Do you want to use your design skills to create exciting and engaging environments that match your style? Do you want to build up a better awareness of spatial design to have an impact on your home? Learning the basics of Interior Design can massively help.

At Nollie Design, we want you to be able to understand how you can make your design skills even more versatile. We created our 12 Principles of Interdisciplinary Design framework to give you the skills to adapt to different design projects with ease. 

In this post, we’ll look at how you can use your creativity to impact the spaces around you using Interior Design. You can deploy some of these skills in your home, your studio, or on client projects.

Interior Design provides designers the skills to design environments, and if you’re subscribed to the Nollie Newsletter you can keep track as we show you how to design everything from posters to tiny homes.

Designing for Environment

Your environment is the space around you. The rooms you dwell in, the homes you live in, your local area, everywhere. By understanding how you can use your design skills to move into interior projects, you’ll be able to create spaces that match your creative flair.

By looking at Interior Design, you’ll understand how to deploy techniques and tricks within your spaces and home and understand how you can do the same for clients.

Interior Design is about designing spaces to be functional for the people who use them. For interdisciplinary designers, understanding how people function in a space makes things easier and more practical for the user.

Interior Design is NOT about styling a room with decorations. It’s about understanding how the space works and optimizing it for the people who use it.

Designing for your Environment is a principle of our 12 Principles of Interdisciplinary Design framework. By understanding how to implement your creativity in your surroundings you can transfer this into the other principles and build a holistic design skillset.

What is Interior Design?

Interior Design is about enhancing the environment of space to create somewhere that looks good, it’s accessible, and functions well for the people who work within that space.

All Design is about creating work that helps those who use it. In Interior Design, the design should benefit the lives of the space’s inhabitants. It should factor in the daily habits of those who use the space, and make their routine more streamlined and efficient. 

You need to balance the lifestyle of the people in the space with the art and visuals they expect to see in their spaces. 

Interior Design is about understanding how you can use furniture, wall textures, layout and textures in a way that makes people feel comfortable in the space. You can also factor in larger factors like where the space is located and tie in the natural environment and local culture.

You’ll need to understand every detail of a space and understand the reason why you’ve included elements to help further the mission of creating a functional and desired space.

Why Interdisciplinary Designers Should Learn Interior Design

At Nollie, we want to help you develop adaptable creative skills, and understand that with these skills you can begin any type of Design project. We do this with our 12 Principles of Interdisciplinary Design framework, which you can use to develop a broad creative skillset.

Learning and understanding the fundamentals of Interior Design can have a huge impact on creating an adaptable creative skillset. 

Spatial Awareness

Interior Design is about understanding how people will use a space and making it as functional as possible. The layout of the space should allow easy access, furniture placement, and zones for the person in it.

As you progress into more interdisciplinary skills, you’ll need to understand how users will interact with a space when it comes to Interactive Design.

Concept Development

With Interior Design you need to be able to communicate your ideas based on your client’s expectations. You need to be able to create mood boards, sketches, and renderings to help show off your idea.

Many of these skills overlap with Graphic Design, especially when it comes to presenting these ideas in an engaging way to the client. By improving your Graphic Design, you can display your idea more stylishly and be more likely to have a happy client.

Graphic Design also shares an overlap with Interior Design for Wayfinding. Using signage and graphics to show the person where they need to go and how to get to where they want to go.

Colors and Textiles

Color plays a huge role in Interior Design. When designing a space you need to factor in the color scheme, the finishes, and materials within the space to meet the needs of the brief. For example, if you are developing a space for children you would opt for bright primary colors rather than dark and cold colors. 

Textiles also play their part in interior design, choosing fabrics that enhance the space. These could be blankets, rugs, curtains,  headboards, wall art, and furniture. Interior Designers should have an understanding of textiles to bring cohesiveness to a space.

