New KOTHEA Collections for Spring 2016. Textured upholstery,sumptuous textured weaves, mohair and silk velvets, faux leathers and new colours for our existing Cashmere Throw range. Sampling available on our <home page>.
Spring 2016
Spring 2016
New KOTHEA Collections for Spring 2016. Textured upholstery,sumptuous textured weaves, mohair and silk velvets, faux leathers and new colours for our existing Cashmere Throw range. Sampling available on our <home page>.
Spring 2016
New KOTHEA Collections for Spring 2016. Textured upholstery,sumptuous textured weaves, mohair and silk velvets, faux leathers and new colours for our existing Cashmere Throw range. Sampling available on our <home page>.
Interior Design: Getting into the industry with your eyes wide open.
What does it take to become a great interior designer?
Inspiration? Passion? An eye for detail? Perhaps all these things and more. At KOTHEA we don’t profess to be interior designers however we do deal with many of the top desingers in the UK.
They all share many characteristics.
They are great organisers. Even relatively small interiors projects are complex and involve dealing with many suppliers and tracking the purchasing and installation of products and services from them. So as well as your creative flair you have to be a good project manager, or at least employ someone who is.
They are great salespeople. Starting your own interior desing business is still starting a business. The same rules apply to designers as to successful business people elsewhere. You have to be passionate about what you do and people will want to buy from someone who is both knowledgeable and enjoying what they do.
They have Empathy and Understanding. It’s great innovating amazing new concepts that you love but your client has to like them. Understanding what your client wants and delivering to the brief is vital. The best and cheapest marketing you will ever get will be from word of mouth advertising from delighted cients. When you have grown your international interior design business you won’t need a salesforce if you have 100 delighted cleints on your books.
They excel and focus. Be great at something. Even better, be indespensible. If you are starting at ‘the bottom’ of a large design practice always do a great job but excel at some aspect of it, get noticed, and if that bit you are really good at helps the business grow then make it your area by the knowledge and passion you put into it. If you are going out on your own then try to focus; it can be a big leap in the technical aspects of going from say spas to aircraft to ski chalets. If you’ve just done an underground restaurant-bar focus your efforts on securing another one; the sale will be easier and that next job will be easier to deliver on when you win it. You will make less mistakes and so make more money, even the very best designers still have bills to pay.
They have contacts. Getting started is difficult in any business. If you know the right potential clients and the right people in the industry it will be easier for you. At the very least you will need experience and perhaps that is where the basic training is important. So if you are looking to get a formal training go for it. Get excited about creating wonderful schemes for your expectant clients but don’t forget the business side of what you do.
A comprehensive list of courses is available through the BIDA web site and the 2 better known ones are also listed immediately below. Happy studying and good luck with your future career:
Eco Friendly Transport For Fabrics/ Home Textiles
Unfortunately for us in the interior design industry many fabrics are imported from exotic locations all over the world. Sometimes this can be by air freight which is one of the largest contributions to global carbon emissions – perhaps in excess of 600 million tonnes per year.
The best environmentally friendly alternatives to air are by truck or by sea. Clearly these options have limites. Like many fabric manufacturers, KOTHEA endeavour to freight all goods woven in Europe by truck; as well as being the most environmentally freindly option, it is the cheapest option for European-sourced goods and is usually as quick as by air. Fabric from further afield, such as silk from Asia, is an attractive proposition for a manufacturer as it usually costs less to produce; it is much more cheaply shipped by sea but this can add weeks onto the delivery time.
Unfortunateley when designers simultaneously demand quick delivery and lower prices this can often involve air freight from Asia and the associated enironmental cost. One thought would be for fabric suppliers to ship in advance by sea and hold larger stock levels in the UK – there is of course then a significant amount of capital tied up in extensive collections across multiple colourways sometimes for long periods of time, that would raise the price.
Is the only environmental way forward for designers and their clients to demand environmentally shipped fabrics and be prepared to pay the premium and wait the extra time for delivery? Should suppliers take a hit and hold higher stock levels?
Is there a better way?
2008
I was looking back to when we started this blog. It was a time of change and many of us in the interior design industry were concerned about the future. Whilst things obviously did go ‘a bit pear-shaped’, many of us are still here. With economic storm clouds gathering again maybe we start to worry again but at the same time maybe it’s some consolation that we survived before and so shall we again.
“2008 has been a great year for many designers and their suppliers. However, a sense of foreboding for 2009 seems to have been propagated by the UK’s often hysterical media. I’m not so sure if those predictions of the end of capitalism will come true.
“If your main customers are the larger housebuilders then, OK, maybe you have a problem – as that sector has made significant cut backs. Although having said that, many of the top-end housebuilding developments are still continuing.
“For more diversified designers with customers reliant on residential as well as commercial projects across a variety of sectors then I strongly suspect that the future may be rosier than the doom-mongers will have you believe.
“Still the proof of the pudding, as always, will be in the eating. I don’t know about you but I have a healthy appetite for 2009.”
Bespoke Dining Chair – April Russell
Another Bespoke Dining Chair from April Russell. We love the luxurious red Italian Silk Velvet upholstery, perfect for occasional use home upholstery.
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MY St David Exterior Seating
MY St David Exterior Seating by Andrew Winch. Not a bad view and nice seating to enjoy it from.
Textured Upholstery Fabric On Sofa
Private Lives Interiors (Annabel Hall) in Surrey have completed many fantastic interiors projects. This sofa looks like it’s part of another.
We love the ribbed, textured upholstery (very similar to KOTHEA Twig design) and the great contrasting colours and textures of the cushions.
If you can’t go up, out or back then where do you go?
1508 London have designed this amazing townhouse. If you can’t go up, out or back then where do you go? – was the title of this post. 1508 London clearly know where the answer lies for the future..you go down and down again. Basement conversion in London were de-rigeur 15-20 years ago in the Clapham environs (now spreading to the home counties). But when you have yet another multi-hundred thousand bonus (or more) you can’t quite afford to move house AND to get that much bigger a house. So you go down two floors. I suspect that your rear has to face the right way as far as sunlight goes and you probably need very understanding neighbours whose children do not play football. Once that ball comes over the fence, there’s no way it is possible to throw it back 🙂