Tag: Interior Design Students

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Interior Design News

Interior Design School Professor Tells Home Owners to Think Green

Graphic Design School Software As interior design schools focus more on sustainable designs and younger generations of students make their mark on history by being more aware of energy consumption as it related to aesthetic appeal, at least one company is stepping up to tell home owners that a remodel may be all they need to start being “green”.

Owner of Ryan Architecture and professor of interior design and construction at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, Maryland; Mike Ryan recently stood in front of an audience at Wilson College to discuss how each individual impacts the global environment.

According to Ryan, who talked to the audience about the American Society of Interior Design and the RE-GREEN program form the U.S. Green Building Council, Americans spend all but 10% of their time indoors. He also pointed out that, thanks to climate control methods inside our homes, architects and interior designers spend much less time thinking about the layout and design of our building. It is in a structures layout and interior design that energy consumption can be increased or decreased when given thoughtful consideration.

Interior design schools are already on board, but Ryan is attempting to get homeowners on the same page. Struggling with energy costs and unfinished interior design projects, such as an unfinished basement, can benefit a home owner financially and positively impact the environment by considering which products and how far the product has to be shipped to get to them when they think about home projects.

Interior design students can help by taking more time to learn about what is truly considered a “sustainable” interior design, to include products and the sources of those products. Arrangement, natural lighting, heat conduction, blocking out unwanted heat, and other energy consumption techniques can be implemented within the realm of interior design to help minimize the impact of a space on the environment.

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Interior Design News

Interior Design School Celebrates Twelve Years

An interior design school exhibited works of art created by present and former students earlier this month as a way to celebrate its anniversary while bringing awareness to environmental issues.

The Sanskrithi School of Interior Design was established in Kochi, India in 2000 and is one of just three official interior design schools in the state.

Earlier this month, the school exhibited twelve pieces of artwork fashioned by present and former students through a variety of mediums, designs, and forms. The showcase included paintings and caricatures, and items such as fabric presentations and painted pottery that the students hand crafted during their time at the school. Murals by students and instructors were on display during the exhibition, as well.

Through the use of different types of materials and art mediums, the interior design school was not only celebrating its twelfth anniversary, but attempting to bring more awareness to the global warming phenomenon happening around the globe.

Though the interior design school presented different forms and concepts of art in their brightly lit exhibition room to celebrate the establishment of their school, all of the art pieces were created with the earth in mind. The works were created using the colors and forms of nature, such as the sights around their home state in Kochi and clay pottery creations.

Interior design students that were responsible for the works were from various disciplines of the study including painting and architecture. Many of the former students at the school are now working in the region as professional interior designers. Several graduates allowed their water color paintings and pottery pieces to be shown at the exhibit.

The Sanskrithi School of Interior Design offers a diploma in civil engineering through a one year certificate program, with a focus on architecture and engineering and resides in the Kerala district.

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Interior Design News

Interior Design Schools and Green Designs

Interior design schools might be looking at more changes soon if they want to keep their students competitive in the job market.

The desire for sustainable interior designs from ever-more environmentally conscious consumers is creating a growing demand for designers that specialize in this type of design according to government job experts.

According to the United States’ Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook report on interior designers, sustainable design is one the interior design specialties that are gaining momentum and will continue to do so. “Three areas of design that are becoming increasingly popular are ergonomic design, elder design, and environmental—or green—design,” according the BLS website.

The Bureau of Labor and Statistics defines sustainable interior design as those that involve “selecting furniture and carpets that are free of chemicals and hypoallergenic and selecting construction materials that are energy-efficient or are made from renewable resources.”

Interior designs schools will need to revamp existing curriculum to get students ahead of the curve in the trending market place, where officials expect that green designs will become increasingly popular. Sustainable interior design classes are offered at some interior design schools already. Those that are in-tune with the marketplace are teaching student designers about how to choose environmentally friendly materials.

Another aspect of the “green” movement in interior design addresses environmentally friendly methods, too. Interior design students need to know not only which materials are eco-friendly, but how to create designs that are aligned with the newest energy codes – such as lighting options, air conditioning, and waste management.

An example of a completely sustainable, environmentally interior design might include chemical free paints, wood extracted from reforestation companies, ventilation systems that take advantage of natural airflow, and production methods that emit less carbon into the atmosphere. Because the demand for sustainable design is growing, and to remain competitive with other schools, more interior design academies may soon need to offer specialized degrees in this discipline.

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Interior Design News

Interior Design Students Work Retail Angle

Interior design schools recently competed in a national competition by the Planning and Visual Education Partnership (PAVE) and winners of a separate competition will have their work displayed at a huge industry event next month.

PAVE has awarded interior design schools over $6,000 and $21,000 have been awarded to student grants through the 2011 Student Design Competition. Another competition, the 3-d Design Challenge, will display a winning student’s work at an event in Las Vegas.

The student design competition awarded interior design schools at the University of Cincinnati, Fashion Institute of Technology, Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for having students who placed in the top three in each category. Twelve students were awarded prizes in visual merchandising and store design categories at the event.

For the GlobalShop 2012 event this year, the 3D Design Challenge presented by PAVE asked interior design students and others to try to earn even more in grant prizes by submitting a three-dimensional floor fixture design. The winner of that competition worked with B+N industries to create a prototype of their winning design to be on display at the GlobalShop conference, which will be held at the end of February in Las Vegas.

For this newest competition, interior design students as well as store design and industrial design students who are attending classes at an accredited school  needed to design and develop a store fixture, branding included, for a specific brand of cosmetics. The details of the competition left much of the work up to the imagination of the design students.

Interior designers and the like created fixtures that advertised the cosmetic brand of the student’s choice and it needed to be “concise” according to the official contest rules. The unit must be portable, so it is important that it can be broken down and shipped safely with minimum potential for damage.

