Choices: Too many or not enough?
Where’s the middle ground? How does your design expert make the selections for you to choose from? One thing is certain, it is not from guesswork!
From initial contact, through documentation and all the subsequent steps and stages that lead to project completion, your professional design team is getting to know you. That important process is one that continues — not one that is addressed and then at some point, is considered complete!
Your design vision may start with definite and specific form, but — like many art forms — it continues to evolve. As the project develops and becomes real, the subtleties and nuances of the original vision mature and shift. Within the desired concept, the vision grows as each new choice is made, and as circumstances may influence.
Anyone who has participated in an interior design project knows that there are hundreds of choices along the way! For instance, choosing carpet in favor of tile is just a beginning. Thereafter, follow all the subsequent choices for that carpet from multiple materials, textures, patterns, colors, under-treatments, coordination with other components, availability of all of those and then, cost, manufacture, delivery and installation. And that is just one element, the carpet, quite possibly for only one area!
Because the decisions are many, the choices myriad and the elements numerous (in any interior design project) your design team must have the important advantage of insight to their client’s preferences. That insight is gained and finetuned, over time, by getting to know their client’s tastes, favored color schemes, responses to materials and textures, etc. — and the budgeting parameters.
Concerning any imminent choice, your designer or team will make various selections from a vast library of options and present you with combinations and possibilities most likely to your taste. And, because there are so many options in today’s marketplace, there will always be more and more to choose from.
Your skilled professional will present you with targeted options that directly relate to your conversations, field trips, declared preferences and/or mandates of the site itself. Often a particular site contains characteristics that drive some choices. (For instance, a site with few windows offering natural light might indicate lighter color selections for that interior, and special lighting treatments to compensate.)
Especially in the beginning, but also throughout the project as well, your interactions with your design team will include a lot of inquisitive, exploratory dialog that is directly related to future choices. Your designer knows that time is money. When selections are presented to you for choices, they need to be relevant possibilities that offer you a variety of choices.
Too many choices — or not enough? It is a balancing act that involves the best guidance of your professionals, with your likely preferences as the driving force. Striking that balance with wise suggestions — as opposed to presenting a flood of far-flung-shotsin-the-dark — is part of the expertise you pay for!
Robert Boccabella, B.F.A. is principal and founder of Business Design Services and a certified interior designer in private practice for over 30 years. To contact him call 707-2637073; email him at rb@ BusinessDesignServices. com or visit www. BusinessDesignServices. com or on Face Book at Business Design Services.