In this masterclass Susan White gives you tips and insight into how she designs award winning interior design projects.
Take some time to watch the masterclass and get some insight into how we design our projects.
How we design show homes over at our sister company Phoenix Interior Design
We are proud to introduce a beautiful new development, Hawthornden. Located in the charming village of Yalding, there is a wide selection of house types available, offering something for everyone. Delightful and unusual 3-bedroom terraces and villas sit alongside distinctive 5-bedroom properties, many with spacious private gardens.
Our sister company Phoenix Interior Design is set up to design show homes for property developers right across the UK. It’s a very fast paced type of interior design, completely different to what we do here at Iggi. But both services are design led and create lifestyles for our clients.
Watch the video below where Susan White, the CEO of both Phoenix Interior Design and Iggi Interior Design takes you through the latest show home project.
How to Work Well From Home
Top home design magazine, House & Garden, featured our most recent projects Home Office in their latest online article, Working From Home?
With most people at home working, we thought it might help to share a few tips on how to work well from home.
Get Dressed
Routine is important, and creating clear distinctions between being at work and being at home is key to being more productive. This also helps you move into work mode and be more focused and attentive.
You also want to be seen as the professional you are, so don't wear pyjamas on video calls! Maybe even look for a nice artwork to hang behind you.
Get on the Phone
Video group calls are a wonderful way to connect you with both your family and your friends. We've also heard of virtual tea parties and even a virtual cocktail party last Friday night. Both lovely ideas to help you connect with people. Just because you are at home it doesn't mean you can't keep up with friends and family.
Group video calls also work wonders to keep your team focused and together.
Take Regular Breaks
Just as you would at the office, take a break from the screen. It's very easy to sit at your screen all day long. Take some time out for lunch and a tea break. This will help you create a routine and get through your day more productively.
Clear the Clutter
Wherever you're working from, make sure that you've cleared away the clutter and put away all distractions. Working at a clean desk helps you focus and not feel like you're surrounded by stagnant energy. Read up on Feng Shui and perhaps even look at Marie Kondo's famous method. It all helps.
Get in touch
At Iggi Interior Design we're here to help you live your best life, so do give us a call.
3 top design trends from London Design Week
London Design Week opened this week and we were at the Chelsea Design Centre bright and early on Monday morning to explore the new trends that the interior design brands have presented.
Bold Wallpapers
While we don't exclusively follow trends, we do need to be aware of them and consider whether they will fit into our projects in a meaningful way. Trends also help us to understand the direction that design takes and gives us an indication of what is popular at the moment.
What really stood out for us was the striking use of wallpapers and wall coverings. Bright and bold botanicals, paisley inspired designs, layers of raffia fringing and just so much more.
Maximalism
The bold wallpapers falls into a wider movement that we’ve seen over the last few years - Maximalism. While we’ve discussed this before, it’s interesting to see it playing out. It started off with overstuffed styling and that Gucci-esque approach of bold colours and patterns being mixed up.
Maximalism is clearly mainstream now, and as you can see from these images, it’s all about layers. Layering lighting and products in complimentary single tones to the wall coverings avoids pattern and colour clashes.
Monochrome
Hard to call this a trend, as it’s an established style and look, but it’s clearly back with bang. Strong vertical lines, and layers of black and white objet and furniture. But interestingly, it’s a maximalist approach to monochrome and not the traditional sleek and minimal lines that we know this style to represent.
What works for your project?
As we said above, trends come and go and they’re great to challenge the status quo. At the end of the day, you need to think about who is going to live in the space and what works for their lifestyle.
If you've seen anything here that you particularly like or dislike, do let us know by hitting reply, we'd love to discuss this with you.
Maximising The Liveability Of Your Home Through Design
Liveability is defined as the sum of the factors that add up to a community's quality of life - including the built and natural environments, economic prosperity, social stability and equity, educational opportunity and cultural and recreational possibilities.
When designing there are multiple elements that we work with while progressing through the design process. Ultimately, as interior designers, we want to increase your standard of living and lifestyle within your home. This is the first ROI on your design fee, but great design will also increase the property value and saleability of a home.
Below we’ve listed a few of the design elements that we use when designing homes for our private clients and these influence our work with property developers too.
Materials
Carefully selecting the right materials for the right job is key to ensuring that the home is both beautiful and practical. Surfaces are important as they are the intersection between your life and the building itself. The senses of touch and sight are key to take into account when selecting surfaces.
Space Planning
As Interior Architects, we’re able to carve up the space of an existing space to make it work harder for your lifestyle. We move walls, doors and windows to open up or close a space to make it relevant to how you want to use the space.
