HOW TO STUDY INTERIOR DESIGN FROM HOME - AN UNTOLD STORY

I recently won my first ever prize! As a KLC Open Learning Student I get the opportunity to enter some interesting competitions, so when I got the email from the KLC team that they were running a Blog Competition I knew this was right up my street and I had my eye on the prize. 

There was about 20 title options to write about. The one that caught my eye was How To Study Interior Design from Home, as this is how I study the Open Learning course for the Interior Design Diploma, and I thought I could share some tips and advice from my own experiences, to try to help students like me.

Amazingly, I won the runner up prize, a fabulous £400 worth of credit to use on KLC short courses, which was just music to my ears as there’s so many amazing courses to do there. The first short course is all about Interior Styling and is happening in April so I’ll be letting you all about that, and I’m so excited to gain more knowledge in my field.

Have a look through the list of short courses, there’s so many great ones to choose from https://www.klc.co.uk/courses/short-courses/ and in the meantime, below is the post that did it that won it!

100% Design at Olympia, London

How to Study Interior Design From Home: An Untold Story

I’m studying the flexible online Interior Design course from home, so I don’t attend any classes at KLC Design School. I’ve always had a full-time job running alongside the course. 

WARNING! Just because it’s an online course does not mean it’s a total breeze! It requires a lot of hard work, TIME and MOTIVATION. Finding the balance between job, life and study requires fine tuning.

This is my story: 
I’m 34 and I’ve had a colourful career path since graduating from Manchester Metropolitan in 2007. As a daughter of tailors, being surrounded by fabrics and colour instilled a passion within me for fabulous textiles, which led me to study Fashion Buying at university. After gaining my degree, I veered down the visual merchandising route in the fashion sector and soon realised how much I loved creating interesting displays. But I knew I wanted to do it for interiors, I just didn’t have the qualification.

A very edited shelf of ‘some’ magazines at home

I signed up for the KLC online course a few years ago (longer than I’d like to admit) to help aid a change in career. The main advantage of studying the online course is that you can mould your study around your life and complete the course in your spare time. However, finding my flow took a bit of settling into. I started the course by binge working, which for me meant studying during the holidays, like Easter, Christmas and bank holidays. Like anything that you don’t continually focus on, picking it up after a number of weeks (or even months for me) is really hard. I placed the blame for this method on my jobs at the time, stress, juggling a long-distance relationship etc. which were all very valid reasons. Like I said, it’s not easy.

After years of VERY varied work experience, via graphic design, a short stint for the NHS after being made redundant and selling advertising space (I did say varied!) I finally managed to land a job in Interior Styling eight months ago. I’m not qualified yet, but I do have the eye for it and luckily that came across in the interviews which were gruelling but practical and based on creating moodboards for clients. Even though I’ve finally got a job in styling, it’s really important to me that I finish the course and get the qualification. I’ve invested way too much time and energy into it and I long for the certificate at the end. For me, it will be a huge confidence booster.

Personal Style Board Section 1

With my role I get an hour’s lunch break each day, and I recently moved to an area which requires a 25-minute train journey each way to work. I told myself that this 1 hour 50 was ‘spare time’ that I needed to absolutely UTILISE.

How to study Interior Design from Home? 

First and foremost, make your ‘spare time’ count!

Getting stuck into coursework, even a little each day has been a much more productive way to work. Information is being absorbed far better and the creative projects now have a flow. It’s amazing what you can actually do around working hours because you’re already in work mode, it just needs some PLANNING. I make lists at the weekend of everything I need to do in the coming week. I turn them into a plan for each day, so I know exactly what I need to focus on, rather than staring at my laptop hoping that something will come to me!  

Elevation print outs for Personal Decorative Scheme: Section 2

Get SMART with your time:

Get into the habit of labelling and filing images. I search for images every day, whether it is for study or for my job. I scour blogs, Instagram, the What’s New section on various websites, and I screen grab images from digital magazine subscriptions. This means I have a MAHOOSIVE image bank ranging from furniture, accessories, flooring and wallpapers to different styles of rooms. I learnt at an early stage that it is absolutely necessary to name every single image with something you can easily search for later on. Default names like IMG1020 mean nothing to anyone, take the time to change it! If you’ve found an amazing coffee table, label it with its model name, what it is and where it’s from. In a week or months’ time when you need to recall the item you’ll be glad you’ve taken the time to do it.

PATTERNITY + yoo stand at 100% Design

Make the most of your days off by visiting shows and exhibitions.

Inspiration comes from literally everywhere, shopping, books, magazines, TV, film, the supermarket, absolutely anywhere! But I do think that attending conventional design shows is really important. It’s important to know what’s on trend, what’s hot in the magazines and being on your game with what’s new. I try to visit the bigger shows in London when I can (and work expenses permitted) and they are always worth the early start and late night. London Design Week 2018 at Chelsea Harbour Design Centre was first on the calendar this year, I also can’t WAIT for the Orla Kiely exhibition in the summer.

Romo fabrics showroom at Chelsea Harbour Design Centre

Utilise your down time by reading varied magazines.

Magazines are my thing, namely Living Etc and Elle Decoration. When I was packing to move house 6 months ago I realised I had nearly 300 magazines! I did NOT have the space for them in my new place, or the energy to pack and lift them all! Sorting through and recycling them was difficult (but I do have a wedge of tear outs which is great!) but it didn’t feel good ousting so many gorgeous issues, and I couldn’t help but think there was a more efficient way to house all this information. I heard about the Readly App. It’s basically Netflix for magazines. You pay a set amount a month (currently £8) for access to thousands of titles including design, architecture, art, fashion, travel and cookery. I can’t rave about it enough, it’s a haven for magazine lovers AND solves the storage issue, no recycling needed. Download your magazines when in WiFi so that you’re armed with new and inspiring issues for your free moments.

Some of my favourite magazine titles on Readly

The most vital investment for me has been my MacBook Pro, it’s been a total game changer. I’ve had it for 4 months  (actually a little longer now since I originally wrote this blog) and it’s made me become SUPER resourceful with time. I couldn’t afford to pay the amount outright, so I looked into the finance option. This with the student discount means you just pay off the cost of the laptop, not the interest. It’s a great way to be able to afford a wicked piece of kit. No excuses now – it’s my essential tool for those train journeys and lunch breaks and I make sure everything I need for that day is downloaded and ready to go.

Be WISE with your time and you’ll be surprised how much you can do with it.  

Cover photo of person under piles of books and magazines was shot by Marion Berrin for Isabel Marant, and looks like me a lot of the time!