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Interior Design News

Interior Design School Teaches Success through Exhibition

Students from interior design schools are often called upon to create concepts for competitions and community projects.

As part of a standard curriculum, it is not uncommon for schools to try to partner up with community organizations that will bring about opportunities for their students to get involved in real-world interior design projects.

Interning often happens at a late stage in the education process, when junior and seniors at an interior design school spend much of their time focused on their future career through rigorous class-work that is divided up between hours spent with a certified firm. Occasionally, students are afforded the opportunity to receive critiques from entities that are not typically a part of the education process.

When competitions come along, some interior design schools allow students to incorporate them into the curriculum to provide a better understanding of how the business aspects of design are an important facet of their careers. More often, however, students are allowed to participate in an exhibition where they can proudly display their concepts.

This is the case with an exhibit at the Upton Hall in New York that will display student creations. Recently, students at Buffalo State’s interior design school were asked to participate in an annual Interior Design Student Show where they can showcase their skills for a little positive reinforcement from the show. The students are permitted to submit three dimension designs as well as digital renditions for the showcase.

The students also get to participate in all the aspects of setting up the exhibition, which offers experience that they would not normally receive in the classroom. Presentation and communication are critical parts of a successful career in interior design, so schools have to make extra effort to make sure students understand that their future depends on far more than great design ideas.

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Interior Design News

Interior Design College Helps Special Needs Students

Students at an interior design school in Illinois took an opportunity to help younger students recently.

Students from the Advanced Design program at Lewis University took on a project to help design a new type of school in Bolingbrook, IL which will assist students with disabilities.

The Brooks Elementary School in Bolingbrook is launching a new program for students with disabilities aimed at helping those students find job training following school. The interior design students took part in the new launch by creating designs for the new building where the Secondary Transition Experience Program (STEP) will reside.

Advanced interior design students coordinated with the school district’s students and coordinators to gain information about the new structure and program. As part of their research, the interior designers-to-be took a tour of the campus, talked with employees of Brooks Elementary School, and helped the students in the STEP program design a painting for their new facility.

An instructor at the interior design school, Leslie Colonna, said “This project was a great opportunity for our students to step out of the classroom and to apply their design skills to a real-world situation. It was a great success to involve the STEP students in the actual making of the artwork for their school.”

Lewis University and the school district entered into a learning partnership some time ago, which spawned the effort between the interior design students and Brooks Elementary School. Interior design students garner important experience from projects such as this that allow them to coordinate with “clients” and develop concepts to meet the needs of their customers.

By enabling students to meet the needs of the community while earning important wisdom in their trade, interior design programs are able to create programs that have an impact in the lives of their students and the lives of others in the community. Students at the STEP program will use the new facility for their own purposes, likely remembering their time with the interior design class each time they glance at their cooperative art work.

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Interior Design News

Interior Design College Holds 15th Annual Exhibition

Watkins College of Art, Design, and Film is holding an interior design showcase this month to display student works in many categories.

The 15th annual Interior Design Student Exhibit will award prizes to tudents who exemplify superior designs in the show categories, with an emphasis and judging based on creativity, craftsmanship, and digital rendition.

The show will feature designs by students earning Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design and the interior design college. The exhibits will show off skills in different aspects of interior design to include introductory presentation, intermediate presentation, lighting design, furniture design, residential design, and commercial design. The final categories are in computer modeling, student portfolios, and sustainable designs.

The exhibition will begin this month on the 10th and will display student works until the 29th. The event will take place on the Watkins College of Art, Design, and Film campus in the Brownlee O. Currey, Jr. Gallery.

According the Watkins’ website, the awards at the interior design college will be presented by assistant professor Jennifer Overstreet and associate professor Cheryl Gulley. The ceremony will commence on the 20th of this month at 5:30 PM.

The interior designs school at Watkins boasts a rich curriculum that prepares students for a full-time career in interior design and claims to prepare students to become well-networked within their profession. The full curriculum in the interior design school is enriched by studies in the fine arts, contemporary design, and technology.

All of the interior design college’s students have been invited to participate in the exhibition, which is also open to the public with no admission fee. The public can view work from the interior design students at the Gallery on weekdays between 9:00 AM and 8:00 PM. The gallery will also be open on Saturday between 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM as well as Sunday from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM.

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Interior Design News

Interior Design Students win All-American Contest

A set of students from the design college at Howard University recently won a contest that put their skills as Americans to the test.

The Student Design House Competition was sponsored by The Washington Design Center and the MADE: In America Foundation and features the works of interior design students from various institutions.

The challenge was this: choose a room at The Washington Design Center, identify any problems with the interior design, and then redesign the interior. The catch? They had to take classic interior designs that are uniquely American and recast them in a contemporary light. They also had to use “Made in America” materials and products to create their interior designs.

With supervision from faculty member Mark Watkins of Howard University, interior design students Bretagne Blair, Omar Tulloch, Karen Ennis, Alicia Johnson, Naomi Black, and Naada Favitsou-Boulandi worked their magic and won first place in the competition.

“We put so much effort and time into this project. We didn’t know what to expect,” said Blair, a senior at the interior design school.

They chose to create a library with classic American appeal that was complete with a custom mantle over the fireplace, designed and manufactured by the students themselves. The furniture and materials they selected were from top designers who had collections that were already on display at The Washington Design Center.

Among the features of their interior design, the students chose an old-world style clock and golden taupe drapes. An all wood desk with ornate spiral carved legs makes a space for reading or studying while seated in a burnt orange, high-back leather chair.

The interior design college at Howard University is an undergraduate program that helps student focus on the path forward to graduate school and, ultimately, a career in interior design.