Strengths and Weaknesses

In my role as a Distance Learning Tutor for interior design students I often come across some very talented and creative people. So many students have a lot of passion for what they do, and a lot of great ideas, but what many designers or potential designers do lack is the organisational skills to put a project together.

One of the first things I always suggest they do when starting a project is to observe the room in question really carefully before all the ideas come flooding into their heads. Observation is a really important part of a designers work and to help with this I suggest that a designer should write a list of the room's strengths and weaknesses so that they can work towards improving the weaknesses and enhancing the strengths.

For example one weakness in a bedroom may be lack of light in the area by the bed. Then when the designer comes to creating a scheme for this room, they would know that this needs to be addressed, either by using lamps or wall lights or ceiling spot lights or whatever fits into their overall design. A strength maybe fabulous views of the countryside. This would lead a designer into considering carefully the window treatments for this room so that this view isn't spoilt by heavy curtains during the daytime.

So the message here is observe the room before starting to get creative, and make a list of strengths and weaknesses to which you can refer along the way. This list almost acts as a tick list of requirements along with the clients brief of course.