This shares so much overlap with Fashion Design and is one of the strongest ways that an understanding of Fashion Design can transfer into other fields. Having an understanding of textiles, upholstery, and color fabrics is going to be a great asset when you tackle interior design projects.

Lighting Design

Lighting plays a huge role in Interior Design. You need to design lighting schemes to create a warm and cozy atmosphere. Lighting plays a big role in how we perceive a space. Dark dimly lit rooms, like cocktail bars, have an aura of sophistication and intimacy and bright rooms feel large and engaging. 

Light impacts your mood by releasing Serotonin into your brain! Meaning you can you lighting to change how someone feels in a space.

We have an ultimate guide to Lighting Design to get you started.

Furniture & Fittings

In an interior space, you need to know how you can bring furniture and accessories into a space to make everything feel unified and cohesive. 

You need to understand human sizes and how people will interact with the furniture within the space. You’ll need to know how you can use the furniture to be helpful to the people within the space and add to it.

Understanding how people interact with your design work shares many overlaps with Industrial Design. In Industrial Design, you also need to understand how human sizes will affect the way your design can be used.

The History of Interior Design

For as long as humans have found spaces to call home, we’ve been trying to optimize them into more comfortable living areas. Interior Design can be traced back to the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. 

These ancient cultures used to decorate their houses with richly colored fabrics and elaborate mosaics. Spaces were designed to be functional, for example, there was an area for sleeping and cooking in these small rooms.

In medieval Europe, everyone was at war. The church of Christianity was growing and empires were rising and falling. The name “The Dark Ages” kind of matched the style of interiors at the time, with little thought being simple functional wooden furniture and stone floors. Little thought was put into the style of the homes and more into surviving the plague and whatever war was going on.

During the Renaissance, interiors became a symbol of wealth and the spaces were designed to show wealth, decadence, and luxury. This set the tone for the future of Interior Design. For years, these interiors were only for the rich.

By the turn of the century, Design became less about what it could provide the super-rich, but what it could provide to everyone. Movements like Art Deco, and Art Nouveau made Interior Design accessible to those who previously couldn’t afford it.

After the Industrial Revolution when Design became Design and it’s where we see many of the fields listed in our 12 Principles of Interdisciplinary Design begin to take the form we’re familiar with today.

The Industrial Revolution allowed for cheaper materials and technology which impacted the world of Interior Design. Suddenly people of all statuses could afford to create spaces that were functional and reflected their personalities.

Today, we’re beginning to see a new form of Design beginning to take hold of the Interior Design world and across the board. Sustainability is now becoming the new focus for interior spaces and creating spaces that are designed to have minimal impact on the environment through material choices and designing spaces that can be adapted with time.

We’re also beginning to see a shift in non-residential spaces, thanks to COVID, working from home, and VR. Now you no longer need to go into a physical space, instead opting for digital places.

Where this is going we’re not sure, but we’ll keep you posted.

What Do You Need to Know

Residential Interiors

Designing for clients’ homes is known as Residential Interior Design. This is a very popular trend in Interior Design, as many people are now looking to the internet to style and improve their homes. 

Residential Interior Designers are often done by small teams or by one designer and will go through the full process from coming up with the concept to constructing the client’s idea within a space.

Non-Residential Interiors

Designing for public spaces is known as Non-residential Interior Design and these could be for commercial clients, hotels, museums, galleries, and resorts. These are much bigger projects and the Interior Designer will be part of a larger team.

Space Planning

Space Planning is about understanding the purpose of a space, and creating functional elements and layouts that help support that purpose. Space planning begins by using bubble layouts that help plan the layout and allow you to see how the space will begin to function.

There are different types of spaces that your layout will need to factor in. Various spaces in your home and how they’re designed need to cater to different needs and activities. From socializing with friends to finding a quiet retreat, each area has its purpose and is enhanced with interior design elements.

Social Spaces

Social spaces are the areas designed for social interaction and relaxing with others. These spaces should encourage conversation and allow the people within that space to unwind with comfortable furniture.

