Creating a smashing interior takes more than just wit and instinct, you’ll need to follow certain rules to satisfy both the aesthetic and functionality of a space.
Although there’s no such thing as a perfect formula in creating a faultless design, interior design rules are established to help enhance a space that can meet the needs of its end-users.
Sprucing up your home or place of business can be an exciting endeavour, where you’ve probably spent hours googling through dozens of gorgeous interiors online. But before you start, here are seven interior design rules from our own design team.
1. Follows Function
Start the design process with functionality. This means the elements in your design should be primarily related to the space’s intended purpose.
2. Design with the Site in Mind
Interior designing with the site and climate conditions in mind is probably a rule that’s frequently overlooked. But considering these factors is essential when choosing an arrangement, colour, furniture, and even your embellishments. Conditions such as orientation, ambient sound, humidity, and adjacent rooms or buildings should be taken into account.
If you live near a busy street, for instance, you can dampen the noise with blackout curtains that can lessen the ambient noise. There are also sound absorbing curtains on the market, which usually come with a pleated structure.
3. Know the 2:3 Rule
Scale and proportion are fundamentals that are applied not only to interior design but to all visual arts as well.
Otherwise known as the golden ratio, the 2:3 rule is used to create a more naturally pleasing aesthetic and a guide when choosing the sizes of your furniture.
Start from the largest elements and work your way through from there. For example, when choosing your sofa, it should measure 2:3 of the area. So as with the centre table which should be sized at 2:3 against the sofa furniture, and so on.
4. Layer Lighting
Bad lighting can be detrimental to an interior, damaging even the most balanced and proportioned of spaces. Instead, let light, natural and artificial, do some work for the room.
When you are able to determine your light sources with their qualities and intensities, you’ll have a better picture of their placement and positioning into your interior design.
5. Know the 60-30-10 Rule
Colour is a powerful element in the design, as it can affect the look and feel of your interior. To create colour harmony among your elements, use the 60-30-10 rule. It is where 60% should be the dominant colour, 30% will be your secondary colour, and lastly, 10% goes to your accent colours.
6. Harmonise with the Existing Architecture
A rule that saves a lot of time and money in the long run is to design the space in line with the architecture you already have.
When you have a great room with high ceilings, for instance, you can hang a large luminaire cascading down into the void to fill it.
7. Follow Your Style
Designing a space around your own preferences is as important as any rule or guideline out there. Whether you love a vintage vibe or prefer the coral blue shades, it is imperative that you are comfortable, contented, happy, and feel safe in your personal space.
Takeaway:
Rules are meant to be bent, if not broken, that’s from time to time of course. But when you’re still starting your venture in interior design, it is sensible to follow the rules first. Seasoned interior designers break a rule or two all the time, but they know what is at stake when they do.
Our own interior designers work on London homes from layouts and lighting through to joinery and finishes. If you want to talk a room through, send us the details, or call the studio on 020 7731 6841.
Published 22 September 2020. Written by the NU Projects studio, edited since for house style and accuracy.