Tag: Interior Design Schools

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Interior Design Students Win with Creation Concepts

Interior design schools may teach interiors 101, but not before they teach students about the tools that will make them better at their jobs and more likely to get projects done within their deadline. Interior design software can make all the difference in discovering what works (and what doesn’t) before spending a ton of the budget on drafts of an interior design. Students in San Jose’ learned first-hand that knowing how to use this kind of computer program can really help tilt the odds of success.

(PRWEB) May 22, 2012 – When words fall short, interior designers turn to 3D visualization. It’s a keen bit of advice and something that the faculty at San José State University School of Art & Design makes sure every student knows before they graduate. Recently this strategy of imparting insight and teaching students 3D tools resulted in a near sweep of the International Interior Design Association of Northern California’s (IIDA) Student Design Awards. It appears all that time learning Luxology®’s modo®, the school’s 3D package of choice, paid off.

What began as a research project designed to teach students about a specific architect quickly blossomed into full-fledged exploration of the modeling, sculpting and rendering techniques the students had been gaining from continuous modo use. One project (a second place finisher) played with the ideas of vegetarianism and photosynthesis in order to produce a restaurant design that mimicked the internal structure of a vegetable. As an avid sculptor, student artist Chase Lunt found that modo’s sculpting features gave him the 3D equivalent of what he had become used to fashioning with his hands.

“When ideas meet modo, the creative possibilities are almost limitless,” said Lunt. “modo brings my mind beyond the pencil and paper into a world of deformers, falloffs, shaders and effects that can quickly and accurately bring what I see in my head out into the real world.”

As ideas were moved from concept to competitive, the students found an edge in modo’s world-famous rendering capabilities. “modo renders beautifully,” noted Jessica Sikoryak, SJSU student and third place IIDA award winner. “That level of presentation had to help when my design hit the judges table.” Jessica’s day spa concept, with its stone walkways and sharp edges, was inspired by Carlo Scarpa’s renovation …

Read More: San José State University Interior Design Students Win 

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Interior Design College Makes the Point about Reputation

A group of student designers studying interior design at Harford Community College were given the distinguished honor of designing a new room for a decorator’s show house recently. This accomplishment speaks to the importance of an interior designer’s reputation. Because the school is known to produce phenomenal design concepts, students associated with the program learn a lesson in real-world interior designing: your reputation among your clients means everything to the success of your business.

(Dagger Press) Harford Community College Interior Design students Natalie Dunn, Stephanie Alvarez, Caprice Brody, Roxana Carrera, and Linda Wojciechowski designed a room in the Baltimore Symphony Associates 36th Annual Symphony Decorators’ Show House. This year’s show house is the Eck House at Cromwell Valley Park and is open through Sunday, May 20.

This fundraiser for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s educational programs showcases rooms transformed by 17 of the area’s leading designers. This year’s selection of award-winning interior designers includes muralist Pat O’Brian, Joyce Motsinger of Le Chateau Interiors, Paula Henry of Simply Put Interiors, and Carol Grillo of Grillo Interiors.

Harford Community College’s American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) Student Chapter, which won first place in group collaboration in the 2011 show house, was the only student group invited this year. “HCC is invited because they always do a good job,” says Betty Reeves, ASID, CID, NCIDQ, IDEC, the faculty advisor for Harford’s Interior Design program, who has been at HCC for 25 years.

According to the Baltimore Symphony Associates, to prepare this home for the more than 8,000 guests who annually attend the BSA’s popular fundraiser, the foyer, kitchen, living room, dining room, screened-in porch, and bedrooms of the house were redesigned. In addition, the exterior landscape was redesigned by John Mays of Kingsdene Nursery.

Read More: HCC Interior Design Students Create Room in BSA Show House

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How Interior Design School Prepares you for Project Management

Interior design school is an ideal college major for anyone who loves the art of design and those who appreciate the subtle nuances in both indoor and outdoor settings. But part of the job of an interior designer is to plan the design so that it is executed as close to ‘perfect’ as possible. For that reason, much of your time in an interior design college program will center on planning, preparation, and managing an interior design project.

While most interior designers are working designers, that is – they do some of the work themselves; it is the interior designer’s job to manage their project. This is perhaps just as important as the actual interior design. Without proper palnning, a great interior design project can become delayed, more expensive than expected, or simply fall apart. To avoid the hit to your reputation, it is important to pay close attention to the details of project management.

