Following Trends, or Setting Them?
One of the many responsibilities your Interior Design Team takes on, when they contract with you, is that of knowing what is traditional, what is classic, what is “new” contemporary and what is trending! In terms of your competitive edge for marketing your products or services, being appropriate in your interior design choices and decisions is important.
It is not just about favorite colors and one’s personal touchy-feely likes and dislikes! Too often a site presentation misses the mark because the responsible parties are more focused on some of their personal tastes and less on which of those preferences simply don’t work in commercial environments.
How you develop your business space is tightly connected to accurately and productively communicating with your market share. Trends can be a foolhardy investment when followed simply because its trendy! Comparable to “fads,” trends must be examined for durability, sensibility and plain old good taste.
“Trends” can be ambiguous in both meaning and intent. The best interpreter for trend patterns, and how they might affect your choices and decisions, is your professional design team. Their experience and knowledge of the relevant market place for your project choices will guide you away from the pitfalls of here-today-and-gone-tomorrow color schemes or gimmickry.
What are some of those pitfalls? The most significant is financial. There is high potential for your environment to feel like it’s becoming inappropriate and obsolete in its presentation almost before the paint is dry! Having to retrofit to better choices and decisions is expensive and difficult when the timeline is too short.
We are all influenced to some degree by current “trends” — in fashions of every venue, by innovative color scheming and by many factors that often have a big splash and a short life. There are many ways to respond to and participate in reasonable aspects of “trending,” without allowing the phenomena to drive the basic durable thrust of your interior design project.
Keeping up with clever and impressive trends can be accomplished, for instance, through flexible accessorizing a basic, stable design plan that cooperates easily with change. The question still begs: Do you want to follow all the trends as they come and go? Or, do you want to set your own trends, compatible with changes, anchored by an excellent core project design and financially manageable over time?
Jumping on the bandwagon has some risks — some worth taking, and some that prove costly in the long run. Your team of experts has a close eye on your budget — not just in near time. Part of their responsibility is to look ahead and project the wisdom of the choices they help you make.
The timelines of trends are interesting to design experts. They know how some trends return with almost predictable rhythms — and in a sense have a certain “durability” based in that recurrence. Others are simply fads.
Trends occur in many aspects of commercial interior design. One example was the sweeping change when large office environments trended to cubicles and partitions. Then, suddenly it seemed right to go to “open” floor plans. Innovation rescued some of it with portability, changeable inserts and other adjustments, as cost factors had to be re-considered.