Discovering Your Style: How To Collect & Organize Design Inspiration With Intention
Stop endlessly cluttering up your cloud drive and Pinterest boards and start saving with intention
There’s a critical step in the design process between finalizing a Floor Plan Design and developing the design details and elevations or selecting materials - and that step is to refine your vision for the project, aka create a Vision Board or Inspiration Board. This is a visual collage representing the aesthetic direction (look and feel) you want to take your project. But before you do this you first need to start gathering inspiration images for your particular project if you haven’t already.
Whether you already have a collection of saved design images or not (its never to early to start), researching and gathering up inspiration images is an essential step for discovering your style and creating a vision for your project. In some cases this collecting starts long before you’ve defined your project. You might later discover lots of things you saved just won’t be relevant to your new space(s). Tha't’s ok, when the design process begins for your project you’ll only use the most relevant images to create your vision board. Gathering inspiration becomes much more focused once you have your new Floor Plan Design.
COLLECT INSPIRATION IMAGES WITH INTENT:
The exercise of saving images is a way of discovering what inspires you and what styles you’re drawn to. This is important when you strive to design a home that reflects you and your story. Collect images of things you love in home design and you dream to have in this home. Ignore trends. In addition to practical design elements and wish list features, Include things that speak to you, that trigger good memories, abstract or literal, things you have a visceral reaction to, even if you don’t know why.
I think Pinterest is the best tool for collecting visual inspiration. It’s the no.1 visual search engine, it’s free and allows to you save images from anywhere on the internet, uploaded from your desktop of mobile. Alternately you can save images to Google Drive, but I feel if Pinterest is where most searches end up taking you it’s also convenient to archive what you like right there.
TIPS FOR SAVING AND ORGANIZING YOUR IMAGES
If you don’t already have a Pinterest account or Google Drive, set up an account on either one for free. Then create some pin boards or folders to categorize what you’re saving, this will make it easier to edit down your vision later. You can Install the Pinterest app on your mobile, and you can also install the widget tool into your browser extensions to easily save directly to your board of choice while browsing. Here are 8 categories that I recommend you start with, add more as you like, break it down to specific rooms if needed. If you don’t plan on saving images regularly you can use fewer folders/boards.
Rooms I love - Images of spaces and rooms you love (aside from kitchens and bathrooms)
Millwork Details - (doors, mouldings, trims, staircase railings, beams, fireplace mantles, panelling, builtins)
Colours & Materials (material palettes ie; flooring, tile, marble, stone, brick, paint colours)
Kitchen Inspiration - including cabinetry and fixtures
Bathroom Inspiration - including cabinetry and fixtures
Exterior
Things I Love - (random things you love, things you collect, things that trigger great memories, passions,)
Art & Decor Inspiration
Impotant: Resist pinning anything and everything you like. Try your best to Pin to your board categories especially if you’re saving a lot.
VISUAL RESEARCH - BE INTENTIONAL WITH WHAT YOU SAVE
The biggest mistake people make is saving anything and everything they like, soon they’ve amassed hundreds or thousands of images. That’s fine as a past time but not helpful for a specific project. When its time to focus on an upcoming build or renovation, you need to be more specific. If you have old boards,,, start fresh ones or cull them out. Think of your upcoming project and only save things that are relevant to your goals for it, even if you don’t have the floor plan design or new layout figured out yet. Be realistic about your lifThis is about doing visual research to help you discover your style and aesthetic preferences.To get the most benefit from your visual research here’s my best pinning advice.
IMPORTANT TIPS:
Focus on images that are relevant to your house type and architectural style
Search out images of spaces that have similar physical characteristics as yours (low ceilings or vaulted ceilings, layout similarities etc.)
Focus on images that are relevant to your home’s geographic location and setting
Collect inspiration that is relatable to your real lifestyle not a fantasy one
In summary KEEP IT RELEVANT is the key advice. If the Images you’re collecting have little relevance to your actual project or aren’t aligned with your lifestyle they’ll clutter your design vision instead of bringing more clarity. Treat this activity as visual research to help you find the design aesthetic you desire for you home so you move forward to that reality.
If you’re on Pinterest you can find me there too. I’ll be doing some needed reorganizing myself, adding a new series of style boards, and adding more to our Good Design resources and guides board in the coming months, so follow along if you don’t already.
If you need help transforming your vision into the home you love or designing the kitchen or Bathroom your’ve been dreaming of, we have various level of design packages to get you there, learn more below.
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Blog Author
Carol Reed |InteriorDesigner
Carol has been a practicing Interior Designer for over 28 years, focusing on residential interiors since 2005 as Principal of Carol Reed Interior Design Inc. Her work has been featured in Canadian House & Home, Style at Home and Canadian Home Trends magazines among others and frequently contributes as a design expert for their various editorial content. Honoured to be included in House & Home Magazines Top 100 Canadian Designers list.