According to ASID Illinois, and interior design professional association, interior designers spend a lot of time planning and less time actually designing:

“An interior designer is professionally trained to create a functional and quality interior environment. Qualified through education, experience and examination, a professional designer can identify, research and creatively resolve issues and lead to a healthy, safe and comfortable physical environment.

Interior designers provide various services including:

  • consulting services to help determine project goals and objectives
  • generating ideas for the functional and aesthetic possibilities of the space
  • creating illustrations and renderings
  • developing documents and specifications relative to interior spaces in compliance with
  • applicable building and safety codes
  • allocating, organizing and arranging a space to suit its function
  • monitoring and managing construction and installation of design
  • selecting and specifying fixtures, furnishings, products, materials and colors
  • purchasing products and fixtures
  • designing and managing fabrication of custom furnishings and interior details
  • designing lighting and specifying… read more about the jobs of an interior designer at ASID Illinois.

Careers in Interior Design, an online publication, has this to say about planning:

“Interior designers must know how to plan a space and how to present that plan visually so that it can be communicated to the client. Interior designers must also know about the materials and products that will be used to create and furnish the space, and how texture, color, lighting and other factors combine and interact to make a space. In addition, interior designers must understand the structural requirements of their plans, the health and safety issues, building codes, and many other technical aspects.

Interior designers must have excellent time and project management abilities since they frequently work on more than one project at a time under demanding deadlines. Interior designers must understand business planning, and they need to know how to sell their ideas to clients, create informative and persuasive proposals and presentations, and maintain good client relationships.” Read more here.

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Interior Design Students Spend Time with Pros

Prior to most interior design exhibitions, students are very busy putting the final touches on their latest and greatest design concepts. The students at one college were treated to an enriching opportunity before their own showcase, however. Delta College students spent some time before their upcoming show with the professionals who might offer the most insight.

Recordnet.com – The San Joaquin County Home and Garden Show opens today, but for one group of designers, the best day of the event might have been Thursday.

That’s when the artists, students in Delta College’s interior design program, rubbed elbows with professionals as they set up the living room they designed for the show that runs through Sunday at the Janssen-Lagoria Pavilion, near Spanos Center, on the University of the Pacific campus.

“Thursday is a great day, when designers have more time to talk to the students,” said their teacher, Carie Lokers. “Once the show begins, that’s their time to sell their services, to make connections with potential customers. Last year we had plenty of students setting up our room, and one of them didn’t have anything to do. She started helping a designer as she laid out her room. She was able to ask why she’d done what she’d done, how she’d done it, what her mindset was, her thought pattern. It was an invaluable lesson. And, she’d made a possible connection with someone who may be able to help her in the future.”

Showing what they’ve learned, working together to create a room – thanks to the generous loan of furniture from Lodi’s Thornton House Furnishings – and meeting professionals who hold jobs they aspire to have makes the home and garden show an invaluable teaching tool for the Delta students.

“It was difficult at first for students not used to working in a team environment,” Lokers said. “Some…read more at Recordnet.com.

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Interior Design School Coordinates Seaport Show

The New York School of Interior Design recently helped organize a showcase of up and coming interior designers in New York. Along with the Museum of the City of New York, the school chose the designers to be featured at the event where designers discussed many facets of their trade.

(InteriorDesign.net) New York School of Interior Design and Museum of the City of New York organized “New New York: Interior Design on the Cutting Edge,” at the recently reopened South Street Seaport Museum (now run by MCNY). After a tour led by architect Chris Cooper, whose firm Cooper Joseph Studio heralded the Seaport Museum’s renovation, six up-and-coming design firms discussed their residential and commercial projects, their approach to design, and how the field is evolving as a result of technology and the economy. The firms, chosen by NYSID’s Judith Gura, included: Brooke Lichtenstein and Yiannos Vrousgos of Input Creative Studio; Britton Smith; Julie Torres Moskovitz of Fabrica718; Lyndsay Caleo and Fitzhugh Karol of the Brooklyn Home Company; Stefan Steil of MR Architecture + Décor; and Marie Aiello.

Lichtenstein and Vrousgos, who attended NYSID together, worked so well together as students on the school’s 2010 DIFFA Dining by Design table that they decided to form Input Creative Studio. The duo suggested that expertise in several areas, like a modern-day Renaissance man, and fluency in technology—both for one’s own work and to understand clients’ needs—were essential to success today.

Britton Smith, who just launched his own namesake firm, and Stefan Steil of MR, bring a unique perspective to interiors: They both studied fashion before switching to interiors. Steil cut his teeth at Selldorf Architects before joining MR, and explained how he pins up endless images to get inspiration for a project and distill its essence. Today, Smith noted, anyone anywhere can buy anything anywhere. The trick, however, is… read more at InteriorDesign.net.

