oak tree in the spring, red roses budding in the garden, or an indigo ocean setting along a beautiful stretch of beachfront. Color defines everything around us, and without it, the world would be a pretty mundane place through our wandering eyes. One of the magical things about color is that color defines mood. This is especially true, when it comes to indoor and outdoor decorating themes. All of us place labels on colors, and the type of color used for decorating purposes can make all the difference in how you want your living space to be perceived. Homeowners have their favorite color choices. While some individuals like a cherry red or spicy orange, others may prefer a more gothic style black or grey color pallet. When it comes to deciding on what type of color to paint a room, you have to ask yourself what kind of theme you are trying to portray and what defines your personality. Furniture items placed within an interior living space should mix and match your color pallet, but never clash to the point where you cannot separate physical objects from wall color.
In an interesting article by David Johnson, he talks about how different colors have different meanings depending upon cultures and societies around the globe. For example, black commonly represents power and authority in some cultures, while it symbolizes submissive behavior in others. In America, black is seen as a gothic color representing a dark figure, such as a villain or the famous Dracula with his black cape. Red is seen as an intense color that is both stimulating and enticing. Red is also the color associated with love like a heart shaped Valentine Day gift box. Homeowners decorating with a red theme most often use red as an accent color and not the dominant color pattern. Blue on the other hand is extremely popular and associated with serenity and harmony. Blue can have a calming effect over the body, but some individuals perceive blue as a depressing color. In general David Johnson says blue enhances people’s productivity level within a room. He even says that weightlifters are energized by the tranquility of this color and can lift heavier loads in a blue color gym setting. Basically, the way you perceive a color will depend upon your personality. You personality will ultimately determine how the color makes you feel. This is why it is important to choose a color, which appeals to your decorating taste buds.
When choosing a color, always remember the type of mood it will create. In an article written by freshome.com, room color has a huge impact on our psychological mood, and these moods can be different for different people depending upon a person’s gender, age, and climate location of your home. The color you choose for a particular room should always reflect your personality. Choosing the right color to match your personality is critical, since color has the magnificent ability to redefine the size and shape of a room and the objects contained within the space itself. Homeowners should always begin by asking themselves “what does this color make me feel like?” Going back to David Johnson’s article on “Color Psychology”, yellow colors often bring out a good mood within people, but yellow has also been known to create anger and frustration among adults and infants. Yellow is one of the more complicated colors for the eye to define, and although generally considered a positive color theme for a room, too much yellow can be overwhelming to the senses. There are numerous sources you can go to, if you are having problems choosing a specific color pattern. The internet has many website links that offer decorating tips, such as www.interiordesignnetwork.com, and you can also invest in home decorating magazines or even ask your local retailer that sells paint supplies about what the best option might be for you based on your living headquarters.
Homeowners should never go crazy by overloading a room with numerous color patterns. If you do decide to use multiple colors within a room, you should limit your selection to two or three maximum. A room painted with too many different color patterns can make the space appear confusing and out of order. Also, when choosing a color for a room, keep in mind the type of lighting you have within that space. Some rooms have more natural light than others and may not require additional lighting to bring out the color. Dark colors will absorb light while lighter room colors will reflect the light and make a room appear brighter. Furniture also plays an important role within a room, when it comes to color mood. For example, if you have dark furniture pieces you would want to use a lighter color shade so that the room does not appear dark. This will also keep the furniture from being lost in the space. Lighter furniture pieces, like pine and birch, may require a darker room color, like a chocolate shade or a burgundy red to bring out both these objects. When using a dark shade, it is best to incorporate it as an accent wall rather than painting the entire room. Remember color and mood go hand in hand, when it comes to decorating themes. It is important that you use a color or combination of colors that reflects your personality, and how you want others to perceive you. Even if you choose a color pattern and someone does not like it, just keep in mind that he or she may have a different view of that particular color based on their own personality. As long as the color you choose makes you happy, it doesn’t matter how it is portrayed by others. The main thing is that you, the homeowner, are content with it, since the space the color resides in is a part of your living headquarters, not your neighbors.
