Quirky Interior Design
Take a minute to look around the space you are in. Maybe it’s an office, your home, or maybe you are outside right now. Does the space reflect its purpose? It’s user? If you are at a park, what is the personality of the park? Is it a Japanese garden? If so, is it authentic, or is it a random garden with a pond and a bonsai just to use the name? If at home, do you look around and see a space that represents who you are? Does it capture all your fun quirks? One of the biggest challenges of an interior designer is to capture our client’s personalities. We work to get to know you, and your personality, but we do this on a limited amount of time. So, how does your home develop its own special quirk?
Our homes should reflect our selves, not just a reflection of our taste or style. A home is so much more than what looks good. It is what feels good, what is healthy, what takes care of our planet, our future generations. It is what will work for us now, later, and in the future for someone else. It is thoughtful and considerate. It is embracing, comforting, calming. It is our place of solace.
Hiring a professional interior designer takes the development of your space further than what looks good and what is in good taste. A professional interior designer will work to involve the client. They will talk, listen, observe, learn, and absorb. Some of the things I feel so fortunate to have in my background include acting and marketing. It sounds strange, I know. But, as an actress, one has to learn to absorb personalities, become someone else, something else. A marketing specialist knows how to observe, question, to express and achieve goals through understanding. Once the designer has all these pieces, they incorporate the plan, the art and science of design, and create the space.
Good interior design is about the quirks, the nuances, the eclectic abnormalities. It is timeless because it is unusual. Design is not store-bought, it is curated, handpicked, created, and customized. Design is an art, and art can’t simply be “picked”. Based on my own definition of design, it cannot possibly be anything BUT quirky. Personalities are quirky. Businesses are quirky (if they have good marketing, AKA good brand DESIGN). Even nature has its quirks.
So, the next time someone pulls together a selection of products from a few box stores and calls it a design… know that this may be ‘good taste’ and they may have an ‘eye’ for aesthetics, but that does not make it a design.
Now go be your quirky self and remember that sometimes that special item that is soooo loved may not ‘fit’ and may seem ‘weird’ to others and that’s okay, because it’s the special quirk!