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Interior Design Student’s Final Project a Hit

Businesses save thousands of dollars on concept designs each year by allowing interior design students the opportunity to develop a professional interior design for their physical establishments, but to the design students it’s one more chance to show that they have what it takes to succeed in their chosen profession.

It can feel like a make-it-or-break-it project, but at the end of the project the rewards can be enormous. Big interior design projects like this one (reported in the Chicago Tribune yesterday) are typically reserved for fourth year interior design students, but provide a lot of insight into the stress and rewards of finishing up a degree at an interior design school:

(Chicago Tribune) May 3rd, 2012 – Carly Branch’s first interior design project for a real client may involve creating a new look to an extension at Little India Restaurant & Lounge on Charleston’s East End.

For her senior capstone project, the University of Charleston interior design major created a professional-level interior design plan for the Indian restaurant.

To decorate the 3,000-square-foot space that co-owner Harish Anada purchased, Branch, 22, said she wanted to stick to a cheap budget while maintaining a sophisticated feel.

Anada might use the extra space to accommodate larger parties and a younger crowd, according to Branch.

Branch’s design included enough seating for 100 people, a 25-foot bar, a stage and black ceilings with the walls painted in red, orange and yellow accents.

Branch wanted to preserve the Indian culture in the design but also incorporate a firehouse atmosphere because the building that houses the current restaurant is an old firehouse.

When Anada said he wanted a game room with a pool table, Branch convinced him that having three additional seats at the bar would be a better design choice, she … read the full story.

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Interior Design Students Develop Temp Shelters

Interior designers are more than home decorators. In fact, they are more like architects and engineers that the general lay person might assume. Students from one interior design program challenged this common misconception by designing concepts and models for a project meant to provide temporary and inexpensive homes for those displaced by natural disasters and other temporary homelessness.

As reported by a local newspaper, when the students in this class displayed their work it became apparent that interior design is about solving problems – no matter the complexity:

(Isthmus) May 4th, 2012 A little house made almost entirely out of corrugated cardboard sheets and tubing is currently on display in the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art’s lobby as a part of the museum’s bi-annual Design MMOCA contest, in which artists of various fields are asked to use a piece in the museum’s permanent collection as inspiration for an original work of art.

Using the painting Abstraction, Belief, Desire by Pat Steir as creative catalyst, the structure was designed in five weeks by UW-Madison’s Interior Design I students. Entitled “Disaster Relief Shelter Project,” the work is both an art installation as well as a prototype living space for people affected and dislocated by natural disasters.

The project was conceived by UW-Madison faculty associate Lesley Sager and her interest in the works of Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, as well as the concept of “Design Thinking” in which designers investigate problems and devise solutions by working creatively within the context of a particular field. Requiring the acquisition of knowledge as well as the ability to creatively posit solutions for real-world dilemmas, Sager thought the endeavor would be a challenging and meaningful collaborative experience for her beginning interior design students.

Choosing the topic of temporary homelessness, Sager split her class of 21 into seven groups of three and asked each to conceive a living space made out of recyclable….Read more from Isthmus.

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College Showcases Interior Design Work at Job Fair

Interior design students looking toward graduation find job leads from networking events, school resources, and job fairs. Getting to know people (and allowing them to know you) is important to the success of an interior designer, so students spend much of their time learning how to network with members of the community – both as employers and as clients. For this reason, MSU College of Technology in Great Falls, Montana is hosting the job fair and exhibition for students and community members today.

(KFBB) Great Falls, MT – If you want to freshen up your home décor in time for summer you have a great chance to do that. People are invited to scope out the latest interior design and designers at the MSU-College of Technology.

Tomorrow the 2012 Interior Design Showcase will feature the newest home fashions created by MSU students.

Ten different categories of juried awards will be given out at a party on Thurday evening featuring appetizers, desserts and a silent auction.

“This gives people an opportunity who are interested in interior design,” said MSU Spokeswoman Lani Klasner. “They can come and look and try it out as a potential career. “Or if it’s an employer looking to hire an interior designer, this

The event will provide a sneak peek into the talents being cultivated at the college and might even inspire would-be interior designers enough to inquire into the school’s interior design program. Many states require education and licensing to practice interior design. Interior designers who graduate from an accredited college’s program are more likely to land a better paying job, faster than those with no formal education in the trade.