In Residential Interiors this would be spaces like your living room or dining room. 

In your living room, you would include comfortable seating like sofas or armchairs arranged around a focal point like a fireplace or coffee table.

In non-residential spaces, social spaces are intended for creating communication, collaboration, and interaction among employees, customers, and visitors. For example in an office space, social spaces would be areas where staff can go for breaks, take informal meetings, and brainstorm. 

Private Spaces 

Private spaces are the opposite of Social spaces. They should be a sanctuary that suits the people in the space. In residential spaces, this would be areas like your bedroom or your bathroom. Places that are intended to be used privately and that nobody else can see. 

But just because it’s a private space doesn’t mean that design should be overlooked. If anything it should be more functional as these spaces will be for clear purposes. In a bedroom you would expect color schemes and soft lighting that encourages sleep, in bathrooms you would opt for waterproof materials, storage, and privacy.

In non-residential environments, you would need to consider where the people require privacy. If you were designing a storefront for example, how would you make the fitting rooms feel stylish but private?

Work Spaces

Workspaces are another environment you can create where the space is designed to foster productivity. Elements like colors, artwork, and work surfaces should reflect the energy you want to create in a workspace that’s energizing yet organized.

In our residential example, a home office would be an example of a workspace. When you use that work area, you want to feel as if the space is inviting you to work harder. This can be done with lighting, textures, and storage. 

Another example of a workspace in a residential environment would be a garage-style workshop. Here you would need to ensure that all tools are organized and easily accessed and that the surfaces allow for working on projects.

In non-residential environments, workspaces are often a very functional requirement. For example in offices, you need a layout for desks and computers. In retail environments, you need to feature checkout counters and places to store inventory. In restaurants, kitchen spaces are optimized for food preparation, cooking, and serving.

Storage Spaces

Storage Spaces are vital in any environment and can often be overlooked by those who haven’t taken the time to understand how to create functional spaces. Storage spaces help you organize and maintain the items in the space. 

Storage could be closets, shelves, drawers, and built-in furniture all play a role in creating functional spaces. Storage helps you tidy away items like books, decorative objects, and personal mementos. 

It’s important to have your storage areas feel part of the larger space. Even implementing storage solutions shows you’ve fully considered the use of the space.

We all know how important storage is in our own homes. For residential storage, you need to consider where will the dwellers put their clothing, appliances, books, food, etc. And if you’ve ever moved out, you’ll know how easy it is to fill these storage areas. So it’s best to add as much storage as possible.

In non-residential environments, you’ll need to consider the storage needs of your client. Do they have places to put their equipment, inventory, and documents? Do they require a specific type of storage, like a walk-in fridge in a restaurant?

Visual Elements

The visual elements show up often across the Principles of Interdisciplinary Design. We’ve spoken about them before, in our Graphic Design and Fashion Design posts. Understanding how to use the visual elements, means you can deploy them in different creative projects.

The visual elements are:

Balance

Balance is using symmetry to create harmony in your designs. Humans love symmetry, it is something that we psychologically enjoy looking at. 

While we love symmetry, you can use asymmetrical visuals in your design too. Having things deliberately off-balance helps draw focus toward one single element of your design

Harmony

Harmony is about creating cohesive spaces. When everything is all together, it feels like the space has its personality. Harmony is about creating unity between different elements.

It can be hard to understand how to get different objects to come together in a space, but having an idea of the style of the space from the start should help. Bring together the different elements by using matching colors, textures, materials, and finishes. 

Rhythm

Rhythm and Movement is the use of repeated patterns, textures, and colors to create a feeling of flow. You can use that flow to draw the user’s eye to the areas you want them to look.

If you want to learn more about the Visual Elements you can check them out in our Graphic Design post.

Proportion and Scale

Proportion and Scale refer to sizing. This could be the size of the space, the people within it, or the objects and furniture. Having elements of different sizes allows you to create focal points in a space and demonstrate hierarchy. 