Often when you move into a new property, you find that after a few months the house has dictated how you live in it, by working with professional designers, we’re able to change the layout so that it works with your lifestyle and not the other way around.
When we work with developers, we’re able to add value by designing floor plans that we know work well with varying demographics, eg: young families, newly retired, extended families etc.
Layering to add comfort
Our inhouse stylists are great at getting this right. Think about a sofa, layer on some tactile cushions in varying fabrics and then top it off with a very comfortable large knit throw. These multiple layers engage your sense of touch and comfort.
There are multiple areas in a home where this technique adds that finishing touch and makes the property feel like a warm and comforting home.
Wellness + Wonder at Milan Design Week
With the wellness sector exploding into mainstream consciousness over the past couple of years, it’s no wonder that Wallpaper chose their theme for this year's Salone del Mobile to be Wellness + Wonder. And rightly so, our clients are looking for ways to incorporate wellness seamlessly into their lives, and it’s our job as interior designers to deliver that through their home design.
Just as we’ve seen how technology has become integrated into the fabric of new buildings and this has increased the uptake of these technologies, so too, will wellness need to be seamlessly integrated into our homes so that there isn’t any extra effort from our part.
At Phoenix Interior Design, we see Wellness + Interior Design as the next big wave that developers are going to need to focus on to attract HNWI.
To help illustrate some of the theory into practical examples, these are a few new products that we came across at the Milan Furniture Fair.
Meridian Mettlach Reflexology Path
The designer was inspired by her own cultural heritage and turned to the ancient Chinese art of reflexology. She created this reflexology pathway which is intended to induce a pleasurable feeling of calm and reflection.
Oval Sphere Backbenders
Interested in how leisure and wellness can be incorporated into domestic interiors, Space Copenhagen’s Signe Bindslev Henriksen and Peter Bundgaard Rutzou designed a trio of back benders as beautifully sculptural objects that also serve a fitness purpose. “We treated the pure and spiritual shape of the oval with the same attention to detail and craft as is applied to a piece of furniture,”.
The Meditation Panel
Based Upon is a collective of Artists & Creatives, one of their latest partnerships is with meditation enterprise BeBox, where together they create immersive meditation spaces. This Meditation Panel, together with feature lighting that responds to the viewers' presence, brings about a meditative state, helping the user to calm down without focusing directly on meditation.
Signal blocking Wallpaper
Metapaper was initially designed to keep wifi hackers out by blocking out external signals from penetrating your walls. But metapaper also advertises itself as a healthy alternative, since it claims to reduce a person's exposure to electromagnetic waves. Scientists behind the product point to studies that say the overuse of wireless technology could cause harmful health effects.
New concept for developers - Virtual showhouse tours
We've spoken a lot about our participation in the Interior Design Showhouse that we participated in last year. It was a 1st for the UK and the property developer who lent the houses benefitted massively from the exposure. This concept is used often in the US to sell new homes - especially on the super prime end of the market.
But it was also the technology that impressed us, in particular, a company that scanned each room of the showhouse and put together a virtual walkthrough of the property. You're able to explore the property in detail, but also able to zoom in and out on features, which is great to show off the design of your developments. For developers, this technology is very useful and adds another dimension to how you are able to market your developments.
Click on the image above to walk through the showhouse.
(Or click this link, opens in new window)
Our Jordan Project features in Architectural Digest Middle East
We are very proud to share the news that one of our latest projects has been featured in the latest edition of Architectural Digest Middle East. Being featured in this publication is a real accolade and a wonderful recognition of all the hard work that we put into this wonderful project.
How to become an interior designer
So you have your heart set on becoming an interior designer? While there is no set path into the profession, there are certainly elements of experience which help, and in this article, we outline some of them.
Higher education
Holding a higher education in art, or a related subject - such as interior architecture or fine art - can certainly be seen as a plus point for employers in the design world. While not absolutely essential if adequate on the job experience can be demonstrated, there is no doubt that an art-related qualification can help. There are a range of educational options on offer - from full undergraduate courses in interior design or related degrees to short specialist courses that focus on building technical skills like CAD or photoshop. The one year intensive diploma offered by KLC School of Design includes some level of experience in real world projects, which can be highly valued by employers.
An ideal skill set
Some skills are transferable whatever the industry, such as good time keeping and organisation - this is no different in interior design. And there are also job specific skills which can unlock doors, like computer aided design (CAD), drawing, and elements of business management.