The program at MSU’s College of Technology is an Associate of Arts Program. According to MSU, “the Interior Design program has been developed to prepare students with a wide variety of skills and competencies for entry into various areas of the design field, ranging from residential to commercial design. MSU- Great Falls is a National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA) Endorsed School.” (view .pdf)

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How Interior Design Schools are changing the Working World

Going to an interior design school might be a personal goal for students, but when it comes to world’s workforce – such a decision can lead to an unintended consequence: participating in positive projects that change the world for the better. Interior designers are among the world’s most influential people, impacting employee performance, patient wellness, and economy.

In a recent study by the American Society for Interior Designers (ASID), the industry association spells out the influence of interior design on the working world and gives a sneak peek into the role of future interior designers on society as whole.

In the report, ASID president Kathy Montgomery notes that efficient interior designs are an important part of workplace productivity. She wrote:

“This paper demonstrates that interior designers can help companies improve employee productivity and overall corporate efficiency by developing office spaces that work. Interior designers also can help companies integrate interior design into their strategic plan. Interior designers are the experts who can develop “productive solutions” that help companies boost their bottom line.”

Read the full report from the American Society of Interior Designers here.

Hospitals have long understood the benefit of hiring interior designers that graduated from an accredited interior design school. Not only can an appropriate interior design change the mood and productivity of employees, it can change the behavior and psychological stress experienced by patients, too.

A report by the College of Architecture at the University of Texas A & M summarizes a study conducted on the implications that interior designs can have in a hospital environment. They wrote:

“To promote wellness, healthcare facilities should be designed to support patients in coping with stress. As general compass points for designers, scientific research suggests that healthcare environments will support coping with stress and promote wellness if they are designed to foster: 1. Sense of control; 2. Access to social support; 3. Access to positive distractions, and lack of exposure to negative distractions; A growing amount of scientific evidence suggests that nature elements or views can be effective as stress-reducing, positive distractions that promote wellness in healthcare environments.

In considering the needs of different types of users of healthcare facilities–patients, visitors, staff–it should be kept in mind that these groups sometimes have conflicting needs or orientations with respect to control, social support, and positive distractions. It is important for designers to recognize such differing orientations as potential sources of conflict and stress in health facilities… “

Read the report abstract or purchase it from the National Library of Health.

Many other organizations have conducted research into the ways that interior design schools are influencing the world through the skills they are teaching to student designers.  But breaking it down to economic value can be tough. Interior design students learn to solve problems and stimulate the economy surrounding their industry. When more students graduate with an education that involves solving consumer and company problems, more economic stimulation occurs for the industry and for the client being served.

In their interior design school brochure, the University of Kentucky presents some of the residual effects of productive interior design:

“In addition to interior design services positively impacting the client’s bottom line, the economic impact of these services can also be viewed from the perspective of how the practice of interior design stimulates associated industries such as, furnishings, fixtures and equipment. In 2008 the top 100 firms were responsible for 750,308,533 square feet and $58,375,277,937 in furnishings, fixtures, and construction (Interior Design Magazine, January 2010).” (See the brochure.)

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NC Interior Design Students Win at Competition

A North Carolina community college won bragging rights at a 2012 interior design competition. The students at Cape Fear Community College prove that you don’t need to be in a master’s level program to do really great things in interior design. Students from the college excelled at their profession and took home first, second, and third places at a student interior design competition, as reported by the Wilmington Business Journal:

Cape Fear Community College students captured the three top awards at a recent two-state interior design competition. The students, enrolled in CFCC’s two-year interior design program, saw their projects win first, second and third place in the 2012 Otto Zenke Student Design Competition. More than 90 students from two- and four-year colleges in North and South Carolina participated.

First place winner was Justin Nixon who won $1000 for himself and $1000 for the college. Jennifer Corson was second place winner and the recipient of $750, and Kately Thrailkill won $500 as third place winner. The competition is an annual event sponsored by the Carolinas Chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID). CFCC students competed against students from such institutions as the Art Institute of Charleston, Meredith College and Winthrop University.

The charge to students was to design an adaptive reuse of a fictional building in Raleigh to house at-risk youth. An eight-page document outlined the features and furnishings that had to be incorporated into the facility, as well as the ADA and other code requirements that had to be met.

“There were a lot of technical details that provided an opportunity for the students to show their skills in creating an environment that promotes the life, safety and welfare of the occupants,” said Patricia Battershill, lead instructor of CFCC’s interior design program. “It goes far beyond the decorative aspect of the design, and it needed to… read more at the Wilmington Business Journal.

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