Creating a consistent element but using it in different scales, can be a great way to achieve some harmony in your designed space.

Emphasis

Emphasis is about creating one greater element that stands out when put with other different elements. You see this a lot in interior spaces with a strong focal point like a piece of art or a decorative chandelier.

You should prioritize what needs to be seen in a space and it will depend on the client. Do they want the emphasis to be on an expensive luxury item, like a sculpture? Or does the client prefer natural elements and the emphasis should be on the views outside with large windows?

Emphasis allows you to direct the viewer’s attention to areas and objects that reflect the personality of the client.

Contrast

Contrast is the use of balancing opposing elements to create harmony. It’s created by pairing two opposing elements together, like having dark vs light as an example. You can use different elements to establish contrast, like color, texture, type, and other graphic elements.

Details

Details in interior environments are small little elements that add to the overall finish of the space. The details can often be small elements that would go unnoticed in the full space, but individually, help contribute to the environment.

A great example would be swapping out door knobs and handles that may have come with the furniture as standard, in exchange for unique ones in the same color or metal finish. Other small details could include light switches, cushions, or blankets. 

These smaller details may not seem significant on their own, by together they help tie the space together.

The Design Process

The Design Process is the workflow shared across all Design fields and what you can use to try your hand at different design projects. All fields of Design share this iterative process, so the more you understand it, the easier it will be to adapt to new creative ventures.

You can use this Design Process across any of the 12 Principles of Interdisciplinary Design. 

Brief Interpretation & Planning

It’s important that understand the issues you’re trying to solve with this project. The problem you’ll be answering will be in your brief.

The brief would tell you more about the space its intended purpose and who is expected to be using it. You have to create something that will work for the intended users.

At this stage, you want to make sure you have a plan in place to make sure everything is completed on time. Work backward from the end of the project and set little deadlines for when things need to be completed.

Having a solid understanding of your timelines means you won’t be late to deliver anything.

Research

Great designers make creative decisions based on research. This allows them to have a reason for WHY they made the creative decisions that they took. They can back up their creative decisions by describing the research they undertook to get to the final stages of a project.

The best way to get research is to go out and meet people firsthand, rather than using the internet. You’ll get more valuable insights and might stumble upon some information that couldn’t be found online.

Go and meet experts, your target demographic, and anyone else who can help you progress your project along. By meeting people, you can begin to start building your network as a designer.

Keep all your findings from the research stage in your Design Specification and use that to help inform your design decisions throughout the project.

In Interior Design, you want to learn about the space for your intended design and what it is used for. You could speak with people using the space, and look at competitors to see how they’ve tackled similar problems.

Concepts

Now it’s time to start getting creative! Once you have an understanding of the problem, it’s time to start coming up with ways to solve it. 

In Interior Design, you want to begin by designing different layouts for the space. This saves you from making fancy drawings only to change everything when you find out it’s not working.

By starting with the layouts you make quick changes and understand how the space will function before you start making some nice drawings to demonstrate the space better. You can then take your idea into rendering software to fully show it off to your client.

Development

The Development Stage is very exciting in Interior Design. As you begin to come up with a working idea for the project, you’ll need to begin refining it until it’s ready to submit as your final design proposal.

The Development stage is very hands-on and you’ll need to add to elements that work and remove the ones that don’t. Starting from your layout sketch and initial concepts, it’s time to start taking it forward and ensuring that everything functions as you intend.

In Interior Design you can develop your idea using model making, CAD renders, and sketches. You’ll want to make sure that all of your ideas are viable in the space. 

Detail

By the time it comes to presenting your work to a client for approval, you want to have a fully comprehensive list of all the features that will be in your Interior space.

The devil is in the detail, especially with interior design as even the smallest errors in measuring can cost a lot when it comes to fitting. You want to use this time to double-check everything and make sure that it’s all correct.

