Friday, February 15, 2008

All about interior designing


Interior design simply means personalizing your interior environment!

Interior Design today is all about customizing your built environment with conceptual planning, aesthetic sense and technical solutions applied to achieve the desired result. It goes beyond just the visual or ambient enhancement of an interior space, it seeks to optimize and harmonize the uses to which the built environment will be put. Between you and me, this jargon simply means dressing up your closed spaces to make them look their best. And just as you would dress for the occasion, your interiors need to be "dressed up" for a specific intended purpose or use. And that is where technical expertise really helps.

Interior Designs should reflect your needs.

Each space is unique with its own dimensions, construction, design potential and, of course, - limitations. Are you going to use that space for work or leisure, entertainment or learning, worship or healing? Can you create the ambience that you wish to convey – be it power, authority, wisdom, and achievement, a sense of security, playfulness or serenity, as required by that space?

Consider the practical aspects. Is access easy, lighting adequate, acoustics soothing, and seating comfortable? And have you worked out strategies for wise storage space without forgetting special needs – especially health and safety? Sounds a wee-bit difficult, isn’t it? Despair not! You as user are the only one who can come up with all the right answers. Look for interior design ideas – they are available aplenty. It’s just this small matter of putting things together judiciously. Who knows? There could well be a Le Corbusier hiding somewhere in your persona!

Interior Design, Getting It Done, Right

Interior design is the design of the inside of a building or structure. We could be referring to a home or a business. In any case, for those that need to design a living or working environment, it is important to make sure that you do so while being well within your budget. And, you will need to take and keep exact measurements.

Is there a way of getting your interior design project done within your budget and, dare we say, easily? There sure is. In fact, interior design software is becoming a hot new commodity!

People like to change. Let’s face it. We don’t like to see the same old thing, day in and day out. Instead, we want options and color and sometimes, we just have to change things to stay sane! For all of those that need to use some interior design skills, this can be the perfect way of doing so. Interior design is a skill, often learned through college courses. Does that mean that you, the laymen can not do it? Of course not! But, get some help by checking out interior design articles .

These articles & programs can help you design a home from start to scratch. They can help with color schemes and even suggest art work for the walls. What these programs do is create an image of the space that is to be designed within the walls of the computer. Then, you can design it how ever you like without fear that making a mistake will cost you. Instead, you get to choose from anything that makes you happy and see how it works.

There are hundreds of programs on interior design and by all means this is no where near the limit that these programs have. To find out what they offer you, individually, check out your options. Look for choices that will work in your unique situation and will provide you with the opportunities that you have been longing for. It’s easy to find these interior design programs, of course, when you know to look online for them.

Principles of Interior Design

Whether you are working with existing furnishings and fabrics or “starting from scratch” with an empty room, you should always use the elements and principles of design as a guide in choosing everything. The elements are your tools or raw materials, much like paints are the basics to a painter. The elements of design include space, line, form, color, and texture. The principles of design relate to how you use these elements. The principles of design are balance, emphasis, rhythm, proportion and scale, and harmony and unity.

Principle #1: Balance

Visual equilibrium in a room is called balance. It gives a sense of repose and a feeling of completion. A well-balanced room gives careful consideration to the placement of objects according to their visual weight. The elements of line, form, color and texture all help determine an object’s visual weight, which is the amount of space it appears to occupy. Balance also refers to how and where you place the elements (line, form, color and texture) within a room. To maintain balance, try to distribute the elements throughout the room.
• Formal balance, often referred to as symmetrical balance, creates a mirror image effect.
• Informal balance uses different objects of the same visual weight to create equilibrium in a room. It is more subtle and spontaneous and gives a warmer, more casual feeling.

Principle #2: Emphasis

Emphasis is the focal point of the room. The focal point should be obvious as you enter the room; it is the area to which your eye is attracted. Whatever is featured, as the center of interest –a fireplace, artwork or a
window treatment framing a beautiful view – must be sufficiently emphasized so that everything else leads the eye toward the featured area. You can add emphasis to a natural focal point or create one in a room through effective use of line, form, color and texture.

Principle #3: Rhythm

Rhythm supplies the discipline that controls the eye as is moves around a room. Rhythm helps the eye to move easily from one object to another and creates a harmony that tells the eye everything in the room belongs to a unified whole. Rhythm is created through repetition of line, form, color or texture. It can also be created through progression. Progressive rhythm is a gradual increasing or decreasing in size, direction or color.

Principle #4: Proportion and Scale

Size relationships in a room are defined by proportion and scale. Proportion refers to how the elements within an object relate to the object as a whole. Scale relates to the size of an object when compared with the size of the space in which it is located.

Principle #5: Harmony and Unity

A well-designed room is a unified whole that encompasses all the other elements and principles of design. Unity assures a sense of order. There is a consistency of sizes and shapes, a harmony of color and pattern. The ultimate goal of decorating is to create a room with unity and harmony and a sense of rhythm. Repeating the elements, balancing them throughout the room, and then adding a little variety so that the room has its own sense of personality accomplishes this. Too much unity can be boring; too much variety can cause a restless feeling. Juggling the elements and principles to get just the right mix is a key to good design.

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