What does an interior designer do?
Day to day, as an interior designer you can expect to work on project briefs to strict specifications and budgets, interact regularly with clients, source furnishings and fixings, attend site visits with or without clients, and help pitch for new business. It is a varied, challenging, but hugely rewarding role! Expect long hours and tough deadlines, with the opportunity to meet a wide mix of people and rapidly build up your experience. You certainly won't experience Groundhog Day as an interior designer!
The importance of direction
Do you want to work as part of an established interior design company, or be self-employed from the beginning? There is no right or wrong route, but it helps to enter the industry with a sense of direction. Starting out working for a company can offer additional job security. Being self-employed can be more rewarding for some, but for inexperienced designers, the challenges can be great. Many top independent designers cut their teeth working for established firms. If you do decide to 'got it alone', it is likely that you will need marketing skills in order to promote your business.
A great interior designer will be creative, tenacious, good with people, technical and will have a good head for business - do you fit the profile?
The best eco-friendly building materials for 2020
One of the biggest changes in the property industry has been that of making use of materials that are more eco-friendly. There is a big focus on using materials which reduce the harmful environmental impact of the building industry which helps housebuilders to reduce their carbon footprints.
Sell House Fast surveyed 582 architects, engineers and construction (AEC) professionals to identify the eco-friendly building materials they expect the property (commercial as well as non-commercial) industry to increase using in 2020. We've listed the top 3 materials below:
1. Bamboo
69% of architects, engineers and construction professionals agreed that bamboo was the biggest eco-friendly material trend for the next year. While inexpensive and light, bamboo has impressive tensile strength that offers an alternative method to concrete and rebar construction.
2. Straw Bales
You may remember the Straw Bale house - a Grand Designs classic, in which the owners uniquely left its straw bale insulation on show to the world. As well as insulating properties, straw bales are naturally fireproof and can be used as a replacement in wall building for concrete, plaster, wood, fibreglass, stone and gypsum.
3. Timbercrete
By mixing sawdust and concrete to create timbercrete, not only are you provided with a much lighter material, but a more eco-friendly product. The sawdust replaces components within concrete that are most energy-intensive to produce.
A focus on sustainability in one of our recent projects
We are increasingly having conversations about sustainability with our clients and suppliers. There are some very innovative products and services that are available on the market. By changing up the fundamentals of design and using sustainable products certainly does not degrade an interior design scheme, it actually makes it richer.
Just like this recent project we undertook where the brief was to deliver an eco friendly interior. From using specialist paint finishes and sustainable wood and materials, we delivered this lovely scheme.
The hottest design trends from the Paris shows
Every January, the design world heads to Paris for the Maison et Objet and Deco Off design shows. These are major shows in the calendar as they showcase the latest innovations and design trends in the world of design.
This year there were two major themes, sustainability and embellishment. No guesses in sustainability being a key design trend as we're all doing our best to consider the impact our actions have on the climate. The Embellishment trend is something new, but a continuation of the maximalism trend we've seen over the past few years.
What's interesting is that the design trendy SoHo House is a perfect example of both sustainability and embellishment. We recently did a feature of how the SoHo House design is so successful over on our Instagram, so take a look at those few posts.
Embellishment
We've chosen the word embellishment to summarise this trend, but essentially what we mean is that designers are applying additional finishes and layers to surfaces. This could be in the form of embroidery, cording, fringing or in the case of furniture, adding whole new layers to the back of chairs or headboards. It's about decorating surfaces and making them come alive with a 3D effect. Take a look at some of the examples below. Some of them from major design houses like Hermes and Missoni.
Sustainability
This is the buzzword of the year for the interior design industry. This can be a very wasteful sector and one of the key ways in reducing waste is to use products made from materials that are sustainable. We're increasingly seeing new and exciting products that are delivering luxury looks from interesting materials. Take for example the wall coverings below, if you didn't know, it would be hard to guess that they are made from banana leaves that are treated so as to give them durability and would last as long as any other traditional grass cloth.
The bench and the leather coaster below both show recycled products, the bench is made from recycled denim and the coaster from recycled leather. Both companies want to show that they are exploring new options when it comes to creating recycled materials, and we think they deserve a mention due to their good effort.
Iggi featured in LuxDeco
Iggi Interior Design was recently featured in LuxDeco as part of the charity showhouse, Holiday house London. An initiative to raise funds for Breast Cancer Research through celebrating interior design. Interior Designers from the UK and around the world joined in and designed 26 rooms in two large London homes in St Johns Wood. Click the link below to visit the show house.