finding inspiration
Pinterest, Houzz, Google, Blogs, Instagram, Facebook, magazines, newspaper, HGTV and DIY television shows…there are so many ways to find inspiration in this day and age. As designers, we often feel that we get inspiration from these but sometimes the inspiration comes from the most random of places. You might say, we are “wired” differently. Just as a doctor is focused and interested on the human body and all its mechanicals, designers also have those triggers that make our hearts go pitter-patter.
I remember a conversation I had with a carpenter and long-time friend. Just as I had tapped his brain for construction and material questions, he was now inquiring about some design opinion for his own personal home. It was regarding a layout for his living room and specifically how to make the furniture work with his focal point, the TV.
After a little more discussion on his likes and dislikes, I instantly thought of a design element I wanted to run by him. I said, “have you ever watched the Ellen Degeneres show?”. His response was only a few times, but knew of it. I continued with “she has these amazing wood stump tables with these metal modern standoffs that are big and chunky rectangles on the bottom. It’s polished up, without the bark and she has two of them that are her coffee table!”
The carpenter looked at me and said with such seriousness in his voice, “a regular person would watch the show for its content. I would never have seen that detail if I watched that show”. We both laughed because the funny thing is, I could, without certainty still remember who the guests were and the dialog, but those beautiful coffee tables REALLY caught my eye! And therefore, my brain logged (no pun intended) those beauties into the file “KEEP FOR FUTURE INSPIRATION”.
Just as each of us have a focus or passion in life, designers have a natural ability to find inspiration in daily things. How many of our designer friends have hundreds of screen shot images to remember a small piece of a photo we’ve seen? Whether you go for a drive just to pull over to take a pictures of an element on a home, find inspiration with light fixture in a restaurant, make list of goals for your own homes or follow other fellow designers or bloggers because their content gives us LIFE; inspiration is everywhere and designers naturally take note!
Even if the list of projects is long, keep dreaming and stash your inspiration somewhere. You may find that your style changes when you get to the project but that is okay!