You want to have your Design Proposal be like an instruction manual for contractors that they can look at and easily understand what needs to go where, what needs to be built, and what needs to be ordered.

Pitch

Now that you have a final idea, it’s time to pitch this to your client. By this time, you should know every detail of the room that you’re designing and know the reasons why you’ve made the creative decisions that led to this point.

In a pitch presentation, you want to be able to sell your idea. You want to explain the functionality of the space. You can use your Design Specification as a backup for any questions you may be asked. 

For some Designers, an Interior Design project might mean they carry some of the Project Management responsibilities. If that’s the case, you want to ensure you have a fully comprehensive guide to create the space you can supply to contractors. 

For larger Interior Design projects, you’ll be providing these to a group of contractors who’ll be responsible for bringing your vision to life. You’ll need to provide comprehensive instruction on what needs to go where, including graphics, electronics, furniture, and lighting.

Promotion

Many designers have a bad habit of not keeping an up-to-date portfolio. A portfolio is a document where you store all your best projects to show to prospective clients. Take the time at the end of every project to add your work to your portfolio.

You can add your work to your website, or on platforms like Behance and Dribbble. By showing your work, you’ll build up an audience that will want to work with you.

If you don’t have a portfolio website, you can get one for free using Adobe Portfolio.

What Tools Do I Need?

Design Sketchbook

A sketchbook is where you’ll be putting your ideas to paper. It’s where you can store all your different ideas and where you can draw nice rendered drawings if that’s what you’re into.

In Interior Design there are many different ways you can draw out your layout, and we’ll delve into those in a later post. Why not join up for our Newsletter to stay up to date?

For Interior Design it’s always best to work on A3 Paper (Tabloid if you’re from the States). This gives you plenty of room to draw and explore your ideas on paper.

Design Journal

A Design Journal is a tool often used by designers that’s not really spoken about. If you never went to a fancy Design school and want to learn on your own, then a journal will be even more important to you.

You can read our guide to keeping a design journal, in this post.

For interdisciplinary Designers, it’s even better as it allows you to keep track of your work, write down any advice, your research, your goals, new techniques, understanding software,  to-do lists, anything. All that matters is you use it and that you use it in a way that you can push yourself forward.

Having a journal allows you to keep your thoughts and projects together and the more you use it, the more you’ll have to look back on. It becomes a place to look over your previous projects and see how far you’ve come as a designer.

Anytime you have something that might help you at a later date. Write it down.

At Nollie, we recommend using a bullet journal, as it allows you to write in lines but also gives you room for sketching and you can connect the dots to draw lines and diagrams.

Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe Creative Cloud is the software we use and recommend. Adobe is the industry standard in the design world, so if you know how to use it, you’ll find it much easier to find a job in the Design world. 

An Adobe Creative Cloud subscription comes with over 20 apps, including Photoshop, Illustrator, and PremierPro.

You’ll need Photoshop in Interior Design projects, to help with photo editing. This will help you create and edit the images of your space to create realistic renderings that help the viewer visualize what you’re trying to accomplish in your project.

Adobe Illustrator is another tool often used in Interior Design. Designers use Illustrator for floor plans, elevations, furniture layouts, and technical drawings. 

An Adobe subscription also comes with a host of other perks, including Adobe Portfolio. You can create your portfolio website for free just with an Adobe subscription!

This means you can always have your work ready to show when finding potential clients.

Conclusion

Interior Design is a great way to understand how you can change environments using your design abilities. You can even start by implementing some of these tips in your home!

Interior Design allows you as a designer to explore what people need from a space and how to make it function properly for the people who use it. 

This will be amazing for you as an interdisciplinary designer, as you’ll understand how you can use spaces to your creative advantage. You’ll know how to optimize spaces and use space when designing using any of the other 12 Principles of Interdisciplinary Design.

At Nollie, we want you to understand how your design skills are super diverse. In the words of Massimo Vignelli, “If you can design one thing, you can design everything.” It’s up to us to show you how…