Design and inspiration boards are not only a fun and creative way to express your vision but a key part of the design process to ensure a solid foundation for a scheme is made. It is a great way to capture the feel of a room and get a sense of color scheme and textures as well as an opportunity to spot anything that isn't quite working for you. You'd be surprised how different things can look in front of your eyes than they do in your head!
Unless you're an interior designer creating boards for a client, you have endless possibilities in terms of what you can include. Even as an interior designer, especially working for yourself, you do have a lot of possibilities available to you as long as a certain set of criteria are included and covered.
Firstly I am going to cover some ideas and guidance if you are either designing your own home or want to give your interior designer an initial idea of what you are looking for. For this, like I said, you have a huge amount that can be included in your inspiration board. Below is a list of ideas of things you might like to include:
Wallpaper samples, Color swatches (paint chips, a swipe of paint etc), Trimmings, Drawings and Sketches, Photos (plants, places etc), Magazine clippings, Metallics (cutlery, door knob/hinge, jewellery) and anything that you think is an appropriate and related piece to the feel you're trying to create.
Have fun with it and enjoy it, creating your dream living space is all about creativity and an exciting process to get involved in. Be adventurous and explore possibilities, try things out and experiment, thats what the process is all about and a design board allows you to do this. Below are some images that I hope both inspire you and give you and idea of how other people have gone about creating their design boards. I have also included some design boards I created on my iPad, something like this is a great way to get started if you feel slightly out of your depth with glueing and sticking things to a physical board. You can create something like this on a simple word document with images or there are a number of easy to use apps for iPhone and iPad! Enjoy, and get creative!
P.S Soon I will creating a page on the website with all of my school design projects which follow the guidelines for professional interior designers, a good thing to look at if you're looking for something a little more structured. I will try to get them up as soon as possible! I will announce on Facebook and Twitter when the new page is up!
